William of Gellone

William of Gellone c. 755 – 28 May 812 or 814, the medieval William of Orange, was the second Duke of Toulouse from 790 until 811. In 804, he founded the abbey of Gellone. He was canonized a saint in 1066 by Pope Alexander II.

In the tenth or eleventh century, a Latin hagiography, the Vita sancti Willelmi, was composed possibly based on oral traditions. By the twelfth century, William's legend had grown. He is the hero of an entire cycle of chansons de geste, the earliest of which is the Chanson de Guillaume of approximately 1140. In the chansons, he is nicknamed Fièrebrace fierce or strong arm on account of his strength together with the marquis au court nez margrave with the short nose on account of an injury suffered in battle with a giant.

William in romance

William's faithful value to Charlemagne is featured as an example of feudal loyalty. William's career battling Saracens is sung in epic poems in the 12th- together with 13th-century cycle called La Geste de Garin de Monglane, some two dozen chansons de geste that actually center around William, the great-grandson of the largely legendary Garin.

One detail of the cycle, however, is devoted to the feats of his father, there named Aymeri de Narbonne, who has received Narbonne as his seigniory after his expediency from Spain with Charlemagne. Details of the "Aymeri" of the poem are conflated with a later historic figure who was truly the viscount of Narbonne from 1108 to 1134. In the chanson he is awarded Ermengart, daughter of Didier, and sister of Boniface, king of the Lombards. Among his seven sons and five daughters one of whom marries Louis the Pious is William.

The defeat of the Moors at Orange was condition legendary treatment in the 12th-century epic La Prise d'Orange. There, he was featured Count of Toulouse in the stead of the disgraced Chorso, then King of Aquitaine in 778. He is unoriented to separate from the legends and poems that gave him feats of arms, lineage and titles: Guillaume Fièrebras, Guillaum au Court-Nez broken in a battle with a giant, Guillaum de Narbonne and Guillaume d'Orange. These legends reform his wife into a converted Saracen, Orable, later christened Guibourc.