THE CHRISTIAN REALMS 253The Count of Toulouse, overseeing the central Pyrenees, usually also
held the title Marchio, while further west lay the kingdom of Aqui-
taine with its own frontier counties. The administrative system was,
however, extremely fluid. The counties that might be assigned to an
individual marchio frequently varied and never fitted into a constant
pattern. It was apparently often royal policy to build up the power of
rival marchios in order to prevent the absolute dominance of anyone
of them on the frontier. When such a consideration was ignored it
could lead to serious consequences, for most of the leading Frankish
officials entrusted with responsibilities on the Pyrenean marches
in the ninth century turned to rebellion and had to be violently
dispossessed.^53
One family in particular had a dramatic career in the region
during this period. This was the dynasty of St William of Toulouse, a
cousin of Charlemagne who took a prominent part in the campaign
of 801. He is particularly notable as a monastic patron, founding
Gellone in 804, whither he retired. His immediate descendants are
better known or notorious for their secular political involvements,
although one of his great grandsons was later to be the founder of
the great reforming monastery of Cluny. William was Count of Tou-
louse from c. 790 to 804, and one of his sons called Gaucelm was
entrusted with command of the Gothic march in 812. Another son,
Bernard of Septimania, came into prominence in 827, when, as Count
of Barcelona, he successfully resisted the revolt of a deposed former
count called Aizo, who had obtained assistance from the amir AJ-
l:Iakam I of Cordoba. Bernard was subsequently summoned to the
Carolingian court in 829 as royal chamberlain, and his rise to influ-
ence there was a major contributory factor in the rebellion of the
Emperor Louis' elder sons against their father, in the course of which
Bernard had to flee for refuge to the march and his brother Gaucelm
was executed. With the restoration of Louis' authority in 834, Bernard
was reinstated as Count of Barcelona and of most of the other coun-
ties of the Hispanic march. These he continued to hold, together
with the title of marchio, until, suspected of treason, he was seized and
executed by the West Frankish king Charles 'the Bald' in 844.
Not surprisingly Bernard's elder son William threw in his lot with
Charles's enemy Pippin II, King of Aquitaine, who made him Count
of Bordeaux. But in 848, after the final overthrow of Pippin, when
Sunifred the next Count of Barcelona died, William took advantage
of the ensuing disorder to descend on the march and take the city of