The year 1216 marked a distinct turning point in the fortunes of Simon of Montfort, the Occitan War, and the people of the south. The change need not defy explanation, although both the Anonymous and William of Puylaurens believed that God had either turned his favor away from the chief crusader or was testing him. That the young count's uprising occurred on the eastern edges of Montfort's territories where there had been little combat is not surprising. The chief crusader's control in areas east of Béziers was weak in practice and tenuous in legality. The church's disposal of Raimon VI's lands was most ambiguous in the eastern portions, where the retention of the marquisate of Provence for the young Raimon gave him a toehold for mounting a rebellion. The towns and cities of the Provençal region and along the Rhône had never been centers of heretical activity and remained within the graces of the church. The culture they shared with their western neighbors made them hostile to the Albigensian Crusade. In particular the people of the heavily populated and prosperous areas of the Rhône valley had long resented their lands being the highway for the subjugation of the south. In harnessing this underlying hostility to the crusade, Raimon VII was about to show that even as a young, inexperienced leader – a teenager still – he could wage war more successfully than his father.