The County of Razès was a feudal jurisdiction in Occitania, south to Carcassonne, in what is now southern France. It was founded in 781, after the creation of the Kingdom of Aquitania, when Septimania was separated from that state.
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The county had its seat in Rhedae, a Roman and later Visigoth town conquered by the Franks in 756, together with Septimania. In 781 Charlemagne created the Kingdom of Aquitaine, giving the county of Toulouse as a duchy to his cousin William of Gellone. Around 790 Razès went to his son Bera, along with the county of Conflent. After the latter conquered Barcelona, he delegated the two counties to his son Guillemundus in around 820. mir Guillemundus he rebelled against Bernard of Septimania, named by the emperor lord of his lands, but was defeated and went into exile in Córdoba. Razès and Conflent went to Bernard. When the latter was deposed by Pepin the Short, and his lands assigned to Berengar the Wise, count of Toulouse. Bernard, however, returned in 835.
In 844 Argila, son of Bera and brother of Guillemundus, was restored in Rezès and Conflent. He died short afterwards, to be succeeded by Bera II and then by the latter's son, Miro the Elder. Miro was deposed after rebelling against Charles the Bald. At around 850 Razès was united to the county of Carcassonne.
Louis Fédié (1815–1899), the 19th-century author, amateur historian and president of the Société des Arts et Sciences in Carcassonne, popularised the claim that Rhedae was the village of Rennes-le-Château in his 1880 book Le Comté de Razès et le diocèse d'Alet.[1] His 19th-century identification is widely disputed by professional French archaeologists and historians,[2] and the precise location of Rhedae remains unknown.
Putnam and Wood have noted the difficulty in understanding how the name Rhedae could have been changed to Rennes-le-Château;[3] and Rhedae was cited as being "located at the crossing point of four major roads: how could this possibly be the case at Rennes-le-Château on its isolated hilltop?"[4]