JOURDAIN, Alfonse, count of Toulouse, son of Count Raymond IV. by his third wife, Elvire de Castile, was born in 1103, in the castle of Mont-Pèlerin, Tripoli. His father died when he was two years old, and he remained under the guardianship of the count of Cerdagne until he was five. He was then taken to Europe, and his brother gave him Rouergue; in his tenth year he succeeded to the government of Narbonne, Toulouse, and Provence, but Toulouse was taken from him by the duke of Aquitaine while he was still in his minority. After the duke’s death the inhabitants of Toulouse revolted and recalled Jourdain; he returned in triumph in 1123. He, however, drew upon himself a sentence of excommunication by his treatment of the religious community of St Gilles, which had previously thrown in its influence on the side of the duke of Aquitaine. He had next to fight for the sovereignty of Provence against Raymond Beranger HL, and not till September 1125 did the war end in an amicable agreement. Under it Jourdain became absolute master of the regions lying between the Pyrenees and the Alps, Auvergne and the sea. His ascendency was an unmixed good to the country, for during a period of fourteen years art and industry were successfully prosecuted. Louis VII., for some reason which has not appeared, besieged Toulouse in 1141, but without result. Next year Jourdain again incurred the displeasure of the church by siding with the rebels of Montpellier against their lord. A second time he was excommunicated. But his isolation from Rome did not suit his taste or policy ; so in the autumn of 1144 he took the cross at the meeting of Vézelay called by Louis VII., and three years later he embarked for the East. He lingered on the way in Italy, and probably in Constantinople; but in 1148 he ...