The Massif des Maures: The return of the Moors The years
880 and
890 mark a turning point in the Muslim strategy. Muslims came from
Alicante and settled near
Saint-Tropez in the Freinet area (today's cantons of
Grimaud and
Saint-Tropez) and from there spread throughout the
Alps. This "stronghold" has never been found; it is not proven to this day that this "contingent" was permanent: it may have been a question of temporary, one-off operations and occupations. Muslims may have given name to the neighboring village of
Ramatuelle;
Évariste Lévi-Provençal, who is not a
toponymist, derives the toponym Ramatuelle from the Arabic
Rahmat-ûllah (or
Rahmatu-Allah) "divine mercy", but not to the
Massif des Maures, nor to the
Maurienne, where part of the Muslim community settled in the Arc valley, "The name Maurienne does not find its origin in the word "Maure", relating to the incursions of the tenth century Saracens. Mentioned by Gregory of Tours in the 6th century, it is rather a derivative of the Latin Malus Rivus, bad stream, which evolved into mau riou/rien. Indeed, the river Arc is known for its floods." One of the most deadly raids took place in Upper
Provence and in the Apt region in
896. For almost a century, they lived in the country, looting and ransoming it. In
923, the Muslims, who had landed in the
Massif des Maures, were unable to take
Marseille, but they did devastate the
Abbey of St Victor. The bishop of
Marseille left the city to take refuge in
Arles. Several alliances and
misalliances with local princes followed, until the final break with the viscounts of Marseille. In
929, the
Emirate of Cordoba became the
Caliphate of Cordoba. During the nights of the 21st to the 22nd of August
973, the Moors took
Maïeul, the abbot of
Cluny, prisoner at the
Châtelard bridge, near Orsières in Valais. The Moors thought that by kidnapping him, they could obtain an important ransom. Since
921, the Muslim bands, coming from
Provence, had taken control of many important passages in the western Alps (other sourcesclaim that the Franks had installed them there to block the Lombards) including the Mont-Joux pass that the abbot had just crossed before being recognized and taken. The monks of Provence succeeded in collecting the requested ransom. Keeping their word, the Saracens freed their hostage. In September,
William and
Rotbold, sons of Count Boson II, rallied all the nobility of Provence, but also of Viennois and Nice. At the head of the Provençal host reinforced by the troops of Ardouin, Count of Turin, they tracked down the Moors whom they crushed during the
Battle of Tourtour in
973, then drove them out of their fortified bases in Provence. The precise site of the battle remains unknown.
Birth of the aristocracy of Provence This military campaign against the Muslims, conducted without
Conrad's troops, in fact masked a bringing to heel of Provence, of the local aristocracy and of the urban and peasant communities which had always refused feudal mutation and countal power until then. It allowed
William to obtain the suzerainty of
Provence and with the royal consent, to control the tax system of
Provence.
William distributed the reconquered lands to his vassals, such as the territory of
Hyères which he attributed to the lords of Fos. He arbitrated disputes and thus created the feudal system of
Provence. With
Isarn, bishop of
Grenoble, he undertook the mission to repopulate the
Dauphiné and authorized an
Italian count named Ugo Blavia to settle near
Fréjus at the beginning of the
970s in order to cultivate the land. Various Muslim raids still reached the French coast, notably the islands of
Lérins in
1003,
1047,
1107 and
1197. The last Muslim incursion into
Corsica (by the
Emir Abu Hosein Mogehid) took place in
1014. The
Caliphate of Cordoba broke up in
1031 into several small emirates, the
taifas, which were completed by the
Reconquista in
1492.
Slave trade of the Saracens During the Middle Ages,
Saracen pirates established themselves in bases in France,
the Baleares, Southern Italy and Sicily, from which they raided the coasts of the Christian Mediterranean and exported their prisoners as
Saqaliba slaves to the
slave markets of the Muslim Middle East. Moorish Saracen pirates from
al-Andalus attacked
Marseille and
Arles and established a base in
Camargue,
Fraxinetum or La Garde-Freinet-Les Mautes (888–972), from which they made slave raids in to France; the population fled in fear of the slave raids, which made it difficult for the Frankish to secure their Southern coast, Many of the enslaved "Frankish" Saqaliba in
Al-Andalus were really ethnic
Visigoths and
Hispano-Romans from the
Hispanic March in northeastern Iberia, later to be known as the
Catalan counties. While the Saracen bases in France was eliminated in 972 and Italy in 1091, this did not prevent the Saracen piracy slave trade of the Mediterranean; both
Almoravid dynasty (1040–1147) and the
Almohad Caliphate (1121–1269) approved of the slave raiding of Saracen pirates toward non-Muslim ships in Gibraltar and the Mediterranean for the purpose of slave raiding. == References ==