book 2. chapter 11.

AQUITAINE: A. D. 843. In the division of Charlemagne's Empire.

See FRANCE: A. D.843.

AQUITAINE: A. D. 884-1151. The end of the nominal kingdom. The disputed Ducal Title.

"Carloman [who died 884], son of Louis the Stammerer, was the last of the Carlovingians who bore the title of king of Aquitaine. This vast state ceased from this time to constitute a kingdom. It had for a lengthened period been divided between powerful families, the most illustrious of which are those of the Counts of Toulouse, founded in the ninth century by Fredelon, the Counts of Poitiers, the Counts of Auvergne, the Marquises of Septimania or Gothia, and the Dukes of Gascony. King Eudes had given William the Pius, Count of Auvergne, the Investiture of the duchy of Aquitaine. On the extinction of that family in 928, the Counts of Toulouse and those of Poitou disputed the prerogatives and their quarrel stained the south with blood for a long time. At length the Counts of Poitou acquired the title of Dukes of Aquitaine or Guyenne [or Guienne,--supposed to be a corruption of the name of Aquitaine, which came into use during the Middle Ages], which remained in their house up to the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine with Henry Plantagenet I. [Henry II.], King of England (1151)."

_E. De Bonnechose, History of France, book 2, chapter 3, foot-note._

"The duchy Aquitaine, or Guyenne, as held by Eleanor's predecessors, consisted, roughly speaking, of the territory between the Loire and the Garonne. More exactly, it was bounded on the north by Anjou and Touraine, on the east by Berry and Auvergne, on the south-east by the Quercy or County of Cahors, and on the south-west by Gascony, which had been united with it for the last hundred years. The old Karolingian kingdom of Aquitania had been of far greater extent; it had, in fact, included the whole country between the Loire, the Pyrenees, the Rhone and the ocean. Over all this vast territory the Counts of Poitou asserted a theoretical claim of overlordship by virtue of their ducal title; they had, however, a formidable rival in the house of the Counts of Toulouse."

_K. Norgate, England under the Angevin Kings,