The sirventes was composed before Charles of Anjou sailed for the Holy Land with his brother Louis IX on 25 August 1248 (for this generally accepted date see inter alia Matthew Paris, Matthaei Parisiensis, monachi Sancti Albani, Chronica majora, ed. Henry Richards Luard, 7 voll., London 1872-1884, vol. V, p. 22; English translation Richard Vaughan, Chronicles of Matthew Paris, Gloucester and New York 1984, p. 146; Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades, 3 voll., Harmondsworth 1971, first published Cambridge 1951-1954, vol. III, p. 160; Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades, Newhaven and London 1987, p. 160. Salverda de Grave (pp. 21-22) gives it as 1249, Aurell (p. 161) as 1247). Lines 9-24 refer to events following the death of Raimon Bérenger V of Provence on 19 August 1245 and Charles’s marriage to his daughter and heiress Beatrice in 1246. The great Provençal communes of Arles, Avignon and Marseilles were opposing French rule and in April 1247 came together under Barral des Baux in a defensive alliance, which is almost certainly referred to in line 13. Charles was not strong enough to attack them decisively; as a result the communes paid him no rents in the early years of his rule in Provence, and the great lords who, like Bertran d’Alamano, had had no difficulty in recognising him as the legitimate heir to Raimon Berenguer V, were suffering from this state of affairs (Salverda de Grave, pp. 28-30 and the more recent account of Florian Mazel, La Noblesse et l’Eglise en Provence, fin Xe-début XIVe siècle. L’exemple des familles d’Agoult-Simiane, de Baux et de Marseille, Paris 2002, pp. 411-416). – Lines 26-29 show that at the time of composition Charles was in the north of France, when a rumour that he had taken the cross arrived in the south. Louis himself took the cross on several occasions: once in 1245, when many French nobles followed his example; apparently again in May 1247, when various English nobles took the cross «encouraged by the example of the king of the French and the nobles of that kingdom»; and once more in January 1248, on his recovery from what had seemed to be a mortal illness, when he was followed by his brothers including Charles of Anjou and other nobles (Vaughan, Chronicles, pp. 110 and 131; Matthew Paris, ed. Luard, IV, pp. 489-490 and 629, and V, p. 3; Albert Pauphilet and Edmond Pognon, Historiens et chroniqueurs du moyen âge: Robert de Clari, Villehardouin, Joinville, Froissart, Commynes, Paris 1952, pp. 224-225, chapters XXIV-XXV. Salverda de Grave was confused by the repeated occasions of taking the cross: on p. 31 he remarks that it is surprising that Bertran only learns in 1247 that Charles has taken the Cross when he had done so in 1245). – After spending a short time in Provence in early 1246, marrying Beatrice in Aix on 31 January, Charles returned to France in the spring and on 27 May was knighted by his brother. Sternfeld states that there are no documents to show whether he visited Provence during the next two years: he is recorded as dining at Saint-Denis with the king and Raymond VII of Toulouse on 9 October 1247, attending to matters in Anjou in January 1248, and returning to the French court in March where, Sternfeld states, he stayed until his departure for Palestine (Richard Sternfeld, Karl von Anjou als Graf der Provence (1245-1268), Berlin 1888, pp. 23, 27-28, 42-43. Salverda de Grave, p. 29, takes it that he was in France all this time. Aurell (p. 161) claims Charles was in Paris in the summer of 1247 prior to setting sail from Aigues-Mortes, joining Louis in Paris a few weeks before embarcation, but gives no source beyond a reference to BdT 76.15, 54, which proves nothing, and his account is confused by his erroneous dating of Louis’ departure (see above). His notes suggest he is going on the archive dates, which Sternfeld adjusts. Barthélémy suggests though does not prove that Charles was present at Louis’ court in July 1248 when he sorted out the question of Monndoubleau (Dominique Barthélémy, La societe dans le comté de Vendôme, Paris 1993, p. 818; see Charles Metais, Chartes vendomoises, Vendôme 1905, pp. 376-379, no. CCCLXII. Jean Dunbabin very kindly signalled this reference). Matthew Paris and Joinville record his presence in Paris in January 1248, but do not name him specifically in the context of the various nobles who took the cross in 1247. Although Salverda de Grave and Aurell give the date of the piece as 1247 (Salverda de Grave, pp. 27, 29, 33, 35; Aurell, pp. 159-161), there is no reason to exclude the first half of 1248. – Aurell (p. 159) suggests that the debt postponement referred to in 23-24, for which Salverda de Grave could offer no explanation, may refer to £300 that Amaury de Thury, seneschal of Provence, was at that time demanding from the Arlésiens as punishment for ambushes perpetrated in Crau against the court bailiffs. He cites an act of 26 February 1247 by which Albeta de Tarascon, Bertran de Baux and Bertran Porcelet had promised Baudoin, bailiff of Aix, to pay this fine in the name of the commune. (Despite his observation, p. 318, n. 18, that as the conversion rate marks to pounds is uncertain it is impossible to be absolutely sure of the link between the poem and these events, this seems extremely likely). Two months later the councillors of Arles went back on this promise, to join the league of cities hostile to Charles of Anjou. – Believing Bertran to have composed his sirventes in 1247, Aurell observes that in the summer of 1247 the troubadour was living in Arles after having been provisionally relieved of his duties at the court of Aix, supported by the annual pension that the count’s officers were supposed to pay him on the toll of la Trouille, according to a privilege accorded him by Raimon Berenguer in May 1245 (p. 160; see also pp. 108-109). As he suggests, it seems more than likely that Bertran saw his own revenues drying up as a result of the count’s rents from Arles being withheld. But Bertran was still in Arles in 1248, so the same situation could apply then. – In conclusion, the sirventes was composed between April 1247 and August 1248. Salverda de Grave may well be right in seeing its immediate stimulus as the formation of the alliance of southern towns in April 1247, reinforced by news of nobles taking the cross in May, though the early part of 1248 cannot be ruled out.