William X called the Saint, was Duke of Aquitaine

Duke of Aquitaine

The Duke of Aquitaine ruled the historical region of Aquitaine under the supremacy of Frankish, English and later French kings....

, Duke of Gascony

Duke of Gascony

The Duchy of Vasconia , later known as Gascony, was a Merovingian creation: a frontier duchy on the Garonne, in the border with the rebel Basque tribes...

, and Count of Poitou (as William VIII) between 1126 and 1137. He was the son of William IX by his second wife, Philippa of Toulouse

Philippa of Toulouse

Philippa Maude of Toulouse , also known as Philippa de Toulouse or Philippa de Rouergue, was the Duchess Consort of Aquitaine, and Countess of Toulouse...

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William was born in Toulouse

Toulouse

Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...

 during the brief period when his parents ruled the capital. His birth is recorded in the Chronicle of Saint-Maixent for the year 1099: Willelmo comiti natus est filius, equivoce Guillelmus vocatus ("a son was born to Count William, named William like himself"). Later that same year, much to his wife's ire, Duke William mortgaged Toulouse to Philippa's cousin, Bertrand of Toulouse

Bertrand of Toulouse

Bertrand of Toulouse was count of Toulouse, and was the first count of Tripoli to rule in Tripoli itself....

, and then left on Crusade.

Philippa and her infant son were left in Poitiers. Long after Duke William's return, he took up with Dangereuse, the wife of one of his vassals, and set aside his rightful wife, Philippa. This caused strain between father and son, until William married Aenor de Châtellerault

Aenor de Châtellerault

Aénor of Châtellerault, duchess of Aquitaine was the mother of Eleanor of Aquitaine, arguably the most powerful woman in Europe of her generation....

, daughter of his father's mistress, in 1121.

He had from her three children:

• Eleanor
  Eleanor of Aquitaine
  Eleanor of Aquitaine was one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in Western Europe during the High Middle Ages. As well as being Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right, she was queen consort of France and of England...
  
  , who later became heiress to the Duchy;
• Petronilla
  Petronilla of Aquitaine
  Petronilla of Aquitaine was the daughter of William X of Aquitaine and Aenor of Châtellerault. She was the sister of Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was Queen consort of England...
  
  , who married Raoul I of Vermandois;
• William Aigret, who died at age 4 in 1130, about the time their mother Aenor de Châtellerault died.

He also had two natural sons, William and Joscelin. These half brothers of Eleanor, along with Petronilla, accompanied Eleanor and Henry II to England when they left to claim the crown after Stephen died . According to the Pipe Rolls, which recorded wine bought for them and Petronilla, they were still part of Eleanor's court in 1156. After that, Eleanor's siblings drop from the record.

As his father before him, William X was a patron of troubadour

Troubadour

A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....

s, music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

 and literature

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

. He was an educated man and strove to give his two daughters an excellent education, in a time when Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

's rulers were hardly literate.

When Eleanor succeeded him as Duchess, she continued William's tradition and transformed the Aquitanian court into Europe's centre of knowledge.

William was both a lover of the arts and a warrior. He became involved in conflicts with Normandy

Normandy

Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...

 (which he raided in 1136, in alliance with Geoffrey le Bel of Anjou who claimed it in his wife's name) and France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.

Even inside his borders, William faced an alliance of the Lusignans and the Parthenays against him, an issue resolved with total destruction of the enemies. In international politics, William X initially supported antipope

Antipope

An antipope is a person who opposes a legitimately elected or sitting Pope and makes a significantly accepted competing claim to be the Pope, the Bishop of Rome and leader of the Roman Catholic Church. At times between the 3rd and mid-15th century, antipopes were typically those supported by a...

 Anacletus II

Antipope Anacletus II

Anacletus II , born Pietro Pierleoni, was an Antipope who ruled from 1130 to his death, in a schism against the contested, hasty election of Pope Innocent II....

 in the schism

Schism (religion)

A schism , from Greek σχίσμα, skhísma , is a division between people, usually belonging to an organization or movement religious denomination. The word is most frequently applied to a break of communion between two sections of Christianity that were previously a single body, or to a division within...

 of 1130, opposite to Pope Innocent II

Pope Innocent II

Pope Innocent II , born Gregorio Papareschi, was pope from 1130 to 1143, and was probably one of the clergy in personal attendance on the antipope Clement III .-Early years:...

, against the will of his own bishops. In 1134 Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

Bernard of Clairvaux

Bernard of Clairvaux, O.Cist was a French abbot and the primary builder of the reforming Cistercian order.After the death of his mother, Bernard sought admission into the Cistercian order. Three years later, he was sent to found a new abbey at an isolated clearing in a glen known as the Val...

 convinced William to drop his support to Anacletus and join Innocent.

In 1137 William joined the pilgrimage

Pilgrimage

A pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith...

 to Santiago de Compostela

Santiago de Compostela

Santiago de Compostela is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia, Spain.The city's Cathedral is the destination today, as it has been throughout history, of the important 9th century medieval pilgrimage route, the Way of St. James...

, but died of suspected food poisoning during the trip. On his deathbed, he expressed his wish to see king Louis VI of France

Louis VI of France

Louis VI , called the Fat , was King of France from 1108 until his death . Chronicles called him "roi de Saint-Denis".-Reign:...

 as protector of his fifteen-year-old daughter Eleanor, and to find her a suitable husband. Louis VI naturally accepted this guardianship and married the heiress of Aquitaine to his own son, Louis VII

Louis VII of France

Louis VII was King of France, the son and successor of Louis VI . He ruled from 1137 until his death. He was a member of the House of Capet. His reign was dominated by feudal struggles , and saw the beginning of the long rivalry between France and England...

.