Douce, the heiress of the Counts of Provence, married Raymond Berenger I., Count of Barcelona, who died in 1131. From him in direct line descended Raymond Berenger IV., whose most trusty servant was Romeo de Villeneuve. This man arrived at the court of the Count as a pilgrim, staff in hand and cockleshell in hat, coming from a visit to S. James of Compostello. Something attractive about the man drew the attention of the Count, and he made of him his chief minister, High Constable of Provence, and treasurer. His strict integrity, his great prudence, and his justice, endeared him to the people as they did to his master. Through his instrumentality, Eleanor, the daughter of the Count, was married to Henry III. of England, and the niece of the Count to Richard, Duke of Cornwall. Nice had revolted against the Count, and Romeo reduced it to submission, and was appointed Governor of the town. Raymond Berenger had succeeded to his Countyship when the barons of Provence had asserted their independence and were warring against each other and harassing the towns. Romeo clipped their wings, and did all in his power to favour commerce and give prosperity to the towns. Without curtailing the splendour of his master’s court, he took care that there should be no extravagance there; and he gathered about it the ablest men of the time, poets and the learned. This was the period when mortal war was being waged between Pope Gregory IX. and the Emperor Frederick II. The Emperor had been cursed and excommunicated, a holy war proclaimed against him. Gregory issued a summons to all the prelates of Europe for a General Council to be held in the Lateran palace, at Easter, in which he would pour out all his grievances against Frederick, and unite the whole church in pronouncing Anathema Maranatha against him. But the Emperor himself had appealed to a General Council against the Pope; one sitting in Rome, presided over by Gregory, was not the tribunal to which he would submit. The Count of Provence commissioned Romeo to go to Rome with a fleet conveying bishops and cardinals to attend the Council. But Frederick had prepared a powerful fleet in Sicily and Apulia, under the command of his son, Enzio. Pisa joined him with all her galleys. The Genoese and Provençal fleet met that of the Emperor off the island of Meloria; the heavily laden Genoese and Provençal vessels were worsted after a sharp conflict; three galleys were sunk, twenty-two were taken. Some of the prelates went down in the sunken galleys; among the prisoners were three cardinals, four archbishops, and six bishops.