Part 40

"The old Roman Aquitania, in the first division of the spoils of the Empire, had fallen to the Visigoths, who conquered it without much trouble. In the struggle between them and the Merovingians, it of course passed to the victorious party. But the quarrels, so fiercely contested between the different members of the Frank monarchy, prevented them from retaining a distant possession within their grasp; and at this period [681-718, when the Mayors of the Palace, Pepin and Carl, were gathering the reins of government over the three kingdoms—Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy—into their hands]. Eudo, the duke of Aquitaine, was really an independent prince. The population had never lost its Roman character; it was, in fact, by far the most Romanized in the whole of Gaul. But it had also received a new element in the Vascones or Gascons [see BASQUES], a tribe of Pyrenean mountaineers, who descending from their mountains, advanced towards the north until their progress was checked by the broad waters of the Garonne. At this time, however, they obeyed Eudo. "This duke of Aquitaine, Eudo, allied himself with the Neustrians against the ambitious Austrasian Mayor, Carl Martel, and shared with them the crushing defeat at Soissons, A. D. 718, which established the Hammerer's power. Eudo acknowledged allegiance and was allowed to retain his dukedom. But, half-a-century afterwards, Carl's son, Pepin, who had pushed the 'fainéant' Merovingians from the Frank throne and seated himself upon it, fought a nine years' war with the then duke of Aquitaine, to establish his sovereignty. "The war, which lasted nine years [760-768], was signalized by frightful ravages and destruction of life upon both sides, until, at last, the Franks became masters of Berri, Auvergne, and the Limousin, with their principal cities. The able and gallant Guaifer [or Waifer] was assassinated by his own subjects, and Pepin had the satisfaction of finally uniting the grand-duchy of Aquitaine to the monarchy of the Franks."

_J. G. Sheppard, Fall of Rome, lecture 8._

ALSO IN: _P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, chapters 14-15_.

_W. H. Perry, The Franks, chapter 5-6._

AQUITAINE: A. D. 732. Ravaged by the Moslems.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 715-732.

AQUITAINE: A. D. 781. Erected into a separate kingdom by Charlemagne.

In the year 781 Charlemagne erected Italy and Aquitaine into separate kingdoms, placing his two infant sons, Pepin and Ludwig or Louis on their respective thrones. "The kingdom of Aquitaine embraced Vasconia [Gascony], Septimania, Aquitaine proper (that is, the country between the Garonne and the Loire) and the county, subsequently the duchy, of Toulouse. Nominally a kingdom, Aquitaine was in reality a province, entirely dependent on the central or personal government of Charles. … The nominal designations of king and kingdom might gratify the feelings of the Aquitanians, but it was a scheme contrived for holding them in a state of absolute dependence and subordination."

_J. I. Mombert, History of Charles the Great, 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, volume 1, chapter 10._

See, also, TOULOUSE: 10TH AND 11TH CENTURIES.

AQUITAINE: A. D. 1137-1152. Transferred by marriage from the crown of France to the crown of England.

In 1137, "the last of the old line of the dukes of Aquitaine—William IX., son of the gay crusader and troubadour whom the Red King had hoped to succeed—died on a pilgrimage at Compostella. His only son was already dead, and before setting out for his pilgrimage he did what a greater personage had done ten years before: with the consent of his barons, he left the whole of his dominions to his daughter. Moreover, he bequeathed the girl herself as wife to the young king Louis [VII.] of France. This marriage more than doubled the strength of the French crown. It gave to Louis absolute possession of all western Aquitaine, or Guyenne as it was now beginning to be called; that is the counties of Poitou and Gascony, with the immediate overlordship of the whole district lying between the Loire and the Pyrenees, the Rhone and the ocean:—a territory five or six times as large as his own royal domain and over which his predecessors had never been able to assert more than the merest shadow of a nominal superiority." In 1152 Louis obtained a divorce from Eleanor, surrendering all the great territory which she had added to his dominions, rather than maintain an unhappy union. The same year the gay duchess was wedded to Henry Plantagenet, then Duke of Normandy, afterwards Henry II. King of England. By this marriage Aquitaine became joined to the crown of England and remained so for three hundred years.

_K. Norgate, England under the Angevin Kings, volume 1, chapter 8._

{121}

AQUITAINE: 12th Century. The state of the southern parts.

See PROVENCE: A. D. 1179-1207.

AQUITAINE: A. D. 1360-1453. Full sovereignty possessed by the English Kings. The final conquest and union with France.

"By the Peace of Bretigny [see FRANCE: A. D. 1337-1360] Edward III. resigned his claims on the crown of France; but he was recognized in return as independent Prince of Aquitaine, without any homage or superiority being reserved to the French monarch. When Aquitaine therefore was conquered by France, partly in the 14th, fully in the 15th century [see FRANCE: A. D. 1431-1453], it was not the 'reunion' of a forfeited fief, but the absorption of a distinct and sovereign state. The feelings of Aquitaine itself seem to have been divided. The nobles to a great extent, though far from universally, preferred the French connexion. It better fell in with their notions of chivalry, feudal dependency, and the like; the privileges too which French law conferred on noble birth would make their real interests lie that way. But the great cities and, we have reason to believe, the mass of the people, also, clave faithfully to their ancient Dukes; and they had good reason to do so. The English Kings, both by habit and by interest, naturally protected the municipal liberties of Bourdeaux and Bayonne, and exposed no part of their subjects to the horrors of French taxation and general oppression."

_E. A. Freeman, The Franks and the Gauls (Historical Essays, 1st Series, No.7)._

AQUITAINE: End----------

AQUITANI, The.

See IBERIANS, THE WESTERN.

ARABIA. ARABS: The Name.

"There can be no doubt that the name of the Arabs was … given from their living at the westernmost part of Asia; and their own word 'Gharb,' the 'West,' is another form of the original Semitic name Arab."

_G. Rawlinson, Notes to Herodotus, volume 2, page 71._

ARABIA: The ancient succession and fusion of Races.

"The population of Arabia, after long centuries, more especially after the propagation and triumph of Islamism, became uniform throughout the peninsula. … But it was not always thus. It was very slowly and gradually that the inhabitants of the various parts of Arabia were fused into one race. … Several distinct races successively immigrated into the peninsula and remained separate for many ages. Their distinctive characteristics, their manners and their civilisation prove that these nations were not all of one blood. Up to the time of Mahomet, several different languages were spoken in Arabia, and it was the introduction of Islamism alone that gave predominence to that one amongst them now called Arabic. The few Arabian historians deserving of the name, who have used any discernment in collecting the traditions of their country, Ibn Khaldoun, for example, distinguish three successive populations in the peninsula. They divide these primitive, secondary, and tertiary Arabs into three divisions, called Ariba, Motareba, and Mostareba. … The Ariba were the first and most ancient inhabitants of Arabia. They consisted principally of two great nations, the Adites, sprung from Ham, and the Amalika of the race of Aram, descendants of Shem, mixed with nations of secondary importance, the Thamudites of the race of Ham, and the people of the Tasm, and Jadis, of the family of Aram. The Motareba were tribes sprung from Joktan, son of Eber, always in Arabian tradition called Kahtan. The Mostareba of more modern origin were Ismaelitish tribes. … The Cushites, the first inhabitants of Arabia, are known in the national traditions by the name of Adites, from their progenitor, who is called Ad, the grandson of Ham. All the accounts given of them by Arab historians are but fanciful legends. … In the midst of all the fabulous traits with which these legends abound, we may perceive the remembrance of a powerful empire founded by the Cushites in very early ages, apparently including the whole of Arabia Felix, and not only Yemen proper. We also find traces of a wealthy nation, constructors of great buildings, with an advanced civilisation analogous to that of Chaldæa, professing a religion similar to the Babylonian; a nation, in short, with whom material progress was allied to great moral depravity and obscene rites. … It was about eighteen centuries before our era that the Joktanites entered Southern Arabia. … According to all appearances, the invasion, like all events of a similar nature, was accomplished only by force. … After this invasion, the Cushite element of the population, being still the most numerous, and possessing great superiority in knowledge and civilisation over the Joktanites, who were still almost in the nomadic state, soon recovered the moral and material supremacy, and political dominion. A new empire was formed in which the power still belonged to the Sabæans of the race of Cush. … Little by little the new nation of Ad was formed. The centre of its power was the country of Sheba proper, where, according to the tenth chapter of Genesis, there was no primitive Joktanite tribe, although in all the neighbouring provinces they were already settled. … It was during the first centuries of the second Adite empire that Yemen was temporarily subjected by the Egyptians, who called it the land of Pun. … Conquered during the minority of Thothmes III., and the regency of the Princess Hatasu, Yemen appears to have been lost by the Egyptians in the troublous times at the close of the eighteenth dynasty. Ramses II. recovered it almost immediately after he ascended the throne, and it was not till the time of the effeminate kings of the twentieth dynasty, that this splendid ornament of Egyptian power was finally lost. … The conquest of the land of Pun under Hatasu is related in the elegant bas-reliefs of the temple of Deir-el-Bahari, at Thebes, published by M. Duemichen. … The bas-reliefs of the temple of Deir-el-Bahari afford undoubted proofs of the existence of commerce between India and Yemen at the time of the Egyptian expedition under Hatasu. It was this commerce, much more than the fertility of its own soil and its natural productions, that made Southern Arabia one of the richest countries in the world. … For a long time it was carried on by land only, by means of caravans crossing Arabia; for the navigation of the Red Sea, much more difficult and dangerous than that of the Indian Ocean, was not attempted till some centuries later. … {122} The caravans of myrrh, incense, and balm crossing Arabia towards the land of Canaan are mentioned in the Bible, in the history of Joseph, which belongs to a period very near to the first establishment of the Canaanites in Syria. As soon as commercial towns arose in Phœnicia, we find, as the prophet Ezekiel said, 'The merchants of Sheba and Raamah, they were thy merchants: they occupied in thy fairs with chief of all spices, and with all precious stones and gold.' … A great number of Phœnician merchants, attracted by this trade, established themselves in Yemen, Hadramaut, Oman, and Bahrein. Phœnician factories were also established at several places on the Persian Gulf, amongst others in the islands of Tylos and Arvad, formerly occupied by their ancestors. … This commerce, extremely flourishing during the nineteenth dynasty, seems, together with the Egyptian dominion in Yemen, to have ceased under the feeble and inactive successors of Ramses III. … Nearly two centuries passed away, when Hiram and Solomon despatched vessels down the Red Sea. … The vessels of the two monarchs were not content with doing merely what had once before been done under the Egyptians of the nineteenth dynasty, namely, fetching from the ports of Yemen the merchandise collected there from India. They were much bolder, and their enterprise was rewarded with success. Profiting by the regularity of the monsoons, they fetched the products of India at first hand, from the very place of their shipment in the ports of the land of Ophir, or Abhira. These distant voyages were repeated with success as long as Solomon reigned. The vessels going to Ophir necessarily touched at the ports of Yemen to take in provisions and await favourable winds. Thus the renown of the two allied kings, particularly of the power of Solomon, was spread in the land of the Adites. This was the cause of the journey made by the queen of Sheba to Jerusalem to see Solomon. … The sea voyages to Ophir, and even to Yemen, ceased at the death of Solomon. The separation of the ten tribes, and the revolutions that simultaneously took place at Tyre, rendered any such expeditions impracticable. … The empire of the second Adites lasted ten centuries, during which the Joktanite tribes, multiplying in each generation, lived amongst the Cushite Sabæans. … The assimilation of the Joktanites to the Cushites was so complete that the revolution which gave political supremacy to the descendants of Joktan over those of Cush produced no sensible change in the civilisation of Yemen. But although using the same language, the two elements of the population of Southern Arabia were still quite distinct from each other, and antagonistic in their interests. … Both were called Sabæans, but the Bible always carefully distinguishes them by a different orthography. … The majority of the Sabæan Cushites, however, especially the superior castes, refused to submit to the Joktanite yoke. A separation, therefore, took place, giving rise to the Arab proverb, 'divided as the Sabæans,' and the mass of the Adites emigrated to another country. According to M. Caussin de Perceval, the passage of the Sabæans into Abyssinia is to be attributed to the consequences of the revolution that established Joktanite supremacy in Yemen. … The date of the passage of the Sabæans from Arabia into Abyssinia is much more difficult to prove than the fact of their having done so. … Yarub, the conqueror of the Adites, and founder of the new monarchy of Joktanite Arabs, was succeeded on the throne by his son, Yashdjob, a weak and feeble prince, of whom nothing is recorded, but that he allowed the chiefs of the various provinces of his states to make themselves independent. Abd Shems, surnamed Sheba, son of Yashdjob, recovered the power his predecessors had lost. … Abd Shems had several children, the most celebrated being Himyer and Kahlan, who left a numerous posterity. From these two personages were descended the greater part of the Yemenite tribes, who still existed at the time of the rise of Islamism. The Himyarites seem to have settled in the towns, whilst the Kahlanites inhabited the country and the deserts of Yemen. … This is the substance of all the information given by the Arab historians."

_F. Lenormant and E. Chevalier, Manual of Ancient History of the East, book 7, chapters 1-2 (volume 2)._

ARABIA: Sabæans, The.