Duchy of Aquitaine
Duchy of Aquitaine | |||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
602–1453 | |||||||||||||||
William VIII of Aquitaine | |||||||||||||||
• 1126–1137 | William X of Aquitaine | ||||||||||||||
• 1137–1204 | Eleanor of Aquitaine | ||||||||||||||
• 1422–1453 | Henry VI of England | ||||||||||||||
Historical era | Middle Ages | ||||||||||||||
• Duke appointed by the Merovingian kings | 602 | ||||||||||||||
• Annexed by Kingdom of France | 1453 | ||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
Today part of | France |
The Duchy of Aquitaine (Occitan: Ducat d'Aquitània, IPA: [dyˈkad dakiˈtaɲɔ]; French: Duché d'Aquitaine, IPA: [dyʃe dakitɛn]) was a historical fiefdom in western, central, and southern areas of present-day France to the south of the river Loire, although its extent, as well as its name, fluctuated greatly over the centuries, at times comprising much of what is now southwestern France (Gascony) and central France.
It originated in the 7th century as a duchy of
History
Early history
The duchy of Aquitaine as a quasi-independent realm within the Frankish empire established itself during the second half of the 7th century, certainly by 700 under Odo the Great. The first duke is on record under the name of Felix, and as having ruled from about 660. As his successor, Lupus held loose ties with the Frankish kings, ruling autonomously (princeps).[1] Odo succeeded Lupus in 700 and signed a peace treaty with Charles Martel. He inflicted on the Moors a crushing defeat at the Battle of Toulouse in 721. However, Charles Martel coveted the southern realm, crossed the Loire in 731 and looted much of Aquitaine. Odo engaged the Franks in battle, but lost and came out weakened. Soon after this battle, in 732, the Moors raided Vasconia and Aquitaine as far north as Poitiers and defeated Odo twice near Bordeaux. Odo saw no option but to invoke the aid of Charles Martel and pledge allegiance to the Frankish prince.
Odo was succeeded by his son Hunald, who reverted to former independence, so defying the Frankish
As a successor state to the Roman province of Gallia Aquitania and the
Carolingian kingdom of Aquitaine
The autonomous and troublesome duchy of Aquitaine was conquered by the Franks in 769, after a series of revolts against their suzerainty. In order to avoid a new demonstration of Aquitain particularism, Charlemagne decided to organize the land within his kingdom.
After the Carolingian conquest, the duchy ceased to exist as such, whose powers were taken over by the counts (dukes) of Toulouse, main seat of the Carolingian government in the Midi, represented by Chorso and, after being deposed, by Charlemagne's trustee William (of Gellone), a close relative of his. In 781, he made his third son
When Louis succeeded Charlemagne as emperor in 814, he granted Aquitaine to his son Pepin I, after whose death in 838 the nobility of Aquitaine chose his son Pepin II of Aquitaine (d. 865) as their king. The emperor Louis I, however, opposed this arrangement and gave the kingdom to his youngest son Charles, afterwards the emperor Charles the Bald. Confusion and conflict resulted, eventually falling in favor of Charles; although from 845 to 852 Pepin II was in possession of the kingdom, at Eastertide 848 in Limoges, the magnates and prelates of Aquitaine formally elected Charles as their king. Later, at Orléans, he was anointed and crowned by Wenilo, archbishop of Sens.[4] In 852, Pepin II was imprisoned by Charles the Bald, who soon afterwards pronounced his own son Charles as the ruler of Aquitaine. On the death of the younger Charles in 866, his brother Louis the Stammerer succeeded to the kingdom, and when, in 877, Louis became king of the Franks, Aquitaine was fully absorbed into the Frankish crown.
By a treaty made in 845 between Charles the Bald and Pepin II, the kingdom had been diminished by the loss of Poitou, Saintonge and Angoumois in the northwest of the region, which had been given to Rainulf I, count of Poitiers. The title of Duke of Aquitaine, already revived, was now borne by Rainulf, although it was also claimed by the counts of Toulouse. The new duchy of Aquitaine, including the three districts already mentioned, remained in the hands of Ramulf's successors, despite disagreement with their Frankish overlords, until 893 when Count Rainulf II was poisoned by order of King Charles III, or
A succession of dukes followed, one of whom, William IV, fought against
Angevin Empire
The Ramnulfids had become the dominant power in southwestern France by the end of the 11th century. By marriage rather than conquest, their possessions passed into the "Angevin Empire" under the English crown by 1153.
William IX, Duke of Aquitaine (d. 1127), who succeeded to the dukedom in 1087, gained fame as a crusader and a troubadour. His granddaughter, Eleanor of Aquitaine, succeeded to the duchy at the age of 15 as the eldest daughter and heir of William X (d. 1137), as his son did not live past childhood. She married Louis, heir to the French throne, three months after her father's death due to the quick thinking of Louis's father, Louis VI of France, who did not want to leave a territory such as Aquitaine governed by a child of fifteen. When Louis VI died, and Eleanor's new husband became King Louis VII, the Duchy of Aquitaine officially came under the rule of the French Crown, and for fifteen years, Louis VII had territory that rivaled that of the English crown and the Counts of Toulouse. The marriage was later annulled on the grounds of consanguinity by a bishop on 21 March 1152, and she kept her lands and title as Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right. On 18 May 1152, she married Henry, Duke of Normandy, the son of Empress Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England, and a claimant to the English throne. When he defeated his mother's cousin, King Stephen, in 1153 and became King of England as Henry II, Aquitaine merged with the English crown.[5]
Having suppressed a revolt in his new possession, Henry gave it to his son Richard. When Richard died in 1199, it reverted to Eleanor, and on her death in 1204, it was inherited by her son John and absorbed into the English crown permanently. The duchy henceforward followed the fortunes of the other English possessions in France, such as Normandy and Anjou, ultimately leading to the Hundred Years' War between England and France.
Aquitaine as it came to the English kings stretched from the Loire to the Pyrenees, but its range was limited to the southeast by the extensive lands of the counts of Toulouse. The name Guienne, a corruption of Aquitaine, seems to have come into use about the 10th century, and the subsequent history of Aquitaine is merged in that of Gascony and Guienne.
Hundred Years' War
In 1337, King
The
Geography and subdivisions
Over the course of its existence, the duchy incorporated the Duchy of Gascony and, until 1271, the County of Toulouse, which now falls in the region of Occitanie. Most of the rest of the post-1271 duchy now forms the region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, though parts fall into the three neighbouring regions of Pays de la Loire, Centre-Val de Loire and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
The county of Aquitaine as it stood in the High Middle Ages, then, was bordering the
by the 13th century.- Aquitaine proper
- County of Poitou
- County of La Marche
- County of Angoulême
- County of Périgord
- County of Auvergne (passed to the royal domainin 1271)
- County of Velay
- County of Saintonge
- Lordship of Déols
- Lordship of Issoudun
- Viscounty of Limousin
- Duchy of Gascony, personal union with Aquitaine from the 7th to the 9th century (Felix of Aquitaine) and again from 1053.
- County of Agenais
- County of Toulouse (quasi-independent from 778, reverted to the royal domain in 1271)
- County of Quercy
- County of Rouergue
- County of Gevaudan
- Viscounty of Albi
- Marquisat of Gothia
See also
- Duke of Aquitaine
- History of Aquitaine
References
- ^ Lewis, pp 400–401 and n127.
- OCLC 7007853.
- ^ Wemple, Suzanne Fonay; Women in the Fifth to the Tenth Century. In: Klapisch-Zuber, Christine; A History of Women: Book II. Silences of the Middle Ages, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England. 1992, 2000 (5th printing). Chapter 6, p 74.
- ^ Against this background of conflicted loyalties must be seen the career of Wenilo.
- ^ Jones, Dan (2012). The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England. Penguin Random House.
public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Aquitaine". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 252–253.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in theBibliography
- Lewis, Archibald R. "The Dukes in the Regnum Francorum, A.D. 550-751." Speculum, Vol. 51, No. 3. (July 1976), pp. 381–410.
- Emile Mabille, (1870) Le Royaume D'Aquitaine Et Ses Marches Sous Les Carlovingiens
- Jean Penant, (2009) Occitanie, l'épopée des origines