Gascony

Henry III sailing home from Gascony - from drawing by Matthew of Paris, 1243. MP: Benedictine monk, English chronicler, artist in illuminated manuscripts and cartographer, c. 1200 – 1259. Henry III of England, 1 October 1207 – 16 November 1272. (Photo by Culture Club)

Taken from the Visigoths by the Franks after the Battle of Vouillé (507), the region was overrun from 561 by the Basques (Basque), or Vascones; in 602 the Frankish kings recognized Vasconia, or Gascony, as a duchy under the national leader Genialis. In the latter half of the 7th century, the Gascon duke Loup (Lupus) extended his power over adjacent areas, and by the latter half of the 10th century his successors controlled all of Gascony as well as Bordeaux, Bazadais, and Agenais (now Agen).

      In 1032 a war of succession broke out, and Gascony was eventually won in 1052 by Guy-Geoffrey (from 1058 William VIII, duke of Aquitaine). But in the meantime, effective power within the duchy had devolved on the greater counts and viscounts (such as those of Armagnac and Lomagne), who were to dominate Gascony for centuries. In the 12th century the ducal title passed with the Aquitanian inheritance to the Plantagenet kings of England. Throughout the years of intermittent warfare between England and France, up to the definitive French reconquest at the end of the Hundred Years' War, Gascony remained the kernel of English royal power in southwestern France. Gascony was merged with Guyenne in the gouvernement of Guyenne-et-Gascogne during the ancien régime.