William of Tudela

He refers to himself as maestre and clerc, indicating that his studies entitled him to the title of Master and that he had taken minor orders.

He claims that his knowledge of the future through geomancy impelled him to move in 1210 to Bruniquel, which had then just been bestowed on Baldwin, estranged brother of Count Raymond VI of Toulouse.

He became canon at Saint-Antonin (which, in the course of the Albigensian Crusade, Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester had just captured and given to Baldwin).

Work on the first part of this poem began in 1210, William implies, though in the form now known it seems to have been written in its entirety in 1213.

Moreover, William's poem ends before the Battle of Muret on 12 September 1213: Baldwin's participation on the winning side in that battle, in which Raymond lost Toulouse and Raymond's feudal overlord Peter II of Aragon was killed, was the excuse for his execution as a traitor.