The first comites (counts) of Toulouse were the administrators of the city and its environs under the Merovingians. No succession of such royal appointees is known, though a few names survive to the present. With the Carolingians, the appointments (of both counts and duces, dukes) become more regular and better-known, though the office soon fell out of the orbit of the royal court and became hereditary.

The hereditary Counts of Toulouse ruled the city of Toulouse and its surrounding county from the late 9th century until 1270. The counts and other family members were also at various times counts of Quercy, Rouergue, Albi, and Nîmes, and margraves of Gothia and Provence. Also, Raymond IV founded the Crusader state of Tripoli, and his descendants were counts there.

As a successor state for the Visigothic Kingdom (418–721),Tolouse (along with Aquitania (Occitania) and Languedoc) inherited the Visigothic Law and Roman Law which had combined to allow women more rights then their contemporaries would enjoy until the 20th century. Particularly with the Liber Judiciorum as codified 642/643 and expanded on in the Code of Recceswinth in 653, women could inherit land and title and manage it independently from their husbands or male relations, dispose of their property in legal wills if they had no heirs, and women could represent themselves and bear witness in court by age 14 and arrange for their own marriages by age 20. As a consequence, male-preference primogeniture was the practiced succession law for the nobility.

Royal appointments

• floruit 587 Austrovald
• floruit 660 Felix
• 778–790 Torson
• 790–806 William I
• 806–816 Beggo
  • Raymond Raphinel (811–818), his relation to the preceding and succeeding counts is unknown
• 816–835 Berengar
• 835–842 Bernard I
• 842–843 Acfred

House of Rouergue

Senior branch

• 844–852 Fredelon
  • 844–849 William II, successfully opposed Fredelon
• 852–863 Raymond I
• 863–865 Humfrid, deposed Raymond
  • 863–865 Sunifred, appointed to oppose Humfrid
• 865–877 Bernard II
• 877–886 Bernard III
• 886–918 Odo
• 918–924 Raymond II
• 924–950 Raymond Pons, traditionally called Raymond III

:It had long been thought that he was succeeded directly by William III. However, recent research suggests adding at least one and probably three previously overlooked counts. That two were named Raymond has resulted in conflicting numbering systems, but most historians continue to use the traditional numbering for later Raymonds.

• 950–961 Raymond III
• 961–972 Hugh
• 972–978 Raymond IV
• 978–1037 William III
• 1037–1061 Pons
• 1061–1094 William IV
• 1094–1105 Philippa Maude, Duchess of the Aquitaine
  • 1094–1098 Raymond IV de Saint Gilles, Maude's paternal uncle, usurps the County of Toulouse on the death of William IV. While Raymond IV was on Crusade, Philippa and her powerful husband William IX, Duke of Aquitaine reclaims Toulouse for Phillipa in 1098.

House of Toulouse, junior branch

• 1105–1112 Bertrand Toulouse was mortgaged to Bertrand, a cousin of Phillipa. Thereafter the county was vested to Bertrand's heirs
• 1119–1148 Alfonso Jordan
• 1148–1194 Raymond V
• 1194–1222 Raymond VI
• 1222–1249 Raymond VII
• 1249–1271 Joan
  • married Alfonso of Poitou

At that point Toulouse passed to the Crown of France, by the terms of the Treaty of Meaux, 1229.

House of Bourbon

In 1681, Toulouse was resurrected as a royal appanage by Louis XIV.

• 1681–1737 Louis-Alexandre

He was an illegitimate son of Louis and his longest serving mistress Françoise-Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan.

MacCarthy Reagh of Spring House

In 1776, Justin MacCarthy Reagh (1744-1811), Spring House, Bansha, County Tipperary, of the princely House of Carbery of the Irish Eóganachta dynasty, was made Count of Toulouse by Louis XVI. He was succeeded in the title by his son, Robert Joseph MacCarthy (1770-1827), Aide de Camp to the Prince De Condi. His son in turn, Justin-Marie-Laurent-Robert (1811-1861) succeeded as the 3rd Count MacCarthy of Toulouse. The 4th and finalCount MacCarthy was Nicholas Francis Joseph (1833-1906), first cousin of the 3rd Count. The male line then became extinct on the death without issue of Count Nicholas.

Further reading

• Genty, Roger. Les Comtes de Toulouse: Histoire et Traditions. Editions de Poliphile, 1987.
• Brémond, Alphonse, Nobiliaire toulousain. Bonnal et Gibrac. 1863.

References

External links

• 'Les Régnants Toulousains": list (in French)
• Famille MacCarthy Reagh at GeneaWiki (in French)