Cecilia of Comminges

Cécile de Comminges (c. 1320–1384) was the eldest daughter of Bernard VIII, Count of Comminges. In 1336 she married James I, Count of Urgell, and from 1339, when her little brother Jean died, she held the viscounty of Turenne in her own right.

Her uncle Pierre-Raymond denied that women could inherit Comminges; a settlement gave him the county and her Turenne. At Avignon she became a friend and adviser of Pope Clement VI, so close that rumour made her his mistress, and Petrarch called her ‘Semiramis with her quiver’.

Widowed in 1347, she was regent of Urgell for her young son Peter II until 1360. In 1349 she sold Turenne to the pope for 145,000 gold florins, to pay her husband's debts and build a church at Balaguer. She died at Balaguer Castle on 16 June 1384.