As successor states of the Visigothic Kingdom (418–721), Aquitania (Aquitaine) and Languedoc (Toulouse) inherited both Visigothic law and Roman Law, which together allowed women more rights than their contemporaries would enjoy until the 20th century. Particularly under the Liber Judiciorum as codified in 642/643 and expanded by the Code of Recceswinth in 653, women could inherit land and titles and manage their holdings independently from their husbands or male relations, dispose of their property in legal wills if they had no heirs, represent themselves and bear witness in court from the age of 14, and arrange for their own marriages after the age of 20.[1] As a consequence, male-preference primogeniture was the practiced succession law for the nobility.
The Aquitainian ducal coronation procedure is preserved in a late twelfth-century ordo (formula) from Saint-Étienne in Limoges, based on an earlier Romano-Germanordo. In the early thirteenth century a commentary was added to this ordo, which emphasised Limoges as the capital of Aquitaine. The ordo indicated that the duke received a silk mantle, coronet, banner, sword, spurs, and the ring of Saint Valerie.[citation needed]
Visigothic dukes
Suatrius (flor. 493), captured by Clovis I during the First Franco-Visigothic War.[2]
The Carolingian kings again appointed Dukes of Aquitaine, first in 852, and again since 866.[citation needed] Later, this duchy was also called Guyenne.[citation needed]
From 1152, the Duchy of Aquitaine was held by the Plantagenets, who also ruled England as independent monarchs and held other territories in France by separate inheritance (see Plantagenet Empire). The Plantagenets were often more powerful than the kings of France, and their reluctance to do homage to the kings of France for their lands in France was one of the major sources of conflict in medieval Western Europe.
In 1360, both sides signed the Treaty of Brétigny, in which Edward renounced the French crown but remained sovereign Lord of Aquitaine (rather than merely duke).[10] However, when the treaty was broken in 1369, both these English claims and the war resumed.
On 6 October 1372, Prince Edward (who had returned to England the previous year) resigned the Principality of Aquitaine and Gascony, stating that the revenues he earned from Aquitaine were no longer sufficient to cover his expenses.[12] Thus, King Edward III, his father, resumed his title as Duke of Aquitaine.
Duke of Aquitaine (1372-1453)
Name
Portrait
Arms
Birth
Marriage(s)
Death
Edward III[13] Edward of Windsor 1372 – 21 June 1377 (5 years)
With the end of the Hundred Years' War, Aquitaine returned under direct rule of the king of France and remained in the possession of the king. Only occasionally was the duchy or the title of duke granted to another member of the dynasty.
^Ruled alongside his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, who acted as regent for the Duchy while he was on crusade – a position he resumed on his return to Europe.
^Edward I was crowned on 19 August 1274 with Queen Eleanor.
^Edward II was crowned on 25 February 1308 with Queen Isabella.
^Edward II continued as King of England until 20 January 1325
^The date of Edward II's death is disputed by historian Ian Mortimer, who argues that he may not have been murdered, but held imprisoned in Europe for several more years.[6]
^Edward of Windsor, while still heir to the throne, was appointed Duke of Aquitaine by his father, King Edward II of England.[8] After the king was overthrown by the Parliament of 1327, Edward III was proclaimed the new King of England on 25 January 1327, and crowned on 1 February 1327.
^On 24 May 1337, Philip VI of France confiscated the Duchy of Aquitaine from Edward III, beginning the Hundred Years' War.[9] Regardless, Edward III continued to title himself Duke of Aquitaine, and responded by claiming the throne of France for himself. Edward continued to use the titles of King of England and France and Duke of Aquitaine until the Treaty of Brétigny in 1360, when Edward renounced these titles in exchange for recognition as sovereign Lord of Aquitaine.
^In 1390, King Richard II, son of Edward the Black Prince, appointed his uncle John of Gaunt Duke of Aquitaine. This grant expired upon the Duke's death, and the dukedom reverted to the Crown. Regardless, due to Henry IV's seizure of the crown, he still came into possession of the dukedom. [15][better source needed]
^Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane; 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, "Women in the Fifth to the Tenth Century" by Suzanne Fonay Wemple, pg 74. According to Wemple, Visigothic women of Spain and the Aquitaine could inherit land and title and manage it independently of their husbands, and dispose of it as they saw fit if they had no heirs, and represent themselves in court, appear as witnesses (by the age of 14), and arrange their own marriages by the age of twenty
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