- published: 28 Feb 2009
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- author: runtetrunte
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Alsace
Alsace (French: Alsace [alzas]; Alsatian: Elsàss [ˈɛlsɑs]; German: Elsass, pre-1996: Elsaß, IPA: [ˈɛlzas]; Latin: Alsatia) is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area (8,280 km²), and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km² (total population in 2006: 1,815,488; 1 January 2008 estimate: 1,836,000). Alsace is located on France's eastern border and on the west bank of the upper Rhine adjacent to Germany and Switzerland. The political, economic and cultural capital as well as largest city of Alsace is Strasbourg. Because that city is the seat of dozens of international organizations and bodies, Alsace is politically one of the most important regions in the European Union.
The name "Alsace" can be traced back to the Old High German Ali-saz or Elisaz, meaning "foreign domain". An alternative explanation derives it from a Germanic Ell-sass, meaning "seated on the Ill", a river in Alsace. The region was historically part of the Holy Roman Empire. It was gradually annexed by France in the 17th century under kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV and made one of the provinces of France. Alsace is frequently mentioned in conjunction with Lorraine, because German possession of parts of these two régions (as the imperial province Alsace-Lorraine, 1871–1918) was contested in the 19th and 20th centuries, during which Alsace changed hands four times between France and Germany in 75 years.
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Angoumois
Angoumois (French pronunciation: [ɑ̃ɡumwa]) was a county and province of France, nearly corresponding today to the Charente département. Its capital was Angoulême.
Coordinates: 45°39′N 0°10′E / 45.65°N 0.167°E / 45.65; 0.167
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Anjou
Anjou (French pronunciation: [ɑ̃ʒu]) is a former county (in the sense of being ruled by a count, from c. 880), duchy (1360) and province centred on the city of Angers in the lower Loire Valley of what, since the early 13th century, we know as western France. Its traditional Latin name was Andegavia.
Anjou was united with the English Crown from 1151-1199, when Henry II, and, in turn, his (third) son Richard the Lionheart, inherited the county, and thus themselves became Counts of Anjou. At its peak, the Angevin Empire then spread from Ulster to the Pyrenees. But Richard had no legitimate issue, so in 1199 Anjou passed to his nephew, Arthur of Brittany (the posthumous son of Henry II’s fourth son, Geoffrey), while the Crown of England passed to Henry II’s fifth son and Richard’s youngest brother, John. Count Arthur was taken prisoner by John in 1203, and disappeared in murky circumstances. In 1204, the county as a whole was in turn seized by France. Its status was elevated to that of a duchy for Prince Louis, the second son of John II of France, and remained as such until the Revolution. Today, Anjou corresponds largely to the present-day département of Maine-et-Loire.
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Aquitaine
Aquitaine (French pronunciation: [a.ki.tɛn], English /ˌækwɪˈteɪn/; Occitan: Aquitània; Basque: Akitania), archaic Guyenne/Guienne (Occitan: Guiana), is one of the 27 regions of France, in the south-western part of metropolitan France, along the Atlantic Ocean and the Pyrenees mountain range on the border with Spain. It is composed of the 5 departments of Dordogne, Lot et Garonne, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Landes and Gironde. In the Middle Ages Aquitaine was a kingdom and a duchy, whose boundaries fluctuated considerably.
There are traces of human settlement by prehistoric peoples, especially in the Périgord, but the earliest attested inhabitants in the south-west were the Aquitani, who were not proper Celtic people, but more akin to the Iberians (see Gallia Aquitania). Although a number of different languages and dialects were in use in the area during ancient times, it is most likely that the prevailing language of Aquitaine during the late pre-historic to Roman period was an early form of the Basque language. This has been demonstrated by various Aquitanian names and words that were recorded by the Romans, and which are currently easily readable as Basque. Whether this Aquitanian language (Proto-Basque) was a remnant of a Vasconic language group that once extended much farther, or whether it was generally limited to the Aquitaine/Basque region is not currently known. One reason the language of Aquitaine is important is because Basque is the last surviving non-Indo-European language in western Europe and it has had some effect on the languages around it, including Spanish and, to a lesser extent, French.
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Artois
Artois (French pronunciation: [aʁtwa]; adjective Artesian; Dutch: Artesië) is a former province of northern France. Its territory has an area of around 4000 km² and a population of about one million. Its principal cities are Arras (Dutch: Atrecht), Saint-Omer, Lens and Béthune.
Artois occupies the interior of the Pas-de-Calais département, the western part of which constitutes the former Boulonnais. Artois roughly corresponds to the arrondissements of Arras, Béthune, Saint Omer, and Lens, and the eastern part of the Arrondissement of Montreuil. It occupies the western end of the coalfield which stretches eastward through the neighbouring Nord département and across central Belgium.
Originally a feudal county itself, Artois was annexed by the county of Flanders. It came to France in 1180 as a dowry of a Flemish princess, Isabelle of Hainaut, and was again made a separate county in 1237 for Robert, a grandson of Isabelle. Through inheritance, Artois came under the rule of the dukes of Burgundy in 1384. At the death of the fourth duke, Charles the Bold, Artois was inherited by the Habsburgs and passed to the dynasty's Spanish line. After the religious revolts of 1566 in the Netherlands, Artois briefly entered the Dutch Revolt in 1576, participating in the Pacification of Ghent until it formed the Union of Atrecht in 1579. After the Union of Atrecht, Artois and Hainaut (Dutch: Henegouwen) reached a separate agreement with Philip II. Artois remained with the Spanish Netherlands until it was conquered by the French during the Thirty Years War. The annexation was acknowledged during the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659, and it became a French province. Though Artois had already been largely French-speaking, it was considered part of the Netherlands until the French annexation.
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Aunis
Aunis is a historical province of France, situated in the north-west of the department of Charente-Maritime. Its historic capital is La Rochelle, which took over from Castrum Allionis (Châtelaillon) the historic capital which gives its name to the province.
It was a fief of the Duchy of Aquitaine. It extended to Marais Poitevin in the north, Basse Saintonge (and Niortais) in the east, and Rochefortais in the south. Aunis had an influence approximately 20–25 km into the Isle of Ré (l'Île de Ré).
The province was officially recognised during the reign of Charles V of France in 1374:"In 1374, Charles V separated La Rochelle from Saintonge to set up a provincial government, comprising the jurisdictions of Rochefort, Marennes and, for a time, Benon. It was thus that Aunis legally became a separate province."
Aunis was the smallest province in France, in terms of area. Nowadays it is a part of the Charente-Maritime département together with Saintonge.
People from Aunis were called Aunisien (masculine) or Anisienne (feminine).
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Auvergne (province)
Auvergne (French pronunciation: [ovɛʁɲ]; Occitan: Auvèrnhe/Auvèrnha) was a historic province in south central France. It was originally the feudal domain of the Counts of Auvergne. It is now the geographical and cultural area that corresponds to the former province.
Today, the whole of the province of Auvergne is contained inside the administrative région of Auvergne, a région which also includes provinces and territories that were not part of Auvergne historically. The capital of the région of Auvergne is Clermont-Ferrand.
Auvergne was a province of France deriving its name from the Arverni, a Gallic tribe who once occupied the area, well known for its fierce resistance, led by Vercingetorix, to conquest by the Roman Empire. Christianized by Saint Austremoine, Auvergne was quite prosperous during the Roman ages. After a short time under the Visigoths, it was conquered by the Franks, in 507. The medieval times were for Auvergne a period of great development, especially between the 10th and 13th centuries, with the building of famous abbeys and churches in a Romanesque style. In the year 1095, the historic Council of Clermont was held there, to rally support for the First Crusade. Its wide autonomy was ended by King Philippe-Auguste of France, who linked it to the royal possessions. Hardly impacted by the Hundred Years war, the religion wars and epidemics, integrated to the kingdom of France, it turned itself more and more into an agricultural province, although reputed for its products. In 1790, the historical province was divided into the modern-day départements of Puy-de-Dôme, Cantal, Haute-Loire, and Allier, although Haute-Loire and Allier also include some land from the historical provinces of Bourbonnais, Lyonnais, and Velay.
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Auvergne (region)
Auvergne (French pronunciation: [ovɛʁɲ]; Occitan: Auvèrnhe / Auvèrnha) is one of the 27 administrative regions of France. It comprises the 4 departments of Allier, Puy de Dome, Cantal and Haute Loire.
The current administrative region of Auvergne is larger than the historical province of Auvergne, and includes provinces and areas that historically were not part of Auvergne. The Auvergne region is composed of the following old provinces:
Velay, Gévaudan, and Vivarais are often considered to be sub-provinces of the old Languedoc province. Forez is also often considered to be a sub-province of Lyonnais province. Therefore, the modern region of Auvergne is composed of the provinces of Auvergne, major part of Bourbonnais, and parts of Languedoc and Lyonnais.
The 2002 award-winning film, To Be and to Have (Être et avoir), documents one year in the life of a one-teacher school in rural Saint-Étienne-sur-Usson, Puy-de-Dôme, Auvergne.
The region contains many volcanoes, although the last confirmed eruption was around 6,000 years ago. They began forming some 70,000 years ago, and most have eroded away leaving plugs of unerupted hardened magma that form rounded hilltops known as puys.
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Berry (province)
Berry is a region located in the center of France. It was a province of France until the provinces were replaced by départements on 4 March 1790.
The Berry region now consists of the départements of Cher, Indre and parts of Vienne. The capital of Berry was Bourges. Berry is notable as the birthplace of several kings and other members of the French royal family, as well as of a number of famous writers, including Honoré de Balzac. In the Middle Ages it was the centre of the Duchy of Berry. It is also known for an illuminated manuscript produced in the 14th–15th century called Les Très riches heures du Duc de Berry.
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Bourbonnais
Bourbonnais (French pronunciation: [buʁbɔnɛ]; Occitan: Borbonés / Barbonés) was a historic province in the centre of France that corresponded to the modern département of Allier, along with part of the département of Cher. Its capital was Moulins.
Its first known lord was Adhémar (or Aymar) in the 10th century AD. He acquired the castle of Bourbon (today Bourbon-l'Archambault) which gave its name to the family, the House of Bourbon.
The first House of Bourbon ended in 1200 with the death of Archambault VII. It left only one heiress, Mahaut de Bourbon, whose husband, Guy II of Dampierre, added Montlucon to the possessions of the lords of Bourbon, extending to the River Cher during the 11th and 12th centuries.
The second house of Bourbon started in 1218 with Archambault VIII, son of Guy II and Mahaut, and brother of William II of Dampierre. He was followed by his son Archambaut IX, who died in Cyprus in 1249 during a crusade. Bourbonnais was then acquired by the House of Burgundy.
In 1272, Beatrice of Burgundy (1258-1310), Lady of Bourbon, married Robert de France (1256-1318), Count of Clermont, son of king Louis IX (Saint-Louis). It was the beginning of the long-lasting House of Bourbon, providing kings of France from Henry IV through Louis-Phillipe in 1848, when monarchy was abolished in France.
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Brittany
Brittany (French: Bretagne [bʁətaɲ] (
listen); Breton: Breizh, pronounced [brɛjs]; Gallo: Bertaèyn) is a cultural region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain (as opposed to Great Britain). Brittany is considered as one of the six Celtic nations.
Brittany occupies the northwest peninsula of continental Europe in northwest France. It is bordered by the English Channel to the north, the Celtic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the Bay of Biscay to the south. Its land area is 34,023 km² (13,136 sq mi). The historical province of Brittany is divided into five departments: Finistère in the west, Côtes-d'Armor in the north, Ille-et-Vilaine in the north east, Loire-Atlantique in the south east and Morbihan in the south on the Bay of Biscay.
In 1956, French regions were created by gathering departments between them. The Region of Brittany comprises, since then, four of the five Breton departments (80% of historical Brittany), while the remaining area of the old Brittany, the Loire-Atlantique department, around Nantes, forms part of the Pays de la Loire region. This territorial organisation is regularly contested. The Kingdom and the Duchy of Brittany, the province of Brittany, and the modern Region of Brittany cover the Western part of Armorica, as it was known during the period of Roman occupation.
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Béarn
Béarn (French pronunciation: [be.aʁn]; Gascon: Bearn or Biarn; Basque: Bearno) is one of the traditional provinces of France, located in the Pyrenees mountains and in the plain at their feet, in southwest France. Along with the three Basque provinces of Soule, Lower Navarre, and Labourd, the principality of Bidache, as well as small parts of Gascony and Bigorre, it forms in the southwest the current département of Pyrénées-Atlantiques (64). The capitals of Béarn were Beneharnum (until 841), Morlaàs (starting ca. 1100), Orthez (starting second half of 13th century), then Pau (beginning in the mid 15th century).
Béarn is bordered by Basque provinces Soule and Lower Navarre to the west, by Gascony (Landes and Armagnac) to the north, by Bigorre to the east, and by Spain (Aragon) to the south.
The name Béarn comes from Beneharnum, the capital city of the Venarni people, destroyed by Vikings by 840.
Today, the mainstays of the Béarn area are the petroleum business, the aerospace industry through the helicopter manufacturer Turbomeca, tourism and agriculture (much of which is corn grown for seed). Pau was the birthplace of Elf Aquitaine, which has now become a part of Total petroleum company.
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Champagne-Ardenne
Champagne-Ardenne (French pronunciation: [ʃɑ̃paɲ aʁdɛn]) is one of the 27 regions of France. It is located in the northeast of the country, bordering Belgium, and consists of four departments: Aube, Ardennes, Haute-Marne, and Marne. The region is famous for its sparkling white wine (champagne). Its rivers, most of which flow west, include the Seine, the Marne, and the Aisne. The Meuse flows north.
The rail network includes the Paris–Strasbourg line, which follows the Marne Valley and serves Épernay, Châlons-en-Champagne, and Vitry-le-François. The LGV Est TGV line also connecting Paris and Strasbourg opened in 2007 and serves Reims with a train station in the commune of Bezannes.
The region's canals include the Canal latéral à la Marne and Marne-Rhine Canal, the latter connecting to the Marne at Vitry-le-François. These are petit gabarit canals.
The Vatry International Airport, primarily dedicated to air freight, has a runway 3650 m long, yet it is often unused. The airport is in a sparsely populated area just 150 km from Paris. Some people say it is a good candidate for transformation into a third Parisian airport. Les verts (the French green party) supported such a move because the resulting noise pollution would affect fewer people than an airport closer to Paris.
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Comtat Venaissin
The Comtat Venaissin, often called the Comtat for short (Occitan: lo Comtat Venaicin, la Comtat in classical norm and lou Coumtat Venessin, la Coumtat in mistralian norm), is the former name of the region around the city of Avignon in what is now the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of France. It comprised roughly the area between the Rhône, the Durance and Mont Ventoux, with a small exclave located to the north around the town of Valréas. The entire region was an enclave within the Kingdom of France. The Comtat also bordered (and mostly surrounded) the Principality of Orange. Avignon itself was, however, never part of the Comtat but constituted a separate comtat (county) in its own right, in effect forming an enclave within an enclave. The region is still known informally as the Comtat Venaissin, although this no longer has any political meaning.
In 1096, the Comtat was part of the Margraviate of Provence that was inherited by Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse from William Bertrand of Provence. These lands in the Holy Roman Empire belonged to Joan, the hereditary Countess of Toulouse and wife of Alphonse, Count of Poitiers. Alphonse had bequeathed it to the Holy See on his death in 1271. Since this happened during the interregnum, there was no Holy Roman Emperor to protect Joan's rights. The Comtat became a Papal territory in 1274. The region was named after its former capital, Venasque, which was replaced as capital by Carpentras in 1320.
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Corsica
Corsica (
/ˈkɔːrsɪkə/; French: Corse, IPA: [kɔʁs]; Corsican: Corsica; Italian: Corsica, IPA: [ˈkɔrsika]) is a French island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the Italian island of Sardinia. Mountains comprise two-thirds of the island, forming a single chain.
Corsica is one of the 27 régions of France, although strictly speaking Corsica is designated as a territorial collectivity (collectivité territoriale) by law. As a territorial collectivity, it enjoys greater powers than other French régions, but for the most part its status is quite similar. Corsica is referred to as a "région" in common speech, and is almost always listed among the other régions of France.
Although the island is separated from the continental mainland by the Ligurian Sea and is closer to Italy than to the French mainland, politically Corsica is part of Metropolitan France. It was once briefly an independent Corsican Republic, until being incorporated into France in 1769. Its culture has French and Italian elements blended into it.
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County of Foix
The County of Foix (French pronunciation: [fwa]) was an independent medieval fief in southern France, and later a province of France, whose territory corresponded roughly the eastern part of the modern département of Ariège (the western part of Ariège being Couserans).
During the Middle Ages, the county of Foix was ruled by the counts of Foix, whose castle overlooks the town of Foix. In 1290 the counts of Foix acquired the viscountcy Béarn, which became the center of their domain, and from that time on the counts of Foix rarely resided in the county of Foix, preferring the richer and more verdant Béarn.
The county of Foix was an independent fief of the kingdom of France and consisted of an agglomeration of small holdings ruled by lords, who, though subordinate to the counts of Foix, had some voice in the government of the county.
The provincial-states of the county, which can be traced back to the 14th century, consisted of three orders and possessed considerable power and energy. In the 17th and 18th centuries Foix formed one of the thirty-three gouvernements, or military areas, of France and kept its provincial-states until the French Revolution. In 1790 it was joined with Couserans to form the département of Ariège.
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County of La Marche
The County of Marche (Occitan: la Marcha) was a medieval French county, approximately corresponding to the modern département of Creuse.
Marche first appeared as a separate fief about the middle of the 10th century, when William III, Duke of Aquitaine, gave it to one of his vassals named Boso, who took the title of count. In the 12th century, the countship passed to the family of Lusignan. They also were sometimes counts of Angoulême and counts of Limousin.
With the death of the childless Count Guy in 1308, his possessions in La Marche were seized by Philip IV of France. In 1316 the king made La Marche an appanage for his youngest son the Prince, afterwards Charles IV. Several years later in 1327, La Marche passed into the hands of the House of Bourbon. The family of Armagnac held it from 1435 to 1477, when it reverted to the Bourbons.
In 1527 La Marche was seized by Francis I and became part of the domains of the French crown. It was divided into Haute Marche and Basse Marche, the estates of the former continuing until the 17th century. From 1470 until the Revolution, the province was under the jurisdiction of the parlement of Paris.
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Dauphiné
The Dauphiné (pronounced: [dofine]) or Dauphiné Viennois is a former province in southeastern France, whose area roughly corresponded to that of the present departments of Isère, Drôme, and Hautes-Alpes. The Dauphiné (also called Dauphiny in ancient English) was an independent state from 1040 to 1349, under the rule of the Counts of Albon, before joining the Kingdom of France. As a French province, it maintained its autonomy until 1457.
The historical capital is Grenoble and the other main towns are Vienne, Valence, Montélimar, Gap and Romans-sur-Isère.
Its inhabitants are called Dauphinois.
Le Dauphiné Libéré is a famous regional French newspaper, and organized the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré (now known as the Critérium du Dauphiné) cycle stage race prior to 2010.
Under the Ancien Régime, the province was bordered in the North by the River Rhône which separated the Dauphiné from the Bresse ("Brêsse") and Bugey ("Bugê"). To the east it bordered the Savoy and Piedmont, and to the south the Comtat Venaissin and Provence. The western border was marked by the Rhône to the south of Lyon. The Dauphiné extended up to what is now the centre of Lyon.
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Dordogne
Dordogne (French pronunciation: [dɔʁ.dɔɲ]; Occitan: Dordonha) is a départment in south-west France. The départment is located in the region of Aquitaine, between the Loire valley and the High Pyrénées named after the great Dordogne River that runs through it. It roughly corresponds with the ancient county of Périgord.
The county of Périgord dates back to when the area was inhabited by the Gauls, it was home to four tribes, the name for "four tribes" in the Gaulish language was "Petrocore". The area eventually became known as the county of Le Périgord and its inhabitants became known as the Périgordins (or Périgourdins). There are four Périgords in the Dordogne: the "Périgord Vert" (Green Périgord) with its main town of Nontron, consists of verdant valleys in a region crossed by many rivers and streams; the "Périgord Blanc" (White Périgord) situated around the department's capital of Périgueux, is a region of limestone plateaux, wide valleys and meadows; the "Périgord Pourpre" (Purple Périgord) with its capital of Bergerac, is a wine region; and the "Périgord Noir" (Black Périgord) surrounding the administrative center of Sarlat, overlooks the valleys of the Vézère and the Dordogne, where the woods of oak and pine give it its name.
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Flanders
Flanders (Dutch: Vlaanderen (help·info)) is the (political) community of the Flemings, one of the communities of Belgium, and also a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands.
"Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp. Over the course of history, the geographical territory that was called "Flanders" has varied. In the second half of the twentieth century, there has been a gradual shift of political and economic power from French-speaking Wallonia (which was industrialized earlier) to the Flemish.
To the English-speaking peoples, Flanders meant historically (from circa 1000 AD) the land situated along the North Sea from the Strait of Dover to the Scheldt estuary. The southern borders were generally ill-defined. Over the last millennium, it was mostly the southern and western borders that receded to give the present day borders within northern Belgium.
Flanders has figured prominently in European history. Between the early 17th century and 1945, the political outcomes of modern Spain, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria were often decided by battles on the plains of Flanders. Even earlier in British and Irish history, the Flemings (or Flemish) were important allies of the Normans in their conquest of England (1066) and invasion of Ireland (1169–71).
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Forez
Forez is a former province of France, corresponding approximately to the central part of the modern Loire département and a part of the Haute-Loire and Puy-de-Dôme départements.
The final "z" in Forez (French pronunciation: [fɔʁe]) is not pronounced in the Loire département, however, it is pronounced in the western part of the former province, essentially when referring to the correspondent Forez Mountains (on the border between Puy-de-Dôme and Loire. The name is derived from the city of Feurs. Franco-Provençal is the language that was historically spoken in the region.
Residents of the Forez are called Foréziens.
The rue du Forez in the third arrondissement of Paris was built in the late 16th century and appears on Turgot's map of Paris.
Coordinates: 45°44′30″N 4°13′36″E / 45.741667°N 4.226667°E / 45.741667; 4.226667
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France
France (English
i/ˈfræns/ FRANSS or /ˈfrɑːns/ FRAHNSS; French: [fʁɑ̃s] ( listen)), officially the French Republic (French: République française [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is often referred to as l’Hexagone ("The Hexagon") because of the geometric shape of its territory. It is the largest western European country and it possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone in the world, covering 11,035,000 km2 (4,260,000 sq mi), just behind that of the United States (11,351,000 km2 / 4,383,000 sq mi).
Over the past 500 years, France has been a major power with strong cultural, economic, military and political influence in Europe and around the world. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonised great parts of North America and Southeast Asia; during the 19th and early 20th centuries, France built the second largest colonial empire of the time, including large portions of North, West and Central Africa, Southeast Asia, and many Caribbean and Pacific Islands.
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Franche-Comté
Franche-Comté (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃ʃ kɔ̃te]; Franc-Comtois: Fraintche-Comtè; Arpitan: Franche-Comtât) the former "Free County" of Burgundy, as distinct from the neighbouring Duchy, is an administrative region and a traditional province of eastern France. It is composed of the modern departments of Doubs, Jura, Haute-Saône and Territoire de Belfort and has a population of 1,159,000 (2008).
The principal cities are the capital Besançon, Belfort, and Montbéliard (Aire Urbaine Belfort-Montbéliard-Héricourt-Delle). Other important cities are Dole (capital before the region was conquered by Louis XIV in the late 17th century), Vesoul (capital of Haute-Saône), Arbois (the "wine capital" of the Jura), and Lons-le-Saunier (capital of Jura).
The region has been inhabited since the Paleolithic age and was occupied by the Gauls. Little touched by the Germanic migrations, it was part of the territory of the Alamanni in the 5th century, then the Kingdom of Burgundy from 457 to 534. It was Christianized through the influence of St. Columbanus, who founded several monasteries there. In 534, it became part of the Frankish kingdom. In 561 it was included in the Merovingian Kingdom of Burgundy, under Guntram, the third son of Clotaire I. In 613, Clotaire II reunited the Frankish Kingdom under his rule, and the region remained a part of the Kingdom of Burgundy under the later Merovingians and Carolingians.
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Gascony
Gascony ( /ˈɡæskəni/; French: Gascogne [ɡaskɔɲ]; Gascon: Gasconha [ɡasˈkuɲɔ]) is an area of southwest France that was part of the "Province of Guyenne and Gascony" prior to the French Revolution. The region is vaguely defined and the distinction between Guyenne and Gascony is unclear; sometimes they are considered to overlap, and sometimes Gascony is considered a part of Guyenne. Most definitions put Gascony east and south of Bordeaux.
It is currently divided between the Aquitaine région (départements of Landes, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, south and west of Gironde, and south of Lot-et-Garonne) and the Midi-Pyrénées région (départements of Gers, Hautes-Pyrénées, southwest of Tarn-et-Garonne, and west of Haute-Garonne).
Gascony was historically inhabited by Basque-related people who appear to have spoken a language similar to Basque. The name Gascony comes from the same root as the word Basque (see Wasconia below). From medieval times until the nineteenth century, the Gascon language was spoken, which is a regional variant of the Occitan Language. It is also the land of d'Artagnan, who inspired Alexandre Dumas's character in The Three Musketeers. It is also home to the hero of the play Cyrano de Bergerac (though this character has little in common with the real Cyrano de Bergerac, who was a Parisian) and to Henry III of Navarre who later became king of France as Henry IV.
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Gironde
For the Revolutionary party, see Girondists.
Gironde (French pronunciation: [ʒiʁɔ̃d]; in Gascon Gironda) is a common name for the Gironde estuary, where the mouths of the Garonne and Dordogne rivers merge, and for a department in the Aquitaine region situated in southwest France. The Bordeaux wine region is in the Gironde.
Gironde is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Guyenne and Gascogne.
From 1793 to 1795, the department's name was changed to Bec-d'Ambès to avoid the association with the revolutionary party, the Girondists.
Gironde is part of the current region of Aquitaine and is surrounded by the departments of Landes, Lot-et-Garonne, Dordogne and Charente-Maritime and the Atlantic Ocean on the west. With an area of 10,000 km², Gironde is the largest department in metropolitan France. If overseas departments are included, however, Gironde's land area is dwarfed by the 83,846 km² of Guyane.
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Guadeloupe
Coordinates: 16°15′N 61°35′W / 16.25°N 61.583°W / 16.25; -61.583
Guadeloupe ( /ɡwɑːdəˈluːp/; French pronunciation: [ɡwadəlup]; Antillean Creole: Gwadloup) is a Caribbean island located in the Leeward Islands, in the Lesser Antilles, with a land area of 1,628 square kilometres (629 sq. mi) and a population of 400,000. It is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. Its departmental code is "971". As the other overseas departments, Guadeloupe is also an integral part of the Republic. Besides Guadeloupe island, the smaller islands of Marie-Galante, La Désirade, and the Îles des Saintes are included in Guadeloupe.
As part of France, Guadeloupe is part of the European Union and the Eurozone; hence, as for all Eurozone countries, its currency is the euro. However, Guadeloupe is not part of the Schengen Area. The prefecture and the capital of Guadeloupe is Basse-Terre. Christopher Columbus named the island Santa María de Guadalupe in 1493 after the Virgin Mary, venerated in the Spanish town of Guadalupe, in Extremadura.
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Guyenne
Guyenne ( /ɡwiːˈjɛn/; French: [ɡɥijɛn]; Occitan: Guiana [ˈɡjanɔ]) or Guienne is a vaguely defined historic region of south-western France. The Province of Guyenne, sometimes called the Province of Guyenne and Gascony, was a large province of pre-revolutionary France.
The name Guyenne comes from the Occitan Guiana, which is itself a corruption of the word Aquitaine. However the words Aquitaine and Guyenne came to indicate different entities. The region of Guyenne also became confused with the region of Gascony until this took on a distinct identity in the 17th Century. From this time "Guyenne and Gascony" was a common term corresponding roughly to modern northern Aquitaine.
The Duchy of Guyenne appears for the first time in the Treaty of Paris of 1229 which brought an end to the Albigensian Crusade, and may have been actually created by that treaty. The capital was Bordeaux. The Duchy was under the Kings of England, as Guyenne had been since 1154, and remained an English vassal until 1453. In 1453 it became land directly under the French Crown, except from 1469 to 1472 when it was granted to Charles de Valois (until his death).
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Landes (department)
Landes (French pronunciation: [lɑ̃d]; Gascon : Lanas or Lanes) is a département in southern France.
Landes is one of the original 83 départements that were created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from parts of the provinces of Guyenne and Gascony.
During the first part of the nineteenth century large parts of the department were covered with poorly drained heathland (lande in French) which is the origin of its name. The vegetation covered rich soil and was periodically burned off, leaving excellent pasturage for sheep, which around 1850 are thought to have numbered between 900,000 and 1,000,000 in this area. The sheep were managed by shepherds who moved around on stilts and became proficient at covering long distances thus supported. Most of the sheep departed during the second half of the nineteenth century when systematic development of large pine plantations transformed the landscape and the local economy.
The Nobel Prize winning novelist François Mauriac set his novels in the Landes.
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Languedoc
Languedoc (/ˌlɒŋɡəˈdɒk/; French: [lɑ̃ɡdɔk]; Occitan: Lengadòc [ˌleŋɡɔˈðɔ]) is a former province of France, now continued in the modern-day régions of Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées in the south of France, and whose capital city was Toulouse, now in Midi-Pyrénées. It had an area of approximately 42,700 km² (16,490 sq. miles).
The traditional provinces of the kingdom of France were not formally defined. A province was simply a territory of common traditions and customs, but it had no political organization. Today, when people refer to the old provinces of France, they actually refer to the gouvernements as they existed in 1789. Gouvernements were military regions established in the middle of the 16th century and whose territories closely matched those of the traditional provinces. However, in some cases, small provinces had been merged with a large one into a single gouvernement, so gouvernements are not exactly the same as the traditional provinces.
Historically, the region was called the county of Toulouse, a county independent from the kings of France. The county of Toulouse was made up of what would later be called Languedoc, but it also included the province of Quercy (now département of Lot and northern half of the département of Tarn-et-Garonne) and the province of Rouergue (now département of Aveyron), both to the northwest of Languedoc. At some times it even included the province of Agenais (now eastern half of the département of Lot-et-Garonne) to the west of Languedoc, the province of Gévaudan (now département of Lozère), the province of Velay (now the central and eastern part of the département of Haute-Loire), the southern part of the province of Vivarais (now the southern part of the département of Ardèche), and even all the northern half of Provence. After the French conquest the entire county was dismantled, the central part of it being now called Languedoc.
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Languedoc-Roussillon
Languedoc-Roussillon (French pronunciation: [lɑ̃ɡdɔk ʁusijɔ̃]; Occitan: Lengadòc-Rosselhon; Catalan: Llenguadoc-Rosselló) is one of the 27 regions of France. It comprises five departments, and borders the other French regions of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Rhône-Alpes, Auvergne, Midi-Pyrénées on the one side, and Spain, Andorra and the Mediterranean sea on the other side.
The region is made up of the following historical provinces:
Llívia is a town of Cerdanya, province of Girona, Catalonia, Spain, that forms a Spanish exclave surrounded by French territory (Pyrénées-Orientales département).
At the regional elections in March 2004, the socialist mayor of Montpellier Georges Frêche, a maverick in French politics[citation needed], defeated its center-right president. Since then, Georges Frêche has embarked on a complete overhaul of the region and its institutions. The flag of the region, which displayed the cross of Languedoc as well as the Flag of Roussillon (the "Senyera"), was changed for a new flag with no reference to the old provinces, except in terms of the colors (red and yellow), which are the colors of both Languedoc and all the territories from the former Crown of Aragon.
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Loire
Loire (French pronunciation: [lwaʁ]; Arpitan: Lêre; Occitan: Léger) is an administrative department in the east-central part of France occupying the River Loire's upper reaches.
Loire was created in 1793 when after just 3½ years the young Rhône-et-Loire department was split into two. This was a response to counter-Revolutionary activities in Lyon which, by population, was the country's second largest city. By splitting Rhône-et-Loire the government sought to protect the French Revolution from the potential power and influence of counter revolutionary activity in the Lyon region.
The departmental capitals have been / are as follows:
Loire is part of the current administrative region of Rhône-Alpes and is surrounded by the departments of Rhône, Isère, Ardèche, Haute-Loire, Puy-de-Dôme, Allier, and Saône-et-Loire.
The River Loire traverses the department from south to north.
The Loire department is split into three arrondissements:
Parts of the department belong to Parc naturel régional Livradois-Forez.
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Lorraine (region)
Lorraine (French pronunciation: [lɔʁɛn]; Lorrain: Louréne; Lorraine Franconian: Lottringe; German: Lothringen) is one of the 27 régions of France. The administrative region has two cities of equal importance, Metz and Nancy. Metz is considered to be the official capital since that is where the regional parliament is situated. The region's name is derived from the medieval Lotharingia.
The region consists of four departments: Meurthe-et-Moselle, Meuse, Moselle and Vosges and contains 2,337 communes.
The borders of the area called Lorraine changed much in its long history. In 843, Charlemagne had died, and the Holy Roman Empire was divided among his three grandsons. One of them was Lothair, and his realm, reaching from Frisia to Rome, was called Lotharingia. In 870, it was decided that the realm should be a duchy within the kingdom of East Francia. In 962, when Otto the Great restored the Empire (restauratio imperii), Lorraine remained a duchy within the Holy Roman Empire until 1766.
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Lot et Garonne
Lot-et-Garonne (French: [lɔt‿e ɡaʁɔn], Occitan: Òlt e Garona) is a department in the southwest of France named after the Lot and Garonne rivers.
Lot-et-Garonne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from part of the provinces of Guyenne and Gascogne.
Several of the original southeastern cantons in the arrondissements of Agen and Villeneuve-sur-Lot were separated from it in 1808 to become a part of the newly ceated department of Tarn-et-Garonne.
Lot-et-Garonne is part of the current region of Aquitaine and is surrounded by the departments of Lot, Tarn-et-Garonne, Gers, Landes, Gironde, and Dordogne.
Food-processing, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals are all major industries of the department.
The inhabitants of the department are called Lot-et-Garonnais.
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Lot-et-Garonne
Lot-et-Garonne (French: [lɔt‿e ɡaʁɔn], Occitan: Òlt e Garona) is a department in the southwest of France named after the Lot and Garonne rivers.
Lot-et-Garonne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from part of the provinces of Guyenne and Gascogne.
Several of the original southeastern cantons in the arrondissements of Agen and Villeneuve-sur-Lot were separated from it in 1808 to become a part of the newly ceated department of Tarn-et-Garonne.
Lot-et-Garonne is part of the current region of Aquitaine and is surrounded by the departments of Lot, Tarn-et-Garonne, Gers, Landes, Gironde, and Dordogne.
Food-processing, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals are all major industries of the department.
The inhabitants of the department are called Lot-et-Garonnais.
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Lower Navarre
Lower Navarre (Basque: Nafarroa Beherea or Baxenabarre, French: Basse-Navarre, Spanish: Baja Navarra) is a part of the present day Pyrénées Atlantiques département of France. Along with Navarre of Spain, it was once ruled by the Kings of Navarre. Lower Navarre was historically one of the kingdoms of Navarre. Its capital were Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and Saint-Palais. In the extreme north there was the little sovereign principality of Bidache.
Its extent is of 1,284 km2, and has a decreasing population of 44,450 (in 1901), 25,356 (in 1990).
Although this denomination is not completely correct from the historical point of view, it is also known as Merindad de Ultrapuertos ("the regions beyond the mountain passes") by the southerners, and Deça-ports ("this side of the mountain passes") by the gascon-speakers.
Lower Navarre is a collection of valleys in the foothills of the Pyrenees. The Aldudes valley, around the town of Saint-Étienne-de-Baïgorry in the south of Lower Navarre, preserves many old traditions, with houses of pink sandstone and contests of Force Basque, the games of strength. The Irouléguy wines are produced in the area around the town of Irouléguy.
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Lower Normandy
Lower Normandy (French: Basse-Normandie, IPA: [bas nɔr.mɑ̃.di]; Norman: Basse-Normaundie) is an administrative region of France. It was created in 1956, when the Normandy region was divided into Lower Normandy and Upper Normandy. The region includes three departments, Calvados, Manche and Orne, that cover the part of Normandy traditionally termed "Lower Normandy" lying west of the Dives River, the Pays d'Auge (except a small part remaining in Upper Normandy), a small part of the Pays d'Ouche (the main part remaining in Upper Normandy), the Norman Perche and part of the "French" Perche. It covers 10,857 km2, 3.2 percent of the surface area of France.
The traditional districts of Lower Normandy include the Cotentin Peninsula and La Hague, the Campagne de Caen, the Norman Bocage, the Bessin and the Avranchin.
The traditional province of Normandy, with an integral history reaching back to the 10th century, was divided in 1957 into two regions: Lower Normandy and Upper Normandy.
During the Roman era, the region was divided into several different city-states. That of Vieux was excavated in the 17th century, revealing numerous structures and vestiges bearing testimony to the prosperity of the Caen region.
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Maine (province)
Le Maine is one of the traditional provinces of France (not to be confused with La Maine, the river). It corresponds to the old county of Maine, with its center, the city of Le Mans. The area, now divided into the departments of Sarthe and Mayenne, contains about 857,000 inhabitants.
Bordering the county of Anjou in the south and the Duchy of Normandy in the north, Maine was a small matter of contention between the rulers of these more powerful principalities.
Sometime between 1045 and 1047 Hugh IV married Bertha, daughter of Odo II of Blois. The Angevins did not want Maine to come under the influence of Blois, and Count Geoffrey Martel invaded Maine. The Normans had just as little desire to see Maine return to the Angevin orbit, and they too were pulled into the conflict. The precise chronology is disputed, but it is clear that in 1051 Hugh IV died and the citizens of Le Mans opened their gate to the Angevins. Anjou wound up with effective control of most of the county, but the Normans did take several important strongholds on the Maine–Normandy border.
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Martinique
Martinique (French pronunciation: [maʁtinik]) is an island in the Lesser Antilles in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of 1,128 km2 (436 sq mi). Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados. As with the other overseas departments, Martinique is one of the twenty-seven regions of France (being an overseas region) and an integral part of the Republic. The first European to encounter the island was Christopher Columbus in 1502.
As part of France, Martinique is part of the European Union, and its currency is the Euro. Its official language is French, although many of its inhabitants also speak Antillean Creole (Créole Martiniquais).
The island was occupied first by Arawaks, then by Caribs. It was charted by Columbus in 1493, but Spain had little interest in the territory. It was claimed by France in 1635 and, despite several interludes of British occupation, once during the Seven Years' War and twice during the Napoleonic Wars, has remained a French possession. In 1946, the French National Assembly voted unanimously to transform the colony into an overseas department.
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Mayotte
Mayotte (French: Mayotte, pronounced: [majɔt]; Shimaore: Maore, IPA: [maˈore]; Malagasy: Mahori) is an overseas department and region of France consisting of a main island, Grande-Terre (or Mahoré), a smaller island, Petite-Terre (or Pamanzi), and several islets around these two. The archipelago is located in the northern Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean, namely between northwestern Madagascar and northeastern Mozambique. Mayotte's area is 374 square kilometres (144 sq mi), and with its estimated 194,000 people is very densely populated (520 /km2 or 1,300 /sq mi). Its biggest city and prefecture is Mamoudzou. The territory is geographically part of the Comoro Islands, but has been politically separate since a 1974 referendum in which it elected to remain under French rule. The territory is also known as Mahoré, the native name of its main island, especially by advocates of its inclusion in the Union of Comoros. In a 2009 referendum, the population overwhelmingly approved accession to status of department (95.2% voted in favour of departmental status). On March 31, 2011, Mayotte became an overseas department.
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Midi-Pyrénées
Midi-Pyrénées (French: [midi piʁene] ( listen); Occitan: Miègjorn-Pirenèus or Mieidia-Pirenèus) is the largest region of metropolitan France by area, larger than the Netherlands or Denmark.
Midi-Pyrénées has no historical or geographical unity. It is one of the regions of France created in the late 20th century to serve as a hinterland and zone of influence for its capital, Toulouse, one of a handful of so-called "balancing metropolises" (métropoles d'équilibre). Another example of this is the region of Rhône-Alpes which was created as the region for Lyon.
The name chosen for the new region was decided by the French government without reference to the historical provinces (too many of them inside the region) and based on geography: Midi (i.e. "southern France") - Pyrénées (Pyrénées mountains that serve as the region's southern boundary). The French adjective and name of the inhabitants of the region is: Midi-Pyrénéen.
Historically, Midi-Pyrénées is made up of several former French provinces:
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Nivernais
Nivernais (French pronunciation: [nivɛʁnɛ]) is former province of France, around the city of Nevers and the département of Nièvre.
The raw climate and soils cause the area to be heavily wooded.
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Nord-Pas-de-Calais
Nord-Pas de Calais (French pronunciation: [nɔʁ pa də kalɛ] ( listen); Dutch: Noord-Nauw van Calais), Nord for short, is one of the 27 regions of France. It consists of the departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais, in the north and has a border with Belgium. Most of the region was once part of the Southern Netherlands, within the Low Countries, and gradually became part of France between 1477 and 1678. The historical provinces now included in Nord-Pas-de-Calais are Artois, Boulonnais, Calaisis, Cambraisis, French Flanders, French Hainaut and portions of northern Picardy, and the regional nickname Bassin Minier or Meiners-Bassen (Miners' or Mining Basin in the region's two languages) derived from historically large mining deposits. These provincial designations are still frequently used by the inhabitants, which offers a sense of civic pride.
With its 323.7 people per km2 on just over 12,400 km2, it is a densely populated region, having some four million inhabitants—seven percent of France's total population, making it the fourth most populous region in the country—83% of whom live in urban communities. Its administrative centre and largest city is Lille. The second largest city is Calais, which serves as a major continental economic/transportation hub with Dover of Great Britain 42 kilometres (26 mi) away; the White Cliffs of Dover are visible from Calais on a clear day. Other major towns include Valenciennes, Lens, Douai, Béthune, Dunkirk, Maubeuge, Boulogne, Arras, Cambrai and Saint-Omer.
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Orléanais
Orléanais (French pronunciation: [ɔʁleanɛ]) is a former province of France, around the cities of Orléans, Chartres, and Blois.
The name comes from Orléans, its main city and traditional capital. The province was one of those into which France was divided before the French Revolution. It was the country around Orléans, the pagus Aurelianensis; it lay on both banks of the Loire, and for ecclesiastical purposes formed the diocese of Orléans. It was in the possession of the Capet family before the advent of Hugh Capet to the throne of France in 987, and in 1344 Philip VI gave it with the title of duke to Philip of Valois (d. 1375), one of his younger sons. In a geographical sense the region around Orléans is sometimes known as the Orléanais, but this is somewhat smaller than the former province.
Orléanais was also a dialect of the French language spoken in the province of Orléanais until the beginning of the 19th century.
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Pamplona
Pamplona (Spanish: [pamˈplona]) or Iruña (Basque: [iɾuɲa], alternative spelling: Iruñea, IPA: [iɾuɲea]) is the historical capital city of Navarre, in Spain, and of the former Kingdom of Navarre.
The city is famous worldwide for the San Fermín festival, from July 6 to 14, in which the running of the bulls is one of the main attractions. This festival was brought to literary renown with the 1926 publication of Ernest Hemingway's novel, The Sun Also Rises.
After the 2011 municipal elections, there are 27 councillors in Pamplona Municipality: eleven of Navarrese People's Union (Unión del Pueblo Navarro), seven of Nafarroa Bai, three of Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, three of Bildu, two of People's Party, and one of Izquierda-Ezkerra.
Pamplona is located in the middle of Navarre in a rounded valley, known as the Basin of Pamplona, that links the mountainous North with the Ebro valley. It is 92 kilometres from the city of San Sebastián, 117 kilometres from Bilbao, 735 kilometres from Paris and 407 kilometres from Madrid. The climate and landscape of the basin is a transition between those two main Navarrese geographical regions. Its central position at crossroads has served as a commercial link between those very different natural parts of Navarre.
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Pays de la Loire
Pays de la Loire (French pronunciation: [pɛ.i də la lwaʁ]; Breton: Broioù al Liger) is one of the 27 regions of France. It is one of the regions created in the late 20th century to serve as a zone of influence for its capital, Nantes, one of a handful so-called "balancing metropolises" (métropoles d'équilibre)¹. Other examples of "artificially created" regions include Rhône-Alpes, which was created as the region for Lyon, and Midi-Pyrénées, which was created as the region for Toulouse.
Pays de la Loire is made up of the following historical provinces:
Consequently, the name of the region, chosen by the French central government, was not based on history, but purely on geographical references: Pays (i.e. "lands") de la Loire (i.e. "of the Loire River"). However, the majority of the famous châteaux of the Loire Valley are located in the Centre region, and not inside Pays de la Loire, despite the confusing name. The Pays de la Loire present many great monuments as the castles of Angers, Laval, Mayenne and the Nantes "Château des Ducs de Bretagne", the Royal Fontevraud Abbey (the widest monastic ensemble in Europe), the old city of Le Mans, and also many natural parks such as the Brière and the Marsh of Poitou.
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Picardy
Picardy (French: Picardie, French pronunciation: [pikaʁdi]) is one of the 27 regions of France. It is located in the northern part of France.
The historical province of Picardy stretched from north of Noyon to Calais, via the whole of the Somme department and the north of the Aisne department. The province of Artois (Arras area) separated Picardy from French Flanders.
In the 5th century the area was occupied by the Franks, and in the feudal period it encompassed the six countships of Boulogne, Montreuil, Ponthieu, Amiénois, Vermandois, and Laonnois.
The name "Picardy" (which may have referred to a Frankish tribe of picards or pike-bearers) was not used until the 12th or 13th century. During this time, the name applied to all lands where the Picard language was spoken, which included all the territories from Paris to the Netherlands. In the Latin Quarter of Paris, people identified a "Picard Nation" (Nation Picarde) of students at Sorbonne University, most of whom actually came from Flanders.
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Picardy (region)
Picardy (French: Picardie, French pronunciation: [pikaʁdi]) is one of the 27 regions of France. It is located in the northern part of France.
The historical province of Picardy stretched from north of Noyon to Calais, via the whole of the Somme department and the north of the Aisne department. The province of Artois (Arras area) separated Picardy from French Flanders.
In the 5th century the area was occupied by the Franks, and in the feudal period it encompassed the six countships of Boulogne, Montreuil, Ponthieu, Amiénois, Vermandois, and Laonnois.
The name "Picardy" (which may have referred to a Frankish tribe of picards or pike-bearers) was not used until the 12th or 13th century. During this time, the name applied to all lands where the Picard language was spoken, which included all the territories from Paris to the Netherlands. In the Latin Quarter of Paris, people identified a "Picard Nation" (Nation Picarde) of students at Sorbonne University, most of whom actually came from Flanders.
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Poitou
Poitou (French pronunciation: [pwatu]) was a province of west-central France whose capital city was Poitiers.
The region of Poitou was called Thifalia (or Theiphalia) in the sixth century.
There is a marshland called the Poitevin Marsh (French Marais Poitevin) on the Gulf of Poitou, on the west coast of France, just north of La Rochelle and west of Niort.
Many of the Acadians who settled in what is now Nova Scotia beginning in 1604 and later to New Brunswick, came from the region of Poitou. After the Acadians were deported by the British beginning in 1755, a number of Acadians eventually took refuge in Poitou and in Québec. A large portion of these refugees also migrated to Louisiana in 1785 and following years became known as Cajuns (see Cajuns).
Perhaps paradoxically, during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries Poitou had been a hotbed of Huguenot (French Calvinist) activity among the nobility and bourgeoisie and was severely impacted by the French Wars of Religion (1562–1598).
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Poitou-Charentes
Poitou-Charentes (French pronunciation: [pwatu ʃaʁɑ̃t] ( listen)) is an administrative region in central western France comprising four departments: Charente, Charente-Maritime, Deux-Sèvres and Vienne. The regional capital is Poitiers.
The regional council is composed of 56 members. The region is the home of France's losing presidential candidate Socialist Ségolène Royal in the election of 2007.
In French its residents are known as Picto-Charentais. In 2003, the region ranked 15th out of 26 in population. In area it ranked 12th in size.
Three regional languages, Poitevin, Saintongeais and Limousin are spoken by a minority of people in the region.
Poitou is believed to be the region of origin of most of the Acadian and Cajun populations of North America (settlements founded in New Brunswick, Louisiana, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, the Gaspe Peninsula of Quebec, Maine and Newfoundland). Their ancestors emigrated from the region in the 17th and 18th centuries.
At first, these French immigrants from Poitou settled in eastern Canada, and established an agricultural and maritime economy (farming and fishing). This area of the "New World" was dubbed Acadia by the French, after the Greek Arcadia - the idyllic part of the Peloponnesian peninsula in Greece. It was renamed Nova Scotia (New Scotland) in the aftermath of the 1755 expulsion of most of the Acadians by the English.
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Pyrenees
Coordinates: 42°40′N 1°00′E / 42.667°N 1°E / 42.667; 1
The Pyrenees ( /ˈpɪərɨniːz/; Spanish: Pirineos or Pirineo, French: Pyrénées, Catalan: Pirineus, Occitan: Pirenèus, Aragonese: Perinés, Basque: Pirinioak or Auñamendiak), also spelled Pyrénées, is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain. It separates the Iberian Peninsula from the rest of continental Europe, and extends for about 491 km (305 mi) from the Bay of Biscay (Cap Higuer) to the Mediterranean (Cap de Creus).
For the most part, the main crest forms a massive divider between France and Spain, with the tiny country of Andorra sandwiched in between. Catalonia and Navarre have historically extended on both sides of the mountain range, with small northern portions now in France and much larger southern parts now in Spain.
The adjective related to the noun "Pyrenees" in English is Pyrenean.
In classical mythology, Pyrene is a princess who gave her name to the Pyrenees. The Greek historian Herodotus says Pyrene is the name of a town in Celtic Europe. According to Silius Italicus, she was the virginal daughter of Bebryx, a king in Mediterranean Gaul by whom the hero Hercules was given hospitality during his quest to steal the cattle of Geryon during his famous Labors. Hercules, characteristically drunk and lustful, violates the sacred code of hospitality and rapes his host's daughter. Pyrene gives birth to a serpent and runs away to the woods, afraid that her father will be angry. Alone, she pours out her story to the trees, attracting the attention instead of wild beasts who tear her to pieces.
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Pyrénées-Atlantiques
Pyrénées-Atlantiques (French pronunciation: [pi.ʁe.ne.at.lɑ̃.tik]; Gascon: Pirenèus-Atlantics; Basque: Pirinio-Atlantiarrak or Pirinio-Atlantikoak) is a department in the southwest of France which takes its name from the Pyrenees mountains and the Atlantic Ocean.
Basses-Pyrénées is one of the original 83 departments of France created during the French Revolution, on March 4, 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Guyenne, Béarn, and Gascony and included the three traditional provinces of the northern Basque Country: Labourd, Soule, and Basse-Navarre. It also included two tiny exclaves of Bigorre which were located within Béarn.
The previous history of the region, under the Ancien Régime, can be found at those individual articles.
On October 10, 1969, Basses-Pyrénées was renamed Pyrénées-Atlantiques.
Pyrénées-Atlantiques is part of the Aquitaine region of Southwest France. It is bordered by the Landes, Hautes-Pyrénées, Gers departments and the Bay of Biscay.
Principal settlements include Pau, Oloron-Sainte-Marie, Orthez, Biarritz, Bayonne, Anglet, Urrugne, Saint-Jean-de-Luz and Hendaye.
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Réunion
Réunion (French: La Réunion, IPA: [la 'ʁeynjɔ̃] ( listen); previously Île Bourbon) is a French island with a population of about 800,000 located in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, about 200 kilometres (120 mi) south west of Mauritius, the nearest island.
Administratively, Réunion is one of the overseas departments of France. Like the other overseas departments, Réunion is also one of the 27 regions of France (being an overseas region) and an integral part of the Republic with the same status as those situated on the European mainland.
Réunion is an outermost region of the European Union and, as an overseas department of France, is part of the Eurozone.
Before the arrival of the Portuguese in the early sixteenth century, there is little to Réunion's recorded history. Arab traders were familiar with it by the name Dina Morgabin,. The island possibly features on a map from 1153 AD by Al Sharif el-Edrisi. The island may also have been visited by Swahili or Malay sailors.
The first European discovery of the area was made around 1507 by Portuguese explorers, but the specifics are unclear. The uninhabited island may have been first sighted by the expedition led by Don Pedro Mascarenhas, who gave his name to the island group around Réunion, the Mascarenes. Réunion itself was dubbed Santa Apolonia after a favorite saint, which suggests that the date of the Portuguese discovery may have been February 9, her saint day. Diego Lopes de Sequeira is claimed to have landed on the island in 1509.
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Savoy
Savoy (/ˈsævɔɪ/; Arpitan: Savouè, IPA: [saˈvwɛ]; French: Savoie, IPA: [savwa]; Italian: Savoia) is a region of France. It comprises roughly the territory of the Western Alps situated between Lake Geneva in the north and Dauphiné in the south.
The historical land of Savoy emerged as the feudal territory of the house of Savoy during the 11th to 14th centuries. The historical territory is shared between the modern republics of France and Italy.
Installed by Rudolph III, King of Burgundy, officially in 1003, the House of Savoy became the longest surviving royal house in Europe.[citation needed] It ruled the County of Savoy to 1416 and then the Duchy of Savoy from 1416 to 1714.
The territory of Savoy was annexed to France in 1792 under the French First Republic, before being returned to the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in 1815. Savoy was finally annexed to France, under the Second French Empire in 1860, as part of a political agreement brokered between the French emperor Napoleon III and King Victor Emmanuel II of the Kingdom of Sardinia that began the process of unification of Italy. Victor Emmanuel's dynasty, the House of Savoy, retained its Italian lands of Piedmont and Liguria and became the ruling dynasty of Italy.
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Southampton
Southamptoni/saʊθˈhæmptən/ is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated 120 kilometres (75 mi) south-west of London and 30 kilometres (19 mi) north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest. It lies at the northernmost point of Southampton Water at the confluence of the River Test and River Itchen, with the River Hamble joining to the south of the urban area. The local authority is Southampton City Council, which is a unitary authority.
The city represents the core of the Greater Southampton region, and the city itself has an estimated population of 239,700 Southampton combines with Portsmouth to form a single metropolitan area; with a population of over a million this makes the region one of the United Kingdom's most populous metropolitan areas. The city's name is sometimes abbreviated in writing to "So'ton" or "Soton", and a resident of Southampton is called a Sotonian.
Significant employers in Southampton include the University of Southampton, Southampton Airport, the Ford Transit factory, Ordnance Survey, BBC South, the NHS, ABP and Carnival. Southampton is noted for its association with the RMS Titanic, the Spitfire and more recently a number of the largest cruise ships in the world.
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Touraine
The Touraine (French pronunciation: [tuʁɛn]) is one of the traditional provinces of France. Its capital was Tours. During the political reorganization of French territory in 1790, the Touraine was divided between the departments of Indre-et-Loire, Loir-et-Cher and Indre.
Traversed by the Loire and its tributaries the Cher, the Indre and the Vienne, the Touraine makes up a part of the Paris Basin. It is well known for its viticulture. The TGV, which connects Tours with Paris in less than an hour, has made the Touraine a place of residence for people who work in the capital but seek a different quality of life.
The Touraine takes its name from a Celtic tribe called the Turones, who inhabited the region about two thousand years ago. In 1044, the control of Touraine was given to the Angevins, who (as the House of Plantagenet) became kings of England in 1154, the castle of Chinon being their greatest stronghold. In 1205, Philip II Augustus of France regained Touraine. At this time, Touraine was made into a royal duchy. In 1429, Saint Joan of Arc had a historic meeting with the future King of France Charles VII at Chinon. Throughout the late 15th and 16th centuries, Touraine was a favorite residence of French kings, and the dark and gloomy castles were converted to Renaissance châteaux; for this reason the region was titled "The Garden of France". These same châteaux became popular tourist attractions in modern times. The royal duchy became a province in 1584, and was divided into departments in 1790.
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Upper Normandy
Upper Normandy (French: Haute-Normandie, IPA: [ot nɔʁmɑ̃di]; Norman: Ĥâote-Normaundie) is one of the 27 regions of France. It was created in 1984 from two départements: Seine-Maritime and Eure, when Normandy was divided into Lower Normandy and Upper Normandy. This division continues to provoke controversy, and some continue to call for reuniting the two regions. However, the name Upper Normandy existed prior to 1956 and referred by tradition to territories currently included within the administrative region: the Pays de Caux, the Pays de Bray (not that of Picardy), the Roumois, the Campagne of Le Neubourg, the Plaine de Saint André and the Norman Vexin. Today, most of the Pays d'Auge, as well as a small portion of the Pays d'Ouche, are located in Lower Normandy.
Rouen is the regional capital, historically important with many fine churches and buildings, including the tallest cathedral tower in France. The region's largest city, in terms of metropolitan population, is Le Havre. The region is twinned with the London Borough of Redbridge in England. Its economy is centered around agriculture, industry, petrochemicals and tourism.
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Alsace
Alsace (French: Alsace [alzas]; Alsatian: Elsàss [ˈɛlsɑs]; German: Elsass, pre-1996: Elsaß, IPA: [ˈɛlzas]; Latin: Alsatia) is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area (8,280 km²), and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km² (total population in 2006: 1,815,488; 1 January 2008 estimate: 1,836,000). Alsace is located on France's eastern border and on the west bank of the upper Rhine adjacent to Germany and Switzerland. The political, economic and cultural capital as well as largest city of Alsace is Strasbourg. Because that city is the seat of dozens of international organizations and bodies, Alsace is politically one of the most important regions in the European Union.
The name "Alsace" can be traced back to the Old High German Ali-saz or Elisaz, meaning "foreign domain". An alternative explanation derives it from a Germanic Ell-sass, meaning "seated on the Ill", a river in Alsace. The region was historically part of the Holy Roman Empire. It was gradually annexed by France in the 17th century under kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV and made one of the provinces of France. Alsace is frequently mentioned in conjunction with Lorraine, because German possession of parts of these two régions (as the imperial province Alsace-Lorraine, 1871–1918) was contested in the 19th and 20th centuries, during which Alsace changed hands four times between France and Germany in 75 years.
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Augustus
Augustus ( /ɔːˈɡʌstəs/;Classical Latin: [awˈɡʊstʊs]; Latin: Imperator Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD. Born Gaius Octavius Thurinus, he was adopted posthumously by his great-uncle Gaius Julius Caesar in 44 BC via his last will and testament, and between then and 27 BC was officially named Gaius Julius Caesar. In 27 BC the Senate awarded him the honorific Augustus ("the revered one"), and thus consequently he was Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus.
The young Octavius came into his inheritance after Caesar's assassination in 44 BC. In 43 BC, Octavian joined forces with Mark Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus in a military dictatorship known as the Second Triumvirate. As a triumvir, Octavian ruled Rome and many of its provinces. The triumvirate was eventually torn apart under the competing ambitions of its rulers: Lepidus was driven into exile, and Antony committed suicide following his defeat at the Battle of Actium by Octavian's fleet under the command of Agrippa in 31 BC.
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Basque people
The Basques (Basque: euskaldunak, Spanish: vascos, French: basques) as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country (Basque: Euskal Herria), a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.
The Basques are known in the local languages as:
The English word Basque comes from French Basque (pronounced /bask/), which itself comes from Gascon Basco (pronounced /ˈbasku/) and Spanish Vasco[citation needed] (pronounced /ˈbasko/). These, in turn, come from Latin Vasco (pronounced /wasko/), plural Vascones (see History section below). The Latin labial-velar approximant /w/ generally evolved into the bilabials /b/ and /β̞/ in Gascon and Spanish, probably under the influence of Basque and Aquitanian, a language related to old Basque and spoken in Gascony in Antiquity (similarly the Latin /w/ evolved into /v/ in French, Italian and other languages).
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Cardinal Richelieu
Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu et de Fronsac (French pronunciation: [ʁiʃəljø]; 9 September 1585 – 4 December 1642) was a French clergyman, noble and statesman.
Consecrated as a bishop in 1608, he later entered politics, becoming a Secretary of State in 1616. Richelieu soon rose in both the Catholic Church and the French government, becoming a Cardinal in 1622, and King Louis XIII's chief minister in 1624. He remained in office until his death in 1642; he was succeeded by Cardinal Mazarin, whose career he had fostered.
The Cardinal de Richelieu was often known by the title of the King's "Chief Minister" or "First Minister". As a result, he is considered to be the world's first Prime Minister, in the modern sense of the term.[who?] He sought to consolidate royal power and crush domestic factions. By restraining the power of the nobility, he transformed France into a strong, centralized state. His chief foreign policy objective was to check the power of the Austro-Spanish Habsburg dynasty, and to ensure French dominance in the Thirty Years' War that engulfed Europe. Although he was a cardinal, he did not hesitate to make alliances with Protestant rulers in attempting to achieve his goals.
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Carolingian Empire
Carolingian Empire (800–888) is a historiographical term which has been used to refer to the realm of the Franks under the Carolingian dynasty in the Early Middle Ages. This dynasty is seen as the founders of France and Germany, and its beginning date is based on the crowning of Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, and ends with the death of Charles the Fat. Depending on one's perspective, this Empire can be seen as the later history of the Frankish Realm or the early history of France and of the Holy Roman Empire.
The term refers to the coronation of Charlemagne by Pope Leo III in 800. Because Charles and his ancestors had been rulers of the Frankish realm earlier (his grandfather Charles Martel had essentially founded the empire during his lifetime), the coronation did not actually constitute a new empire. Most historians prefer to use the term "Frankish Kingdoms" or "Frankish Realm" to refer to the area covering parts of today's Germany and France from the 5th to the 9th century.
Though Charles Martel chose not to take the title King, as his son Pepin III the Short would, or Emperor, as his grandson Charlemagne would be titled, he was absolute ruler of virtually all of today's continental Western Europe north of the Pyrenees. Only the remaining Saxon realms, which he partly conquered, Lombardy, and the Marca Hispanica north of the Pyrenees were significant additions to the Frankish realms after his death.
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Celts
The Celts (usually pronounced /ˈkɛlts/ but sometimes /ˈsɛlts/, see pronunciation of Celtic) or Kelts were an ethno-linguistic group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Medieval Europe who spoke Celtic languages and had a similar culture.
The earliest archaeological culture that may justifiably be considered as Proto-Celtic is the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture of central Europe from the last quarter of the second millennium BC. Their fully Celtic descendants in central Europe were the people of the Iron Age Hallstatt culture (c. 800-450 BC) named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria. By the later La Tène period (c. 450 BC up to the Roman conquest), this Celtic culture had expanded over a wide range of regions, whether by diffusion or migration: to the British Isles (Insular Celts), France and The Low Countries (Gauls), much of Central Europe, the Iberian Peninsula (Celtiberians, Celtici and Gallaeci) and northern Italy (Golaseccans and Cisalpine Gauls) and following the Gallic invasion of the Balkans in 279 BC as far east as central Anatolia (Galatians).
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Charles Martel
Charles Martel (Latin: Carolus Martellus) (23 August 686 – 22 October 741), also known as Charles the Hammer, was a Frankish military and political leader, who served as Mayor of the Palace under the Merovingian kings and ruled de facto during an interregnum (737–43) at the end of his life, using the title Duke and Prince of the Franks. In 739 he was offered the title of Consul by the Pope, but he refused. He is remembered for winning the Battle of Tours in 732, in which he defeated an invading Moorish army. This victory is traditionally credited with halting northward Islamic expansion in western Europe.
A brilliant general, he is considered to be a founding figure of the Middle Ages, often credited with a seminal role in the development of feudalism and knighthood, and laying the groundwork for the Carolingian Empire. He was also the father of Pepin the Short and grandfather of Charlemagne.
Martel was born in Herstal, the illegitimate son of duke Pepin II and his concubine Alpaida. In German-speaking countries he is known as Karl Martell. Alpaida also bore Pepin another son, Childebrand.
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Charles the Bald
Charles the Bald (13 June 823 – 6 October 877), Holy Roman Emperor (875–877, as Charles II) and King of West Francia (840–877, as Charles II, with the borders of his land defined by the Treaty of Verdun, 843), was the youngest son of the Emperor Louis the Pious by his second wife Judith.
He was born on 13 June 823 in Frankfurt, when his elder brothers were already adults and had been assigned their own regna, or subkingdoms, by their father. The attempts made by Louis the Pious to assign Charles a subkingdom, first Alemannia and then the country between the Meuse and the Pyrenees (in 832, after the rising of Pepin I of Aquitaine) were unsuccessful. The numerous reconciliations with the rebellious Lothair and Pepin, as well as their brother Louis the German, King of Bavaria, made Charles's share in Aquitaine and Italy only temporary, but his father did not give up and made Charles the heir of the entire land which was once Gaul and would eventually be France. At a diet near Crémieux in 837, Louis the Pious bade the nobles do homage to Charles as his heir. This led to the final rising of his sons against him and Pepin of Aquitaine died in 838, whereupon Charles received that kingdom, finally once and for all. Pepin's son Pepin II would be a perpetual thorn in his side.
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Eleanor of Aquitaine
Eleanor of Aquitaine (French: Aliénor d’Aquitaine; Éléonore de Guyenne) (1122 or 1124 – 1 April 1204) was one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in Western Europe during the High Middle Ages. As well as being Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right, she was queen consort of France (1137–1152) and of England (1154–1189). She was the patroness of such literary figures as Wace, Benoît de Sainte-Maure, and Bernart de Ventadorn.
Eleanor succeeded her father as Duchess of Aquitaine and Countess of Poitiers at the age of fifteen, becoming the most eligible bride in Europe. Three months after her accession, she married Louis VII, son of her guardian, King Louis The Fat. As Queen of France, she participated in the unsuccessful Second Crusade. Soon after the Crusade, Eleanor sought an annulment of her marriage but was rejected by Pope Eugene III. However, after the birth of Alix, another daughter, Louis agreed to an annulment. The marriage was annulled on 11 March 1152, on the grounds of consanguinity within the fourth degree. Their daughters were declared legitimate and custody was awarded to Louis, while Eleanor's lands were restored to her.
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Felix of Aquitaine
Felix (died circa 676) was a patrician of Toulouse Duke of Aquitaine from 660 until his death. He had his seat at Toulouse and he is considered the first independent Duke of Aquitaine, i.e. formally vassal of the Franks but detached de facto from the Frankish central power base. He united under his rule the duchies of Vasconia and Aquitaine. Evidence suggests that his duchy was a recreation of the old kingdom of Charibert II. The last known duke before Felix was Boggis.
Therefore, in Felix's time Vasconia formed a part of Aquitaine, into which it had been incorporated following the successful putting down of a rebellion in 645. It is disputable whether or not Felix was a duke in his own right over a state of his own creation or a Merovingian official governing a constituent kingdom of the Frankish realm. It is also argued that the Basques were the allies of the Aquitainians and not their subjects. Felix' duchy encompassed Bordeaux, Vasconia (the Novempopulania and its fuzzy bordering lands to the south and north-east) and Narbonensis (including Toulouse), but did not extend to the Loire as in later ages.
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Franks
The Franks (Latin: Franci or gens Francorum) were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as populating a broad strip of land on the right bank of the Lower and Middle Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a kingdom on Roman-held soil that was acknowledged by the Romans after 357. In the climate of the collapse of imperial authority in the West, the Frankish tribes were united under the Merovingians and conquered all of Gaul except Septimania in the 6th century. The Salian political elite was one of the most active forces in spreading Christianity over western Europe. The Franks had created one of the most strong and stable barbaric kingdoms.
The Merovingian dynasty, descended from the Salians, founded one of the Germanic monarchies which replaced the Western Roman Empire from the fifth century. The Frankish state consolidated its hold over large parts of western Europe by the end of the eighth century, developing into the Carolingian Empire which dominated most of Western Europe. This empire would gradually evolve into France and the Holy Roman Empire.
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Henry II of England
Henry II (5 March 1133 – 6 July 1189), also known as Henry Curtmantle, Henry FitzEmpress or Henry Plantagenet, ruled as King of England (1154–89), Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Count of Nantes, and Lord of Ireland; at various times, he also controlled Wales, Scotland and Brittany. Henry was the son of Geoffrey of Anjou and Matilda, who was the daughter of King Henry I and took the title of Empress from her first marriage. He became actively involved by the age of 14 in his mother's efforts to claim the throne of England, and was made the Duke of Normandy at 17. He inherited Anjou in 1151 and shortly afterwards married Eleanor of Aquitaine, whose marriage to the French king Louis VII had recently been annulled. King Stephen agreed to a peace treaty after Henry's military expedition to England in 1153, and he inherited the kingdom on Stephen's death a year later. Still quite young, he now controlled what would later be called the Angevin empire, stretching across much of western Europe.
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Iberians
The Iberians were a set of peoples that Greek and Roman sources (among others, Hecataeus of Miletus, Avienus, Herodotus and Strabo) identified with that name in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian peninsula at least from the 6th century BC. These included the Airenosi, Andosini, Ausetani, Bastetani, Bastuli, Bergistani, Castellani, Cessetani, Ceretani, Contestani, Edetani, Elisices, Iacetani, Ilercavones, Ilergetes, Indigetes, Lacetani, Laietani, Oretani, Sedetani, Sordones, Suessetani, and Turdetani (there are some doubts regarding the ethno-linguistic affiliation of some of these). The Roman and Greek sources often diverge about the precise location of each Iberian people and also about the list of Iberian peoples.
The term Iberian as used by the ancient authors had two meanings. One, more general, referred to the whole of the population of the Iberian peninsula. The other, more restricted, with an ethnic sense, to the people living in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian peninsula, where by the 6th century BC they had absorbed cultural influences from Phoenicians and Greeks.
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Iñigo Arista
Íñigo Íñiguez Arista, (Basque: Eneko Enekones Aritza/Haritza/Aiza, Arabic: ونّقه بن ونّقه, Wannaqo ibn Wannaqo, c. 790 – 851 or 852) is considered the first King of Pamplona. He is thought to have risen to prominence after the defeat of local French partisans in 816, and his rule is usually dated from the defeat of a French army in 824. However, he is only first noticed by chroniclers as a rebel against the Emirate of Córdoba from 840 until his death a decade later. The nascent state that he passed on to his son García came to be known as the kingdom of Pamplona.
His origin is obscure, but his patronymic indicates that he was the son of an Íñigo. He is said by a later chronicler to have been count of Bigorre, or at least to have come from there, but there is no near-contemporary evidence of this. It has been speculated that he was kinsman of García Jiménez, who in the late 8th century succeeded his father Jimeno 'the Strong' in resisting Carolingian expansion into Vasconia. He is also speculated to have been related to Pamplona dynasty that would supplant his, the Jiménez.
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Louis the Pious
Louis the Pious (778 – 20 June 840), also called the Fair, and the Debonaire, was the King of Aquitaine from 781. He was also King of the Franks and co-Emperor (as Louis I) with his father, Charlemagne, from 813. As the only surviving adult son of Charlemagne and Hildegard, he became the sole ruler of the Franks after his father's death in 814, a position which he held until his death, save for the period 833–34, during which he was deposed.
During his reign in Aquitaine, Louis was charged with the defence of the Empire's southwestern frontier. He conquered Barcelona from the Muslims in 801 and asserted Frankish authority over Pamplona and the Basques south of the Pyrenees in 812. As emperor he included his adult sons, Lothair, Pepin, and Louis, in the government and sought to establish a suitable division of the realm among them. The first decade of his reign was characterised by several tragedies and embarrassments, notably the brutal treatment of his nephew Bernard of Italy, for which Louis atoned in a public act of self-debasement. In the 830s his empire was torn by civil war between his sons, only exacerbated by Louis's attempts to include his son Charles by his second wife in the succession plans. Though his reign ended on a high note, with order largely restored to his empire, it was followed by three years of civil war. Louis is generally compared unfavourably to his father, though the problems he faced were of a distinctly different sort.
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Louis VII of France
Louis VII (called the Younger or the Young) (French: Louis le Jeune) (1120 – 18 September 1180) was King of the Franks, the son and successor of Louis VI (hence his nickname). He ruled from 1137 until his death. He was a member of the House of Capet. His reign was dominated by feudal struggles (in particular with the Angevin family), and saw the beginning of the long rivalry between France and England. It also saw the beginning of construction on Notre-Dame de Paris, the founding of the University of Paris and the disastrous Second Crusade.
Louis VII was born in 1120, the second son of Louis VI of France and Adelaide of Maurienne. As a younger son, Louis VII had been raised to follow the ecclesiastical path. He unexpectedly became the heir to the throne of France after the accidental death of his older brother, Philip, in 1131. A well-learned and exceptionally devout man, Louis VII was better suited for life as a priest than as a monarch.
In his youth, he spent much time in Saint-Denis, where he built a friendship with the Abbot Suger that served him well in his early years as king.
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Odo the Great
Odo the Great (also called Eudes or Eudo) (died c. 735), Duke of Aquitaine, obtained this dignity by 700. His territory included the Duchy of Vasconia in the south-west of Gaul and the Duchy of Aquitaine (at that point located north-east of the river Garonne), a realm extending from the Loire to the Pyrenees, with capital in Toulouse. He retained it until his abdication in 735.
His earlier life is obscure, as are his ancestry and ethnicity. Several Dukes of Aquitaine have been named as Odo's father: Boggis or Bertrand, to whom errant historians ascribed descent from the Merovingian Charibert II (based on the forged Charte d'Alaon), as also Duke Lupus I, who was not Merovingian at all. Odo is called according to the spurious Charte d'Alaon the brother of Hubertus.
Odo succeeded to the ducal throne maybe as early as 679, probably the date of the death of Lupus, or 688. Other dates are possible, including 692, but he was certainly in power by 700.
The historian Jean de Jaurgain cites him as fighting in 711 against the Visigoth Roderic in Pamplona. In 715 he declared himself independent during the civil war raging in Gaul. It is not likely that he ever took the title of king.
wn.com/Odo_the_Great -
Seguin I of Gascony
Seguin I Lupo was Duke of Gascony from 812 until 816, when Louis the Pious deposed him "because of his boundless arrogance and wicked ways", according to the contemporary Frankish chroniclers. The "Basques across the Garonne and around the Pyrenees" rebelled against the removal of their duke, but the Frankish king received the submission of the rebels in Dax. The emperor crossed the Pyrenees and "settled matters" in Pamplona (according to the Vita Hludovici). This could imply that the Gascony of Seguin's day was trans-Pyrenean, i.e., comprised lands on both sides of the mountains.
A count of Bordeaux (ruler of the "Burdegalian country", or pagus Burdegalensis) appointed by Charlemagne around 781 had the same name, Seguin, and may have been the same person. The duke was probably of Gascon (Basque) lineage, and allegedly a son of Adalric, a possible duke of Gascony, or of Lupus II, a definite duke of Gascony. He may have been a brother of Sancho I, Lupus III, and Garsand (or Garseand), and probably was the father of Seguin II. He was not, as has been alleged from time to time, the forefather of the Jiménez dynasty which ruled the kingdom of Navarre (905–1234). He may have had Spanish ancestry, though the Vita Hludovici calls him "of the race of Franks" (ex gente Francorum).
wn.com/Seguin_I_of_Gascony -
Vascones
The Vascones (Latin, singular vasco) were an ancient people who, at the arrival of the Romans, inhabited the region of present day Navarre, Lower La Rioja and north-western Aragon. It is likely that they are ancestors of the present-day Basques, to whom they left their name.
Unlike the Aquitanians or Cantabrians, the Vascones seemed to have negotiated their status in the Roman Empire. In the Sertorian War, Pompey established his headquarters in their territory, founding Pompaelo. Romanization was rather intense in the area known as Ager Vasconum (the Ebro valley) but limited in the mountainous Saltus, where evidence of Roman civilization appears only in mining places, like Oiasso. The territory was also important for Romans as a communication knot between northern Hispania and southwestern Gallia.
The Vasconian area presents indications of upheaval (burnt villas, an abundance of mints to pay the garrisons) during the 4th and 5th centuries that have been linked by many historians to the Bagaudae rebellions against feudalization.
wn.com/Vascones -
Visigoths
The Visigoths (Latin: Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, or Wisi) were one of two main branches of the later Goths, the Ostrogoths being the other. These tribes were among the Germanic peoples who spread through the late Roman Empire during Late Antiquity or the Migration Period. The Visigoths emerged out of the Gothic groups who entered the Roman Empire in and after 376 and defeated the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. The Visigoths invaded Italy under Alaric I and famously sacked Rome in 410 AD, eventually settling in Spain and Portugal, where they founded a powerful Kingdom.
After numerous years of migration, which led the Visigoths to compare themselves to the Biblical Hebrew people wandering for 40 years in the Sinai Desert, the Visigoths settled in southern Gaul as foederati of the Romans in 418. For unknown reasons, they soon fell out with their hosts and established their own kingdom with its capital at Toulouse. Extending their authority into Hispania at the expense of the Vandals, their rule in Gaul was ended by the Franks under Clovis I at the Battle of Vouillé in 507. Thereafter the only territory north of the Pyrenees that the Visigoths held was Septimania, such that their kingdom became limited to Hispania. The province came to be dominated by the Visigothic small governing elite at the expense of the Byzantine province of Spania and the Suebic Kingdom of Galicia.
wn.com/Visigoths -
Waifer of Aquitaine
Waifer (a.k.a. Waifar, Waiofar, Waifre, Guyver or Gaifier) was the duke of Aquitaine from 748 to 768, succeeding his newly-monastic father Hunold.
When asked by the king Pepin the Short to give up Frankish refugees and seized church lands in 760, Waifer refused. The king in turn, after finishing successfully his military campaign in Septimania, marched against him, ravaging the land of Berry and Auvergne. Two counts of the contumacious Aquitanian duke retaliated by rampaging through Burgundy and prompting Pepin to come south again in 761. He took Clermont and Auvergne in that year and, in the following years (762/763), Berry and Bourges. According to the continuator of the Chronicle of Fredegar, Waifer opposed Pepin cum exercito magno et plurima Wasconorum qui ultra Garonnam commorantur, quem antiquitus vocati sunt Vaceti: "with a great and large army of Vascones from across the Garonne, who in antiquity were called Vaceti". However, Duke Tassilo III of Bavaria revolted against Frankish overlordship and drew off Pepin's attention, leaving Waifer in place.
wn.com/Waifer_of_Aquitaine
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Freespace 2 Music - "Aquitaine"
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:08
- Updated: 12 Aug 2012
Music from the greatest space sim ever. this music plays when on the deck of the GTD Aquitaine composer : Dan Wentz
http://wn.com/Freespace_2_Music_Aquitaine
Music from the greatest space sim ever. this music plays when on the deck of the GTD Aquitaine composer : Dan Wentz
Aquitaine Region Guide
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:28
- Updated: 27 Jul 2012
www.1st-for-french-property.co.uk Aquitaine Region Guide - get a flavour of Dordogne, Landes, Gironde, Lot-et-garonne, Pyrenees-Atlantiques. More guides on 1st-for-french-property.co.uk
http://wn.com/Aquitaine_Region_Guide
www.1st-for-french-property.co.uk Aquitaine Region Guide - get a flavour of Dordogne, Landes, Gironde, Lot-et-garonne, Pyrenees-Atlantiques. More guides on 1st-for-french-property.co.uk
- published: 19 Dec 2008
- views: 5889
- author: Howard Farmer
Kaamelott: best of Duc d'Aquitaine
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:47
- Updated: 17 Dec 2012
Un autre montage de la merveilleuse série créée par Alexandre Astier: le Duc d'Aquitaine. Un excellent personnage qui n'apparait que dans le livre V et qui est joué par Alain Chabat. Naïf et trop dans la réflexion, il parait toujours largué dans les relations avec les autres, en particuliers avec sa femme, qui le remet régulièrement en place! J'espère que ce montage vous plaira! Enjoy
http://wn.com/Kaamelott_best_of_Duc_d'Aquitaine
Un autre montage de la merveilleuse série créée par Alexandre Astier: le Duc d'Aquitaine. Un excellent personnage qui n'apparait que dans le livre V et qui est joué par Alain Chabat. Naïf et trop dans la réflexion, il parait toujours largué dans les relations avec les autres, en particuliers avec sa femme, qui le remet régulièrement en place! J'espère que ce montage vous plaira! Enjoy
- published: 16 Jul 2012
- views: 84134
- author: elmagicgaston
Eleanor of Aquitaine ("Happy Ever After" by Julia Fordham)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:36
- Updated: 14 Dec 2012
Shot on a cold winter day in Honolulu, with a beautiful tune by Julia Fordham
http://wn.com/Eleanor_of_Aquitaine_Happy_Ever_After_by_Julia_Fordham
Shot on a cold winter day in Honolulu, with a beautiful tune by Julia Fordham
- published: 24 Apr 2010
- views: 28667
- author: historyteachers
FREMM Aquitaine D650
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:42
- Updated: 18 Sep 2012
Seconde sortie à la mer pour la FREMM Aquitaine.
http://wn.com/FREMM_Aquitaine_D650
Seconde sortie à la mer pour la FREMM Aquitaine.
- published: 26 Apr 2011
- views: 8262
- author: pidani56
Die Aquitaine, DAS Reiseziel für Weinliebhaber
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:39
- Updated: 04 May 2012
Drei Minuten, um die Weingebiete der Aquitaine zu entdecken, Bordeaux, das größte Anbaugebiet feiner Weine der Welt, aber auch das Bergeracois, das Marmandais oder das Gebiet des Madiran. Ausflüge quer durch die Weinberge, wechselnde Landschaften, typische Dörfer. Charme und Lebensart des Südwestens. www.aquitanien-turismus.de
http://wn.com/Die_Aquitaine,_DAS_Reiseziel_für_Weinliebhaber
Drei Minuten, um die Weingebiete der Aquitaine zu entdecken, Bordeaux, das größte Anbaugebiet feiner Weine der Welt, aber auch das Bergeracois, das Marmandais oder das Gebiet des Madiran. Ausflüge quer durch die Weinberge, wechselnde Landschaften, typische Dörfer. Charme und Lebensart des Südwestens. www.aquitanien-turismus.de
- published: 15 Feb 2012
- views: 182
- author: TourismeAquitaine
In the spotlight - Aquitaine
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:33
- Updated: 01 Nov 2012
An unforgettable experience awaits you in Aquitaine. With exceptional vineyards around Bordeaux, the Pyrénées Mountains, family friendly coastal resorts like Biarritz and picturesque towns and villages in Dordogne-Périgord and Lot et Garonne-Gascony, it offers the ideal destination for your next holiday.
http://wn.com/In_the_spotlight_Aquitaine
An unforgettable experience awaits you in Aquitaine. With exceptional vineyards around Bordeaux, the Pyrénées Mountains, family friendly coastal resorts like Biarritz and picturesque towns and villages in Dordogne-Périgord and Lot et Garonne-Gascony, it offers the ideal destination for your next holiday.
- published: 11 Feb 2012
- views: 868
- author: AtoutFranceUKIreland
Top 14 Reasons To Visit Bordeaux France's Aquitaine Region
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:37
- Updated: 12 Dec 2012
Top 14 Reasons To Visit Bordeaux France's Aquitaine Region from Travel Therapy. Like this? Watch the latest episode of Travel Therapy on Blip! blip.tv What makes Bordeaux and Franceapos;s famed Aquitaine Region so special to visit is that besides having award-winning wines and top cuisine, the history, culture and scenery here are spectacular. Follow along as Emmy award-winning TV travel and lifestyle correspondent Karen Schaler highlights the top 14 things you shouldnapos;t miss when visiting the region! See all episodes of Travel Therapy blip.tv Visit Travel Therapy's series page blip.tv
http://wn.com/Top_14_Reasons_To_Visit_Bordeaux_France's_Aquitaine_Region
Top 14 Reasons To Visit Bordeaux France's Aquitaine Region from Travel Therapy. Like this? Watch the latest episode of Travel Therapy on Blip! blip.tv What makes Bordeaux and Franceapos;s famed Aquitaine Region so special to visit is that besides having award-winning wines and top cuisine, the history, culture and scenery here are spectacular. Follow along as Emmy award-winning TV travel and lifestyle correspondent Karen Schaler highlights the top 14 things you shouldnapos;t miss when visiting the region! See all episodes of Travel Therapy blip.tv Visit Travel Therapy's series page blip.tv
- published: 12 Dec 2012
- views: 35
- author: TravelTherapyTV
Unique New Winemaking Experiences in France's Aquitaine Region
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:15
- Updated: 12 Dec 2012
Unique New Winemaking Experiences in France's Aquitaine Region from Travel Therapy. Like this? Watch the latest episode of Travel Therapy on Blip! blip.tv If youapos;ve always wanted to learn the secrets behind making some of the top wines in the world or you just enjoy drinking them you can now head to Bordeaux, France, and take part in some very special new winemakine experiences for a vacation youapos;ll never forget! Come along with Emmy award-winning TV travel and lifestyle correspondent Karen Schaler as she visits several top French wine chateaus in Bordeaux and the Aquitaine Region and shows how you can take part in this unique TRAVEL THERAPY vacation experience. See all episodes of Travel Therapy blip.tv Visit Travel Therapy's series page blip.tv
http://wn.com/Unique_New_Winemaking_Experiences_in_France's_Aquitaine_Region
Unique New Winemaking Experiences in France's Aquitaine Region from Travel Therapy. Like this? Watch the latest episode of Travel Therapy on Blip! blip.tv If youapos;ve always wanted to learn the secrets behind making some of the top wines in the world or you just enjoy drinking them you can now head to Bordeaux, France, and take part in some very special new winemakine experiences for a vacation youapos;ll never forget! Come along with Emmy award-winning TV travel and lifestyle correspondent Karen Schaler as she visits several top French wine chateaus in Bordeaux and the Aquitaine Region and shows how you can take part in this unique TRAVEL THERAPY vacation experience. See all episodes of Travel Therapy blip.tv Visit Travel Therapy's series page blip.tv
- published: 12 Dec 2012
- views: 30
- author: TravelTherapyTV
Video Aquitaine
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:16
- Updated: 15 Oct 2012
Discover Aquitaine the wonderfull region of wine ans so much more
http://wn.com/Video_Aquitaine
Discover Aquitaine the wonderfull region of wine ans so much more
- published: 01 May 2008
- views: 9975
- author: Francelator
The Face of Eleanor of Aquitaine (Photoshop Reconstruction)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:12
- Updated: 10 Dec 2012
PRINTS NOW AVAILABLE! www.cafepress.com *Project requested by user/WinefrideofWales She was one of the most powerful women of the Middle Ages. As the daughter of the Duke of Aquitaine, the duchess (born 1122?) received a first-class education and was brought up in one of Europe's most aristocratic courts. The duchess became an heiress at the age of 15 after the death of her only brother and her father in 1137. Eleanor married Louis VII of France that same year and in the course of time bore him two daughters. Despite this, their marriage was fraught with problems, which was compounded by the fact that Louis was determined to have a son as an heir. Five years after Louis's failed crusade to Constantinople and Jerusalem, he and Eleanor divorced in 1152. Surprisingly rapidly (at least to modern eyes) Eleanor married Henry of Anjou only two months after the divorce to Louis VII. Henry was soon crowned King of England in 1154, and with Eleanor at his side became father to three daughters and five sons in all over the next 20 years. Eleanor was very much involved in the running of Henry's empire, making frequent trips between their estates in England and France. Disaster struck in 1173 when two of Eleanor's sons involved her in a scheme against their father, Henry, which Henry caught onto and had Eleanor subsequently imprisoned. She had to wait until Henry's death in 1189 for her son, Richard I, to order her release. Afterwards, Eleanor continued to embroil herself in ...
http://wn.com/The_Face_of_Eleanor_of_Aquitaine_Photoshop_Reconstruction
PRINTS NOW AVAILABLE! www.cafepress.com *Project requested by user/WinefrideofWales She was one of the most powerful women of the Middle Ages. As the daughter of the Duke of Aquitaine, the duchess (born 1122?) received a first-class education and was brought up in one of Europe's most aristocratic courts. The duchess became an heiress at the age of 15 after the death of her only brother and her father in 1137. Eleanor married Louis VII of France that same year and in the course of time bore him two daughters. Despite this, their marriage was fraught with problems, which was compounded by the fact that Louis was determined to have a son as an heir. Five years after Louis's failed crusade to Constantinople and Jerusalem, he and Eleanor divorced in 1152. Surprisingly rapidly (at least to modern eyes) Eleanor married Henry of Anjou only two months after the divorce to Louis VII. Henry was soon crowned King of England in 1154, and with Eleanor at his side became father to three daughters and five sons in all over the next 20 years. Eleanor was very much involved in the running of Henry's empire, making frequent trips between their estates in England and France. Disaster struck in 1173 when two of Eleanor's sons involved her in a scheme against their father, Henry, which Henry caught onto and had Eleanor subsequently imprisoned. She had to wait until Henry's death in 1189 for her son, Richard I, to order her release. Afterwards, Eleanor continued to embroil herself in ...
- published: 26 Sep 2011
- views: 18282
- author: JudeMaris
"Eleanor of Aquitaine" World Civilizations Video
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:33
- Updated: 17 Nov 2012
Enjoy!
http://wn.com/Eleanor_of_Aquitaine_World_Civilizations_Video
Aikitaine-aikido-aquitaine-ffaaa-promotion-annee-1985.avi
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:06
- Updated: 28 Nov 2012
www.aikido-ffaaa-ligue-aquitaine.fr Aikido Aquitaine FFAAA: Clip vidéo réalisé au milieu des années 80
http://wn.com/Aikitaine-aikido-aquitaine-ffaaa-promotion-annee-1985avi
www.aikido-ffaaa-ligue-aquitaine.fr Aikido Aquitaine FFAAA: Clip vidéo réalisé au milieu des années 80
- published: 09 Oct 2010
- views: 7716
- author: Aikitaine
Championnat d'Aquitaine de Stand Up Paddle 2012 à Anglet Finale
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 12:17
- Updated: 11 Dec 2012
Finale du Championnat d'Aquitaine de Stand Up Paddle Surf à Anglet le 28 Mai 2012 1er David Latastère 2 éme Jérémy Boisson 3éme Sébastien Maubourguet 4éme François Walther mis en ligne par le Sup-Shop Supdivision de Capbreton sites.google.com
http://wn.com/Championnat_d'Aquitaine_de_Stand_Up_Paddle_2012_à_Anglet_Finale
Finale du Championnat d'Aquitaine de Stand Up Paddle Surf à Anglet le 28 Mai 2012 1er David Latastère 2 éme Jérémy Boisson 3éme Sébastien Maubourguet 4éme François Walther mis en ligne par le Sup-Shop Supdivision de Capbreton sites.google.com
- published: 31 May 2012
- views: 813
- author: Sebastien Maubourguet
blonde d'aquitaine.mpg
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:01
- Updated: 09 Dec 2012
Blonde d'Aquitaine society promotional video, showing stud bulls,cows and calves, as well as saleyards and feedlot information, and commercial cattle including Charolais x Angus, Murray Grey, british breeds and Santa Gertrudis. Filmed in Qld, Victoria and Western Australia, it shows you how adaptable the Blondes really are, and how a Blonde terminal sire can improve any production system.
http://wn.com/blonde_d'aquitainempg
Blonde d'Aquitaine society promotional video, showing stud bulls,cows and calves, as well as saleyards and feedlot information, and commercial cattle including Charolais x Angus, Murray Grey, british breeds and Santa Gertrudis. Filmed in Qld, Victoria and Western Australia, it shows you how adaptable the Blondes really are, and how a Blonde terminal sire can improve any production system.
- published: 19 Mar 2012
- views: 1811
- author: rathdowneyblondes
Chant of Aquitaine - Benedicamus Domino
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:10
- Updated: 03 Dec 2012
Polyphonic chant of Aquitaine of the High Middle Ages (12th century AD). Title: "Benedicamus Domino" Composer: Saint-Martin de Limoges
http://wn.com/Chant_of_Aquitaine_Benedicamus_Domino
Polyphonic chant of Aquitaine of the High Middle Ages (12th century AD). Title: "Benedicamus Domino" Composer: Saint-Martin de Limoges
- published: 31 Dec 2008
- views: 25374
- author: Callixtinus
Bassin D`Arcachon , Aquitaine France Slide Show
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 11:39
- Updated: 10 Aug 2012
a random selection of my favourite photographs taken in and around the area of ARCACHON, Music & video production by TIME OF THE MUMPH photos by VERONIQUE BABIN.& MARK MUMFORD.
http://wn.com/Bassin_D`Arcachon_,_Aquitaine_France_Slide_Show
a random selection of my favourite photographs taken in and around the area of ARCACHON, Music & video production by TIME OF THE MUMPH photos by VERONIQUE BABIN.& MARK MUMFORD.
- published: 10 Feb 2012
- views: 1084
- author: markthehat66
Eleanor of Aquitaine Medieval Queen
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:31
- Updated: 12 Aug 2012
Highlights of Eleanor of Aquitaine's Life.
http://wn.com/Eleanor_of_Aquitaine_Medieval_Queen
Eleanor of Aquitaine
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:47
- Updated: 06 Dec 2012
http://wn.com/Eleanor_of_Aquitaine
Village Beynac, Dordogne, Périgord, Aquitaine, France
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:15
- Updated: 01 Nov 2012
Village Beynac, on the Dordogne river, is known as one of Frances' most beautiful villages.
http://wn.com/Village_Beynac,_Dordogne,_Périgord,_Aquitaine,_France
Village Beynac, on the Dordogne river, is known as one of Frances' most beautiful villages.
- published: 12 Jul 2009
- views: 5263
- author: Clifford J Thompson
Anthony Delon France 3 aquitaine Midi pile
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:32
- Updated: 16 Dec 2012
http://wn.com/Anthony_Delon_France_3_aquitaine_Midi_pile
French DCNS - FREMM Multi-Mission Stealth Frigate Aquitaine Walk-Through Simulation
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:39
- Updated: 12 Dec 2012
http://wn.com/French_DCNS_FREMM_Multi-Mission_Stealth_Frigate_Aquitaine_Walk-Through_Simulation
Mylène Farmer Interview Le 12/13 FR3 Aquitaine 30 mai 1984
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:03
- Updated: 14 Dec 2012
http://wn.com/Mylène_Farmer_Interview_Le_12_13_FR3_Aquitaine_30_mai_1984
photo: AP / Jason DeCrow
16 Dec 2012
NEWTOWN, Conn. — The gunman in the Connecticut shooting rampage committed suicide as first responders closed in, the governor said Sunday, raising the specter that Adam Lanza had planned an even more gruesome massacre and was stopped short. Lanza blasted his way into the building and used a high-power rifle to kill 20 children and six adults, including the principal who tried to stop him, authorities said ... Among the questions ... H ... The Rev....(size: 8.8Kb)
photo: AP / Guang Niu, Pool
16 Dec 2012
Retired Col. Gen. Viktor Yesin yesterday wrapped up a visit to the United States during which he met with officials at the Pentagon, State Department as well as members of Congress warning about underestimating China’s tactical nuclear weapons buildup ... Yesin warns that U.S. and Western arms specialists are dramatically underestimating China’s nuclear arsenal ... Somewhere between the higher and lower estimates is no doubt the truth ... Mr ... Mr ... ....(size: 4.0Kb)
photo: AP / Jessica Hill
14 Dec 2012
More than two dozen people, mostly elementary school children, were shot and killed at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school this morning, federal and state sources tell ABC News. The massacre involved two gunmen at a Connecticut school this morning, prompting the town of Newtown to lock down all of its schools and draw SWAT teams to the school, authorities said today. State Police confirm that one shooter is dead ... at ABCNews.com ... ....(size: 4.5Kb)
photo: AP / Newtown Bee, Shannon Hicks
15 Dec 2012
Newtown, Conn. Twenty schoolchildren were slaughtered by a heavily armed gunman who opened fire at a suburban elementary school in Connecticut on Friday, ultimately killing at least 27 people including himself in the one of the worst mass shootings in US history ... Authorities found 18 children and seven adults, including the gunman, dead at the school, and two children were pronounced dead later after being taken to a hospital ... Reuters ....(size: 7.5Kb)
photo: AP / Khalil Hamra
16 Dec 2012
Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling. "Fundamentalism is good for protest, good for revolution, and good for war, but not so good for development.". After a century of being persecuted and driven underground, mainly for their vibrant nationalism and their anti-imperialist and pro-Palestinian views, Egypt's Islamist Muslim Brotherhood has finally taken center-state ... Such actions will have to be avoided....(size: 6.9Kb)
Yahoo Daily News
17 Dec 2012
The brochure includes a selection of holiday villages close to some of France’s finest beaches, including the big, sandy, dune-backed west coast; the surf-friendly waves of Aquitaine in the south west and the sun-drenched sands of the Mediterranean....(size: 3.6Kb)
noodls
17 Dec 2012
(Source. Bayerische Landesbank). 17. December 2012. Munich - BayernLB has lead arranged and financed one of the largest solar power plants in France for Hamburg-based Aquila Capital. The Mandated Lead Arrangers BayernLB and HSH Nordbank AG jointly arranged and structured the project financing in the amount of Euro 113 million ... 90 hectares of land in the Aquitaine region of southwest France ... 50 million kilowatt hours ... distributed by ... (noodl....(size: 3.1Kb)
Stockhouse
17 Dec 2012
CALGARY, Dec. 17, 2012 /CNW/ - Oando Energy Resources Inc. ("OER" or the "Company") (TSX ... "We look forward to welcoming Philippe to the OER Board of Directors," said Wale Tinubu, Chairman of OER's Board of Directors ... Mr ... Mr ... Prior to this, he spent more than 20 years in progressively senior international positions at Elf Aquitaine that culminated with his appointment as the Head of Finance for the Asia, Latin America and Middle East areas....(size: 4.4Kb)
Stockhouse
17 Dec 2012
CALGARY, Alberta, December 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --. Oando Energy Resources Inc. ("OER" or the "Company") (TSX ... Philippe Laborde is an experienced oil and gas professional with 35 years of industry experience. Mr ... Mr ... Prior to this, he spent more than 20 years in progressively senior international positions at Elf Aquitaine that culminated with his appointment as the Head of Finance for the Asia, Latin America and Middle East areas. Mr ... ....(size: 4.8Kb)
noodls
17 Dec 2012
(Source. Oando Energy Resources Inc). 17 Dec 2012. PRESS STATEMENT. OANDO ENERGY RESOURCES ANNOUNCES APPOINTMENT TO BOARD OF DIRECTORS. CALGARY, ALBERTA December 17, 2012 - Oando Energy Resources Inc ... Mr ... Mr ... Prior to this, he spent more than 20 years in progressively senior international positions at Elf Aquitaine that culminated with his appointment as the Head of Finance for the Asia, Latin America and Middle East areas. Mr ... (OER) ... (noodl....(size: 5.8Kb)
Stockhouse
17 Dec 2012
CALGARY, Dec. 17, 2012 /CNW/ - Petromanas Energy Inc. ("Petromanas") (TSXV. PMI) and Gallic Energy Ltd. ("Gallic") (TSXV ... About Petromanas. Petromanas is an international oil and gas company focused on the exploration and development of its assets in Albania ... Current operations are focused on France and, in particular, on the Aquitaine Basin where Gallic holds a 100% working interest in approximately 320,000 net acres of exploration lands ... ....(size: 7.8Kb)
noodls
17 Dec 2012
(Source. Petromanas Energy Inc). Petromanas And Gallic Announce Extension Of Outside Date For Closing Of Arrangement And Receipt Of Final Court Approval. CALGARY, ALBERTA, December 17, 2012 -- Petromanas Energy Inc. ("Petromanas") (TSXV ... Current operations are focused on France and, in particular, on the Aquitaine Basin where Gallic holds a 100% working interest in approximately 320,000 net acres of exploration lands ... Tel ... Fax ... or....(size: 10.4Kb)
noodls
16 Dec 2012
(Source. Eurazeo SA). PARIS, December 16, 2012 Eurazeo, under the leadership of Patrick Sayer, is accelerating its growth and implementing an organization through three dedicated teams to support the investment dynamics of Eurazeo Capital, Eurazeo and Eurazeo SME ... Eurazeo deploys three investment strategies. ... Director; ... Keller held positions as Auditor with Price Waterhouse (1976-1982), Finance Manager (Elf Aquitaine Finance Department....(size: 9.6Kb)
PR Newswire
13 Dec 2012
This eight-day cruise—Chateaux, Rivers & Wine—allows guests to enjoy the beauty and history of and the Aquitaine region, while exploring some of the world's finest names in wine ... Guests on the Chateaux, Rivers & Wine cruise will travel on the state-of-the-art Viking Forseti, which will be the newest and most innovative ship to sail the rivers of the Aquitaine Valley—and the first Viking Longship to sail in ....(size: 8.3Kb)
noodls
13 Dec 2012
This eight-day cruise-Châteaux, Rivers & Wine-allows guests to enjoy the beauty and history of Bordeaux and the Aquitaine region, while exploring some of the world's finest names in wine ... Guests on the Châteaux, Rivers & Wine cruise will travel on the state-of-the-art Viking Forseti, which will be the newest and most innovative ship to sail the rivers of the Aquitaine Valley-and the first Viking Longship to sail in France....(size: 7.1Kb)
Wall Street Journal
13 Dec 2012
Included among the three-star chefs will be Alain Passard of L'Arpège in Paris, Michel Guérard of Les Prés d'Eugénie in Aquitaine and Alain Ducasse of Louis XV in Monaco.. This year's auction is the second of its kind ... Last year, says Ms ... Ms ... Among the lean and tender beef will be a side of Blonde d'Aquitaine, aged for 45 days and weighing around 1.5 kilograms, from butcher and farmer Alexandre Polmard of St ... ....(size: 4.0Kb)
noodls
13 Dec 2012
"We took a systematic approach, involving an assessment of the client's needs and the subsequent integration of our findings into a strategy in the framework of the energy improvement plan established at the outset of the contract", said Christophe Bonnenfant, Head of the Aquitaine Maintenance & Services Division....(size: 5.3Kb)
Harpers Bazaar
11 Dec 2012
Hôtel Récamier, Paris, France. 30 June 2010 / 0 comment(s) add comments. Arguibel, Aquitaine, France. SEE ALSO... Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Best in snow. TRAVEL A-LIST. Hôtel Récamier, Paris, France. Hôtel Notre Dame, Paris, France. Le Saint Paul, Côte D'Azur, France. Le Couvent des Minimes, Provence, France ... Packing tips ... Hotel restaurants ... Hotel bars ... Activities ... RELATED TO THIS STORY ... Arguibel, Aquitaine, France ... GO ... ....(size: 15.3Kb)
This article is about the region in France. For other uses, see Aquitaine (disambiguation).
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| Aquitaine | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| — Region of France — | |||
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| Country |  France |
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| Prefecture | Bordeaux | ||
| Departments | |||
| Government | |||
| • President | Alain Rousset (PS) | ||
| Area | |||
| • Total | 41,308 km2 (15,949 sq mi) | ||
| Population (2008)INSEE | |||
| • Total | 3,150,890 | ||
| • Density | 76/km2 (200/sq mi) | ||
| Time zone | CET (UTC+1) | ||
| • Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+2) | ||
| ISO 3166 code | FR-B | ||
| GDP/ Nominal | € 85.9 billion (2007)[1] | ||
| NUTS Region | FR61 | ||
| Website | aquitaine.fr | ||
Aquitaine (French pronunciation: [a.ki.tɛn], English /ˌækwɪˈteɪn/; Occitan: Aquitània; Basque: Akitania), archaic Guyenne/Guienne (Occitan: Guiana), is one of the 27 regions of France, in the south-western part of metropolitan France, along the Atlantic Ocean and the Pyrenees mountain range on the border with Spain. It is composed of the 5 departments of Dordogne, Lot et Garonne, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Landes and Gironde. In the Middle Ages Aquitaine was a kingdom and a duchy, whose boundaries fluctuated considerably.
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History[link]
Ancient history[link]
There are traces of human settlement by prehistoric peoples, especially in the Périgord, but the earliest attested inhabitants in the south-west were the Aquitani, who were not proper Celtic people, but more akin to the Iberians (see Gallia Aquitania). Although a number of different languages and dialects were in use in the area during ancient times, it is most likely that the prevailing language of Aquitaine during the late pre-historic to Roman period was an early form of the Basque language. This has been demonstrated by various Aquitanian names and words that were recorded by the Romans, and which are currently easily readable as Basque. Whether this Aquitanian language (Proto-Basque) was a remnant of a Vasconic language group that once extended much farther, or whether it was generally limited to the Aquitaine/Basque region is not currently known. One reason the language of Aquitaine is important is because Basque is the last surviving non-Indo-European language in western Europe and it has had some effect on the languages around it, including Spanish and, to a lesser extent, French.
The original Aquitania (named after the inhabitants) at the time of Caesar's conquest of Gaul included the area bounded by the Garonne River, the Pyrenees and the Atlantic Ocean. The name may stem from Latin 'aqua', maybe derived from the town "Aquae Augustae", "Aquae Tarbellicae" or just "Aquis" (Dax, Akize in modern Basque) or as a more general geographical feature.
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Under Augustus' Roman rule, since 27 BC the province of Aquitania was further stretched to the north to the River Loire, thus including proper Gaul tribes along with old Aquitani south of the Garonne (cf. Novempopulania and Gascony) within the same region. In 392, the Roman imperial provinces were restructured and Aquitania Prima, Aquitania Secunda and Aquitania Tertia (or Novempopulania) were established in south-western Gaul.
Early Middle Ages[link]
Accounts on Aquitania during the Early Middle Ages are blurry, lacking precision, but there was much unrest. The Visigoths were called into Gaul as foederati, but eventually established themselves as the de-facto rulers in south-west Gaul as central Roman rule collapsed. The Visigoths established their capital in Toulouse, but their actual tenure on Aquitaine was feeble. Furthermore, in 507 they were expelled south to Hispania after their defeat in the Battle of Vouillé by the Franks, who became the new rulers in the area. Two regions come to be distinguished after the Frank expansion to the south, Vasconia/Gascony and Aquitaine, with the former comprising the previous Novempopulania and the latter the territory lying between the Loire and Garonne rivers.
The Franks likewise had difficulty controlling their south-western marches, i.e. Vasconia, in turn setting up a Duchy as of AD 602 to hold a grip on the area, appointing a duke in charge. These dukes were quite detached from central Frank overlordship, sometimes governing as independent rulers with strong ties to their Vascon kinsmen south of the Pyrenees. As of 660, the duchies of Aquitaine and Vasconia were united under the rule of Felix of Aquitaine to form an independent polity. Despite its nominal submission to the Merovingians, the ethnic make-up of new realm Aquitaine wasn´t Frankish, but Gallo-Roman north of the Garonne and main towns and Basque, especially south of the Garonne.
A united Vascon-Aquitanian realm reached its heyday under Odo the Great's rule. The independent status of the realm might have continued but for an attack by the Muslim troops who had just invaded the Visigoth Hispania. After successfully fending them off in Toulouse in 721 he was defeated close to Bordeaux, with the hosts under Abd-al-Raḥmân al-Ghafiqi command ransacking the lands south of the Garonne. Odo was required to pledge allegiance to the Frankish Charles Martel in exchange for help against the Muslim forces, and Vascon-Aquitanian self-rule first came to an end by 742, and definitely in 768 after the assassination of Waifer. In the period previous and after the Muslim thrust, the Basques are often cited in several accounts stirring against Frankish attempts to subdue Aquitaine (stretching up to Toulouse) and Vasconia, pointing to a not preponderant but clearly significant Basque presence in the former. 'Romans' are also cited as living in the cities of Aquitaine, as opposed to the Franks.
See also: Duchy of Vasconia
In 781, Charlemagne decided to proclaim his son Louis King of Aquitaine within the Carolingian Empire, ruling over a realm comprising the Duchy of Aquitaine and the Duchy of Vasconia (Et 3 Calend Augusti habuit concilium magnum in Aquis, et constituit duos filius sans reges Pippinum et Clotarium, Pippinum super Aquitaniam et Wasconiam). He suppressed various Vascon uprisings, even venturing into the lands of Pamplona past the Pyrenees after ravaging the Gascony, with a view to imposing his authority in the Vasconia south of Pyrenees too. According to his biography, he achieved everything he wanted and after staying overnight in Pamplona, on his way back his army was attacked in Roncesvaux in 812, but didn't suffer defeat thanks to the precautions he had taken.
Seguin (Sihiminus), count of Bordeaux and Duke of Vasconia, seemed to have attempted a detachment from the Frankish central authority on Charlemagne's death. The new emperor Louis the Pious reacted by removing him from his capacity, which stirred the Vascons into rebellion. The king in turn sent his troops over to the territory, submitting them in two campaigns and even killing the duke, while his family crossed the Pyrenees and kept raising against the Frankish power. In 824, the 3rd Battle of Roncesvaux took place, where counts Aeblus and Aznar, Frankish vassals from the Duchy of Vasconia sent by the new King of Aquitaine Pepin, were captured by the joint forces of Iñigo Arista and the Banu Qasi.
Before Pepin's death, emperor Louis had appointed a new king in 832, his son Charles the Bald, while the Aquitanian lords elected king Pepin II. This contest for the head of the kingdom led to a constant period of war among Charles, loyal to his father and the Carolingian power, and Pepin II, who relied more on the support of Vascon and Aquitanian lords.
The title "Duke of Aquitaine" was held by the counts of Poitiers from the 10th to the 12th century.
It passed to France in 1137 when the duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine married Louis VII of France, but their marriage was annulled in 1152 and when Eleanor's new husband became Henry II of England in 1154, the area became an English possession.
Links between Aquitaine and England were strengthened, with large quantities of wine produced in southwestern France being exported to London, Southampton, and other English ports.
Aquitaine remained English until the end of the Hundred Years’ War in 1453, when it was annexed by France. From the 13th century until the French Revolution, Aquitaine was usually known as Guyenne.
The region served as a stronghold for the Protestant Huguenots during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who suffered persecution at the hands of the Roman Catholic Church. The Huguenots called upon the English crown for assistance against the Catholic Cardinal Richelieu.
Demographics[link]
Aquitaine consists of 3,150,890 inhabitants equivalent to 6% of the total French population.
Sport[link]
The region is home to many successful sports teams. In particular worth mentioning are:
Football
- FC Girondins de Bordeaux, one of France's most successful association football teams.
- Pau FC
- FC Libourne-Saint-Seurin
Rugby Union is particularly popular in the region. Clubs include:
- SU Agen
- Aviron Bayonnais
- Biarritz Olympique, runners-up in the 2005-6 Heineken Cup.
- Union Bordeaux-Bègles
- Section Paloise
- US Dax
Basketball
- Élan Béarnais Pau-Orthez one of the most successful French basketball clubs
Bull-fighting is also popular in the region.
Major Surfing championships regularly take place on Aquitaine's coast.
See also[link]
- Aquitania
- Basque people
- Basque Country (historical territory)
- Bordeaux wine regions
- Gascony
- Occitania
Notes[link]
External links[link]
- Council of Aquitaine www.aquitaine.fr2=regional council of aquitaine (French)
- Aquitaine at the Open Directory Project (English)
- Short guide to Aquitaine with main tourist attractions (English)
- CSfrance.amb-usa.fr
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This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquitaine
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
| Eleanor of Aquitaine | |
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| Eleanor's effigy at Fontevraud Abbey. | |
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| Tenure | 25 October 1154 – 6 July 1189 |
| Coronation | 19 December 1154 |
| Spouse | Louis VII, King of the Franks m. 1137; ann. 1152 Henry II, King of England m. 1152; wid. 1189 |
| Issue | |
| Marie, Countess of Champagne Alix, Countess of Blois William IX, Count of Poitiers Henry the Young King Matilda, Duchess of Saxony Richard I of England Geoffrey II, Duke of Brittany Eleanor, Queen of Castile Joan, Queen of Sicily John, King of England |
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| House | House of Poitiers |
| Father | William X, Duke of Aquitaine |
| Mother | Aenor de Châtellerault |
| Born | 1122 or 1124 Poitiers, Bordeaux, or Nieul-sur-l'Autise |
| Died | 1 April 1204(1204-04-01) (aged c. 81/82) Poitiers |
| Burial | Fontevraud Abbey, Fontevraud |
| Religion | Roman Catholicism |
Eleanor of Aquitaine (French: Aliénor d’Aquitaine; Éléonore de Guyenne) (1122 or 1124 – 1 April 1204) was one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in Western Europe during the High Middle Ages. As well as being Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right, she was queen consort of France (1137–1152) and of England (1154–1189). She was the patroness of such literary figures as Wace, Benoît de Sainte-Maure, and Bernart de Ventadorn.
Eleanor succeeded her father as Duchess of Aquitaine and Countess of Poitiers at the age of fifteen, becoming the most eligible bride in Europe. Three months after her accession, she married Louis VII, son of her guardian, King Louis The Fat. As Queen of France, she participated in the unsuccessful Second Crusade. Soon after the Crusade, Eleanor sought an annulment of her marriage[1] but was rejected by Pope Eugene III.[2] However, after the birth of Alix, another daughter, Louis agreed to an annulment.[3] The marriage was annulled on 11 March 1152, on the grounds of consanguinity within the fourth degree. Their daughters were declared legitimate and custody was awarded to Louis, while Eleanor's lands were restored to her.
As soon as the annulment was granted, Eleanor became engaged to Henry Plantagenet, Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou, who became King Henry II of England in 1154; he was her cousin within the third degree and was nine years younger than she. The couple married on 18 May 1152, eight weeks after the annulment of Eleanor's first marriage. Over the next thirteen years, she bore Henry eight children: five sons, three of whom would become kings, and three daughters. However, Henry and Eleanor eventually became estranged. She was imprisoned between 1173 and 1189 for supporting her son Henry's revolt against her husband.
Eleanor was widowed on 6 July 1189. Her husband was succeeded by their son, Richard I, who immediately released his mother. Now queen dowager, Eleanor acted as a regent while Richard went on the Third Crusade. Eleanor survived Richard and lived well into the reign of her youngest son John. By the time of her death, she had outlived all her children except for King John and Eleanor, Queen of Castile.
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Early life[link]
The exact date and place of Eleanor's birth are not known. A late 13th century genealogy of her family listed her as 13 years old in the spring of 1137.[4] Some chronicles mentioned a fidelity oath of some lords of Aquitaine on the occasion of Eleanor's fourteenth birthday in 1136; this and her known age of 82 at her death makes 1122 her likely year of birth.[5] Her parents almost certainly married in 1121. Her birth place may have been Poitiers, Bordeaux, or Nieul-sur-l'Autise, where her mother died when Eleanor was 6 or 8.[6]
Eleanor or Aliénor was the oldest of three children of William X, Duke of Aquitaine, whose glittering ducal court was on the leading edge of early–12th-century culture, and his wife, Aenor de Châtellerault, the daughter of Aimeric I, Viscount of Châtellerault, and Dangereuse, who was William IX's longtime mistress as well as Eleanor's maternal grandmother. Her parents' marriage had been arranged by Dangereuse with her paternal grandfather, the Troubadour.
Eleanor was named for her mother Aenor and called Aliénor, from the Latin alia Aenor, which means the other Aenor. It became Eléanor in the langues d'oïl (Northern French) and Eleanor in English.[3] There is, however, an earlier Eleanor on record: Eleanor of Normandy, William the Conqueror's aunt, who lived a century earlier than Eleanor of Aquitaine.
By all accounts, Eleanor's father ensured that she had the best possible education.[7] Although her native tongue was Poitevin, she was taught to read and speak Latin, was well versed in music and literature, and schooled in riding, hawking, and hunting.[8] Eleanor was extroverted, lively, intelligent, and strong willed. In the spring of 1130, when Eleanor was six, her four-year-old brother William Aigret and their mother died at the castle of Talmont, on Aquitaine's Atlantic coast. Eleanor became the heir presumptive to her father's domains. The Duchy of Aquitaine was the largest and richest province of France; Poitou (where Eleanor spent most of her childhood) and Aquitaine together were almost one-third the size of modern France. Eleanor had only one other legitimate sibling, a younger sister named Aelith but always called Petronilla. Her half brothers, William and Joscelin, were acknowledged by William X as his sons, but not as his heirs. Later, during the first four years of Henry II's reign, all three siblings joined Eleanor's royal household.
Inheritance[link]
In 1137, Duke William X left Poitiers, going to Bordeaux and taking his daughters. On reaching Bordeaux, he left them in the charge of the Archbishop of Bordeaux, one of the Duke's few loyal vassals. The duke then set out for the Shrine of Saint James of Compostela, in the company of other pilgrims; however, he died on Good Friday 9 April 1137.
Eleanor, aged about fifteen, became the Duchess of Aquitaine, and thus the most eligible heiress in Europe. As these were the days when kidnapping an heiress was seen as a viable option for obtaining a title, William had dictated a will on the very day he died, bequeathing his domains to Eleanor and appointing King Louis VI of France as her guardian.[9] William requested the King to take care of both the lands and the duchess, and to also find her a suitable husband.[7] However, until a husband was found, the King had the legal right to Eleanor's lands. The Duke also insisted to his companions that his death be kept a secret until Louis was informed – the men were to journey from Saint James across the Pyrenees as quickly as possible, to call at Bordeaux to notify the Archbishop, and then to make all speed to Paris, to inform the King.
The King of France himself was also gravely ill at that time, suffering "a flux of the bowels" (dysentery) from which he seemed unlikely to recover. Despite his immense obesity and impending mortality, however, Louis the Fat remained clear-minded. To his concerns regarding his new heir, Louis, who had been destined for the monastic life of a younger son (the former heir, Philip, having died from a riding accident),[10] was added joy over the death of one of his most powerful vassals – and the availability of the best duchy in France. Presenting a solemn and dignified manner to the grieving Acuitainian messengers, upon their departure he became overjoyed, stammering in delight. Rather than act as guardian to the Duchess and duchy, he decided, he would marry the duchess to his heir and bring Aquitaine under the French Crown, thereby greatly increasing the power and prominence of France and the Capets. Within hours, then, Louis had arranged for his 17 year-old son, Prince Louis, to be married to Eleanor, with Abbot Suger in charge of the wedding arrangements. Prince Louis was sent to Bordeaux with an escort of 500 knights, as well as Abbot Suger, Theobald II, Count of Champagne and Count Ralph.
First marriage[link]
On 25 July 1137 the couple was married in the Cathedral of Saint-André in Bordeaux by the Archbishop of Bordeaux.[7] Immediately after the wedding, the couple were enthroned as Duke and Duchess of Aquitaine.[7][7] However, there was a catch: the land would remain independent of France until Eleanor's oldest son became both King of the Franks and Duke of Aquitaine. Thus, her holdings would not be merged with France until the next generation. She gave Louis a wedding present that is still in existence, a rock crystal vase, currently on display at the Louvre.[7][10][11] Louis gave the vase to the Saint_Denis_Basilica. This vase is the only object connected with Eleanor of Aquitaine still surviving.[12]
Louis's tenure as Count of Poitou and Duke of Aquitaine and Gascony lasted only few days. Although he had been invested as such on the 8th of August, on his and Eleanor's tour of the provinces a messenger caught up with them with the news that on 1 August, King Louis VI had died of dysentery. Louis VII had become the King of France. He and Eleanor were anointed and crowned King and Queen of the Franks on Christmas Day of the same year.[7][13]
Possessing a high-spirited nature, Eleanor was not popular with the staid northerners (according to sources, Louis´s mother, Adélaide de Maurienne, thought her flighty and a bad influence)--she was not aided by memories of Queen Constance, the Provençal wife of Robert II, tales of whose immodest dress and language were still told with horror.[14]
Her conduct was repeatedly criticized by Church elders (particularly Bernard of Clairvaux and Abbot Suger) as indecorous. The King, however, was madly in love with his beautiful and worldly bride and granted her every whim, even though her behavior baffled and vexed him to no end. Much money went into beautifying the austere Cité Palace in Paris for Eleanor's sake.[10]
Conflict[link]
Although Louis was a pious man, he soon came into a violent conflict with Pope Innocent II. In 1141, the archbishopric of Bourges became vacant, and the King put forward as a candidate one of his chancellors, Cadurc, whilst vetoing the one suitable candidate, Pierre de la Chatre, who was promptly elected by the canons of Bourges and consecrated by the Pope. Louis accordingly bolted the gates of Bourges against the new Bishop; the Pope, recalling William X's similar attempts to exile Innocent's supporters from Poitou and replace them with priests loyal to himself, blamed Eleanor, saying that Louis was only a child and should be taught manners. Outraged, Louis swore upon relics that so long as he lived Pierre should never enter Bourges. This brought the interdict upon the King's lands. Pierre de la Chatre was given refuge by Theobald II, Count of Champagne.
Louis became involved in a war with Count Theobald of Champagne by permitting Raoul I, Count of Vermandois and seneschal of France, to repudiate his wife Eléonore of Blois, Theobald's sister, and to marry Petronilla of Aquitaine, Eleanor's sister. Eleanor urged Louis to support her sister's illegitimate marriage to Raoul of Vermandois. Champagne had also offended Louis by siding with the Pope in the dispute over Bourges. The war lasted two years (1142–44) and ended with the occupation of Champagne by the royal army. Louis was personally involved in the assault and burning of the town of Vitry. More than a thousand people who had sought refuge in the church died in the flames.
Horrified, and desiring an end to the war, Louis attempted to make peace with Theobald in exchange for supporting the lift of the interdict on Raoul and Petronilla. This was duly lifted for long enough to allow Theobald's lands to be restored; it was then lowered once more when Raoul refused to repudiate Petronilla, prompting Louis to return to the Champagne and ravage it once more.
In June, 1144, the King and Queen visited the newly built cathedral at Saint-Denis. Whilst there, the Queen met with Bernard of Clairvaux, demanding that he have the excommunication of Petronilla and Raoul lifted through his influence on the Pope, in exchange for which King Louis would make concessions in Champagne, and recognise Pierre de la Chatre as archbishop of Bourges. Dismayed at her attitude, Bernard scolded her for her lack of penitence and her interference in matters of state. In response, Eleanor broke down, and meekly excused her behaviour, claiming to be bitter because of her lack of children. In response to this, Bernard became more kindly towards her: "My child, seek those things which make for peace. Cease to stir up the King against the Church, and urge upon him a better course of action. If you will promise to do this, I in return promise to entreat the merciful Lord to grant you offspring."
In a matter of weeks, peace had returned to France: Theobald's provinces had been returned, and Pierre de la Chatre was installed as Archbishop of Bourges. In April 1145, Eleanor gave birth to a daughter, Marie.
Louis, however still burned with guilt over the massacre at Vitry-le-Brûlé, and desired to make a Pilgrimage to the Holy Land in order to atone for his sins. Fortuitously for him, in the Autumn of 1145, Pope Eugenius requested Louis to lead a Crusade to the Middle East, to rescue the Frankish Kingdoms there from disaster. Accordingly, Louis declared on Christmas Day 1145 at Bourges his intention of going on a crusade.
Crusade[link]
Eleanor of Aquitaine took up the Second Crusade formally during a sermon preached by Bernard of Clairvaux. However she had been corresponding with her uncle Raymond, King and holder of family properties in Antioch where he was seeking further protection from the French crown. She recruited for the campaign, finally assembling some of her royal ladies-in-waiting as well as 300 non-noble vassals. She insisted on taking part in the Crusades as the feudal leader of the soldiers from her duchy. The story that she and her ladies dressed as Amazons is disputed by serious historians, sometime confused with the account of King Conrad's train of ladies during this campaign (in Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire). Her testimonial launch of the Second Crusade from Vézelay, the rumored location of Mary Magdalene´s burial, dramatically emphasized the role of women in the campaign.
The Crusade itself achieved little. Louis was a weak and ineffectual military leader with no skill for maintaining troop discipline or morale, or of making informed and logical tactical decisions. In eastern Europe, the French army was at times hindered by Manuel I Comnenus, the Byzantine Emperor, who feared that it would jeopardize the tenuous safety of his empire; however, during their 3-week stay at Constantinople, Louis was fêted and Eleanor was much admired. She is compared with Penthesilea, mythical queen of the Amazons, by the Greek historian Nicetas Choniates; he adds that she gained the epithet chrysopous (golden-foot) from the cloth of gold that decorated and fringed her robe. Louis and Eleanor stayed in the Philopation palace, just outside the city walls.
From the moment the Crusaders entered Asia Minor, the Crusade went badly. The King and Queen were still optimistic – the Byzantine Emperor had told them that the German King Conrad had won a great victory against a Turkish army (when in fact the German army had been massacred), and the great troop was still eating well. However, whilst camping near Nicea, the remnants of the German army, including a dazed and sick King Conrad, straggled past the French camp, bringing news of their disaster. The French, with what remained of the Germans, then began to march in increasingly disorganized fashion, towards Antioch. Their spirits were buoyed on Christmas Eve – when they chose to camp in the lush Dercervian valley near Ephesus, they were ambushed by a Turkish detachment; the French proceeded to slaughter this detachment and appropriate their camp.
Louis then decided to directly cross the Phrygian mountains, in the hope of speeding his approach to take refuge with Eleanor's uncle Raymond in Antioch. As they ascended the mountains, however, the army and the King and Queen were left horrified by the unburied corpses of the previously slaughtered German army.
On the day set for the crossing of Mount Cadmos, Louis chose to take charge of the rear of the column, where the unarmed pilgrims and the baggage trains marched. The vanguard, with which Queen Eleanor marched, was commanded by her Aquitainian vassal, Geoffrey de Rancon; this, being unencumbered by baggage, managed to reach the summit of Cadmos, where de Rancon had been ordered to make camp for the night. De Rancon however chose to march further, deciding in concert with the Count of Maurienne (Louis´ uncle) that a nearby plateau would make a better camp: such disobedience was reportedly common in the army, due to the lack of command from the King.
Accordingly, by midafternoon, the rear of the column – believing the day's march to be nearly at an end – was dawdling; this resulted in the army becoming divided, with some having already crossed the summit and others still approaching it. It was at this point that the Turks, who had been following and feinting for many days, seized their opportunity and attacked those who had not yet crossed the summit. The Turks, having seized the summit of the mountain, and the French (both soldiers and pilgrims) having been taken by surprise, there was little hope of escape: those who tried were caught and killed, and many men, horses and baggage were cast into the canyon below the ridge. William of Tyre placed the blame for this disaster firmly on the baggage and the presence of non-combatants.
The King was saved by his lack of authority – having scorned a King's apparel in favour of a simple soldier's tunic, he escaped notice (unlike his bodyguards, whose skulls were brutally smashed and limbs severed). He reportedly "nimbly and bravely scaled a rock by making use of some tree roots which God had provided for his safety", and managed to survive the attack. Others were not so fortunate: "No aid came from Heaven, except that night fell."[15]
The official scapegoat for the disaster was Geoffrey de Rancon, who had made the decision to continue, and it was suggested that he be hanged (a suggestion which the King ignored). Since he was Eleanor's vassal, many believed that it was she who had been ultimately responsible for the change in plan, and thus the massacre. This did nothing for her popularity in Christendom – as did the blame affixed to her baggage, and the fact that her Aquitainian soldiers had marched at the front, and thus were not involved in the fight. From here the army was split by a land march with the royalty taking the sea path to Antioch. When most of the land army arrived, the King and Queen had a profound dispute. Some, such as John of Salisbury and William of Tyre say Eleanor's reputation was sullied by rumours of an affair with her uncle Raymond of Poitiers, Prince of Antioch. However, this may have been a mask, as Raymond through Eleanor tried to forcibly sway Louis to use his army to attack the actual Muslim encampment at nearby Aleppo, gateway to recovering Edessa, the objective of the Crusade by papal decree. Although this was perhaps the better military plan, Louis was not keen to fight in northern Syria. One of Louis' avowed Crusade goals was to journey in pilgrimage to Jerusalem and he stated his intention to continue. Eleanor then reputedly requested to stay with Raymond and brought up the matter of consanguinity - the fact that she and Louis were actually related within prohibited degrees. This was grounds for divorce in the medieval period. Rather than allow her to stay, Louis took Eleanor from Antioch against her will, and continued on to Jerusalem, with his army dwindling. [16].
Eleanor was humiliated by this episode, and maintained a low profile for the rest of the crusade. Louis' subsequent assault on Damascus with his remaining army, fortified by King Conrad and King Baldwin III of Jerusalem in 1148 achieved comparatively little. Damascus was a major trading centre which abounded in wealth and was, under normal circumstances a potential threat, but the rulers of Jerusalem had recently entered into a truce with the city, which they then forswore. It was a gamble which did not pay off, and whether through military error or betrayal, the Damascus campaign was a failure, and the royal family retreated to Jerusalem and then sailed to Rome and back to Paris.
While in the eastern Mediterranean, Eleanor learned about maritime conventions developing there, which were the beginnings of what would become admiralty law. She introduced those conventions in her own lands, on the island of Oleron in 1160 ("Rolls of Oléron") and later in England as well. She was also instrumental in developing trade agreements with Constantinople and ports of trade in the Holy Lands.
Annulment[link]
Even before the Crusade, Eleanor and Louis were becoming estranged. The city of Antioch had been annexed by Bohemond of Hauteville in the First Crusade, and it was now ruled by Eleanor's flamboyant uncle, Raymond of Antioch, who had gained the principality by marrying its reigning Princess, Constance of Antioch. Eleanor supported her uncle's desire to re-capture the nearby County of Edessa, the cause of the Crusade. In addition, having been close to him in their youth, she now showed excessive affection towards her uncle – whilst many historians[who?] today dismiss this as familial affection (noting their early friendship, and his similarity to her father and grandfather), many of Eleanor's adversaries mistook the generous displays of affection between uncle and niece for an incestuous affair. Louis was directed by the Church to visit Jerusalem instead. When Eleanor declared her intention to stand with Raymond and the Aquitaine forces, Louis had her brought out by force. His long march to Jerusalem and back north debilitated his army, but her imprisonment disheartened her knights, and the divided Crusade armies could not overcome the Muslim forces. For reasons of plunder and the Germans' insistence on conquest, the Crusade leaders targeted Damascus, an ally until the attack. Failing in this attempt, they retired to Jerusalem, and then home. Before sailing for home, Eleanor got the terrible news that Raymond, with whom she had the winning battle plan for the Crusade, had been beheaded by the overpowering forces of the Muslim armies from Edessa.
Home, however, was not easily reached. The royal couple, on separate ships due to their disagreements, were first attacked in May by Byzantine ships attempting to capture both (in order to take them to Byzantium, according to the orders of the Emperor). Although they escaped this predicament unharmed, stormy weather served to drive Eleanor's ship far to the south (to the Barbary Coast), and to similarly lose her husband. Neither was heard of for over two months: at which point, in mid-July, Eleanor's ship finally reached Palermo in Sicily, where she discovered that she and her husband had both been given up for dead. The King still lost, she was given shelter and food by servants of King Roger II of Sicily, until the King eventually reached Calabria, and she set out to meet him there. Later, at King Roger's court in Potenza, she learnt of the death of her uncle Raymond; this appears to have forced a change of plans, for instead of returning to France from Marseilles, they instead sought the Pope in Tusculum, where he had been driven five months before by a Roman revolt.
Pope Eugenius III did not, as Eleanor had hoped, grant an annulment; instead, he attempted to reconcile Eleanor and Louis, confirming the legality of their marriage, and proclaiming that no word could be spoken against it, and that it might not be dissolved under any pretext. Eventually, he arranged events so that Eleanor had no choice but to sleep with Louis in a bed specially prepared by the Pope. Thus was conceived their second child – not a son, but another daughter, Alix of France.
The marriage was now doomed. Still without a son and in danger of being left with no male heir, facing substantial opposition to Eleanor from many of his barons and her own desire for divorce, Louis had no choice but to bow to the inevitable. On 11 March 1152, they met at the royal castle of Beaugency to dissolve the marriage. Hugues de Toucy, Archbishop of Sens and Primate of France, presided, and Louis and Eleanor were both present, as were the Archbishops of Bordeaux and Rouen. Archbishop Samson of Reims acted for Eleanor.
On 21 March, the four archbishops, with the approval of Pope Eugenius, granted an annulment due to consanguinity within the fourth degree (Eleanor and Louis were fourth cousins, once removed, and shared common ancestry with Robert II of France). Their two daughters were, however, declared legitimate and custody of them awarded to King Louis. Archbishop Samson received assurances from Louis that Eleanor's lands would be restored to her.
Second marriage[link]
Two lords – Theobald V, Count of Blois, son of the Count of Champagne, and Geoffrey, Count of Nantes (brother of Henry II, Duke of Normandy) – tried to kidnap Eleanor to marry her and claim her lands on Eleanor's way to Poitiers. As soon as she arrived in Poitiers, Eleanor sent envoys to Henry, Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy, asking him to come at once and marry her. On 18 May 1152 (Whit Sunday), eight weeks after her annulment, Eleanor married Henry 'without the pomp and ceremony that befitted their rank'.[17]
She was related to him more closely than she had been to Louis. Eleanor and Henry were cousins to the third degree through their common ancestor, Ermengarde of Anjou (wife to Robert I, Duke of Burgundy and Geoffrey, Count of Gâtinais); they were also both descendants of Robert II of France. A marriage between Henry and Eleanor's daughter, Marie, had indeed been declared impossible for this very reason. One of Eleanor's rumoured lovers had been Henry's own father, Geoffrey V, Count of Anjou, who had advised his son to avoid any involvement with her.
On 25 October 1154, Eleanor's second husband became King of England. Eleanor was crowned Queen of England by the Archbishop of Canterbury on 19 December 1154.[13] It may be, however, that she was not anointed on this occasion, because she had already been anointed in 1137.[18]
Over the next thirteen years, she bore Henry five sons and three daughters: William, Henry, Richard, Geoffrey, John, Matilda, Eleanor, and Joan. John Speed, in his 1611 work History of Great Britain, mentions the possibility that Eleanor had a son named Philip, who died young. His sources no longer exist and he alone mentions this birth.[19]
Eleanor's marriage to Henry was reputed to be tumultuous and argumentative, although sufficiently cooperative to produce at least eight pregnancies. Henry was by no means faithful to his wife and had a reputation for philandering. Their son William, and Henry's illegitimate son, Geoffrey, were born just months apart. Henry fathered other illegitimate children throughout the marriage. Eleanor appears to have taken an ambivalent attitude towards these affairs: for example, Geoffrey of York, an illegitimate son of Henry and a prostitute named Ykenai, was acknowledged by Henry as his child and raised at Westminster in the care of the Queen.
The period between Henry's accession and the birth of Eleanor's youngest son was turbulent: Aquitaine, as was the norm, defied the authority of Henry as Eleanor's husband; attempts to claim Toulouse, the rightful inheritance of Eleanor's grandmother and father, were made, ending in failure; the news of Louis of France's widowhood and remarriage was followed by the marriage of Henry's son (young Henry) to Louis' daughter Marguerite; and, most climactically, the feud between the King and Thomas Becket, his Chancellor, and later Archbishop of Canterbury. Little is known of Eleanor's involvement in these events. By late 1166, and the birth of her final child, however, Henry's notorious affair with Rosamund Clifford had become known, and her marriage to Henry appears to have become terminally strained.
1167 saw the marriage of Eleanor's third daughter, Matilda, to Henry the Lion of Saxony; Eleanor remained in England with her daughter for the year prior to Matilda's departure to Normandy in September. Afterwards, Eleanor proceeded to gather together her movable possessions in England and transport them on several ships in December to Argentan. At the royal court, celebrated there that Christmas, she appears to have agreed to a separation from Henry. Certainly, she left for her own city of Poitiers immediately after Christmas. Henry did not stop her; on the contrary, he and his army personally escorted her there, before attacking a castle belonging to the rebellious Lusignan family. Henry then went about his own business outside Aquitaine, leaving Earl Patrick (his regional military commander) as her protective custodian. When Patrick was killed in a skirmish, Eleanor (who proceeded to ransom his captured nephew, the young William Marshal), was left in control of her inheritance.
The Court of Love in Poitiers[link]
Of all her influence on culture, Eleanor's time in Poitiers (1168-1173) was perhaps the most critical and yet very little is known about it. Henry II was elsewhere, attending to his own affairs after escorting Eleanor to Poitiers.[20]
It is Eleanor’s court in Poitiers that some believe to have been the ‘Court of Love’, where Eleanor and her daughter Marie meshed and encouraged the ideas of troubadours, chivalry, and courtly love into a single court. It may have been largely a court (meaning place rather than a judicial setting) to teach manners, as the French courts would be known for in later generations. The existence and reasons for this court are debated.
In The Art of Courtly Love, Andreas Capellanus (Andrew the chaplain) refers to the court of Poitiers. He claims that several women, including Eleanor and her daughter Marie de Champagne, would sit and listen to the quarrels of lovers and act as a jury to the questions of the court that revolved around acts of romantic love. He records some twenty-one cases, the most famous of them being a problem posed to the women about whether or not true love can exist in marriage. According to Capellanus, the women decided that it was not at all likely.[21]
Some scholars believe that, because the only evidence for the "courts of love" is Andreas Capellanus’s book The Art of Courtly Love, they probably never existed; to further strengthen their argument, they say that there is also no evidence that Marie ever stayed with her mother in Poitiers, beyond her name being mentioned in Andreas’s work.[20] Andreas wrote for the court of the king of France, where Eleanor was not well-regarded.
Others, such as Polly Schoyer Brooks (the author of a non-academic biography of Eleanor), suggest that the court did exist, but that it was not taken very seriously and that the acts of Courtly Love were just a “parlor game” made up by Eleanor and Marie in order to place some order over the young courtiers living there.[22]
That is not to say that Eleanor invented courtly love, for it was a concept that had begun to grow before Eleanor’s court arose. Still, because we do not have much information about what occurred while Eleanor was in Poitiers, all that can be taken from this episode is that her court there was most likely a catalyst for the increased popularity of courtly love literature in the Western European regions. .[23]
Amy Kelly, in her article “Eleanor of Aquitaine and her Courts of Love”, gives a very plausible description of the origins of the rules of Eleanor's court: “in the Poitevin code, man is the property, the very thing of woman; whereas a precisely contrary state of things existed in the adjacent realms of the two kings from whom the reigning duchess of Aquitaine was estranged.”.[24]
Revolt and capture[link]
In March 1173, aggrieved at his lack of power and egged on by his father's enemies, the younger Henry launched the Revolt of 1173–1174. He fled to Paris. From there 'the younger Henry, devising evil against his father from every side by the advice of the French King, went secretly into Aquitaine where his two youthful brothers, Richard and Geoffrey, were living with their mother, and with her connivance, so it is said, he incited them to join him'.[25] One source claimed that the Queen sent her younger sons to France 'to join with him against their father the King'.[26] Once her sons had left for Paris, Eleanor may have encouraged the lords of the south to rise up and support them.[27]
Sometime between the end of March and the beginning of May, Eleanor left Poitiers but was arrested and sent to the King at Rouen. The King did not announce the arrest publicly; for the next year, the Queen's whereabouts were unknown. On 8 July 1174, Henry and Eleanor took ship for England from Barfleur. As soon as they disembarked at Southampton, Eleanor was taken either to Winchester Castle or Sarum Castle and held there.
Years of imprisonment 1173–1189[link]
Eleanor was imprisoned for the next sixteen years, much of the time in various locations in England. During her imprisonment, Eleanor had become more and more distant with her sons, especially Richard (who had always been her favorite). She did not have the opportunity to see her sons very often during her imprisonment, though she was released for special occasions such as Christmas. About four miles from Shrewsbury and close by Haughmond Abbey is "Queen Eleanor's Bower", the remains of a triangular castle which is believed to have been one of her prisons.
Henry lost the woman reputed to be his great love, Rosamund Clifford, in 1176. He had met her in 1166 and began the liaison in 1173, supposedly contemplating divorce from Eleanor. This notorious affair caused a monkish scribe to transcribe Rosamond's name in Latin to "Rosa Immundi", or "Rose of Unchastity". The king had many mistresses, but although he treated earlier liaisons discreetly, he flaunted Rosamond. He may have done so to provoke Eleanor into seeking an annulment but, if so, the queen disappointed him. Nevertheless, rumours persisted, perhaps assisted by Henry's camp, that Eleanor had poisoned Rosamund. Henry donated much money to Godstow Nunnery, where Rosamund was buried.
In 1183, the Young King Henry tried again to force his father to hand over some of his patrimony. In debt and refused control of Normandy, he tried to ambush his father at Limoges. He was joined by troops sent by his brother Geoffrey and Philip II of France. Henry II's troops besieged the town, forcing his son to flee. After wandering aimlessly through Aquitaine, Henry the Younger caught dysentery. On Saturday, 11 June 1183, the Young King realized he was dying and was overcome with remorse for his sins. When his father's ring was sent to him, he begged that his father would show mercy to his mother, and that all his companions would plead with Henry to set her free. Henry II sent Thomas of Earley, Archdeacon of Wells, to break the news to Eleanor at Sarum.[28] Eleanor reputedly had had a dream in which she foresaw her son Henry's death. In 1193 she would tell Pope Celestine III that she was tortured by his memory.
King Philip II of France claimed that certain properties in Normandy belonged to his wife, Margaret of France, but Henry insisted that they had once belonged to Eleanor and would revert to her upon her son's death. For this reason Henry summoned Eleanor to Normandy in the late summer of 1183. She stayed in Normandy for six months. This was the beginning of a period of greater freedom for the still-supervised Eleanor. Eleanor went back to England probably early in 1184.[27] Over the next few years Eleanor often traveled with her husband and was sometimes associated with him in the government of the realm, but still had a custodian so that she was not free.
Widowhood[link]
Upon the death of her husband Henry on 6 July 1189, Richard was his undisputed heir. One of his first acts as king was to send William Marshal to England with orders to release Eleanor from prison, who found upon their arrival that her custodians had already released her.[29]
Eleanor rode to Westminster and received the oaths of fealty from many lords and prelates on behalf of the King. She ruled England in Richard's name, signing herself as 'Eleanor, by the grace of God, Queen of England'. On 13 August 1189, Richard sailed from Barfleur to Portsmouth, and was received with enthusiasm. She ruled England as regent while Richard went off on the Third Crusade. Later, when Richard was captured, she personally negotiated his ransom by going to Germany.
Eleanor survived Richard and lived well into the reign of her youngest son King John. In 1199, under the terms of a truce between King Philip II of France and King John, it was agreed that Philip's twelve-year-old heir-apparent Louis would be married to one of John's nieces of Castile. John deputed Eleanor to travel to Castile to select one of the princesses. Now 77, Eleanor set out from Poitiers. Just outside Poitiers she was ambushed and held captive by Hugh IX of Lusignan, which had long ago been sold by his forebears to Henry II. Eleanor secured her freedom by agreeing to his demands and journeyed south, crossed the Pyrenees, and travelled through the Kingdoms of Navarre and Castile, arriving before the end of January, 1200.
King Alfonso VIII and her daughter, Queen Eleanor (also called Leonora of England) of Castile had two remaining unmarried daughters, Urraca and Blanche. Eleanor selected the younger daughter, Blanche. She stayed for two months at the Castilian court. Late in March, Eleanor and her granddaughter Blanche journeyed back across the Pyrenees. When she was at Bordeaux where she celebrated Easter, the famous warrior Mercadier came to her and it was decided that he would escort the Queen and Princess north. "On the second day in Easter week, he was slain in the city by a man-at-arms in the service of Brandin",[26] a rival mercenary captain. This tragedy was too much for the elderly Queen, who was fatigued and unable to continue to Normandy. She and Blanche rode in easy stages to the valley of the Loire, and she entrusted Blanche to the Archbishop of Bordeaux, who took over as her escort. The exhausted Eleanor went to Fontevraud, where she remained. In early summer, Eleanor was ill and John visited her at Fontevraud.
Eleanor was again unwell in early 1201. When war broke out between John and Philip, Eleanor declared her support for John, and set out from Fontevraud for her capital Poitiers to prevent her grandson Arthur, John's enemy, from taking control. Arthur learned of her whereabouts and besieged her in the castle of Mirabeau. As soon as John heard of this he marched south, overcame the besiegers and captured Arthur. Eleanor then returned to Fontevraud where she took the veil as a nun.
Eleanor died in 1204 and was entombed in Fontevraud Abbey next to her husband Henry and her son Richard. Her tomb effigy shows her reading a Bible and is decorated with magnificent jewelry. By the time of her death she had outlived all of her children except for King John and Queen Eleanor.
Appearance[link]
Contemporary sources praise Eleanor's beauty.[7] Even in an era when ladies of the nobility were excessively praised, their praise of her was undoubtedly sincere. When she was young, she was described as perpulchra – more than beautiful. When she was around 30, Bernard de Ventadour, a noted troubadour, called her "gracious, lovely, the embodiment of charm," extolling her "lovely eyes and noble countenance" and declaring that she was "one meet to crown the state of any king."[30][31][32] William of Newburgh emphasized the charms of her person, and even in her old age, Richard of Devizes described her as beautiful, while Matthew Paris, writing in the 13th century, recalled her "admirable beauty."
However, no one left a more detailed description of Eleanor; the color of her hair and eyes, for example, are unknown. The effigy on her tomb shows a tall and large-boned woman with brown skin, though this may not be an accurate representation. Her seal of c. 1152 shows a woman with a slender figure, but this is likely an impersonal image.[7]
In historical fiction[link]
Eleanor and Henry are the main characters in James Goldman's play The Lion in Winter, which was made into a film starring Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn in 1968 (for which Hepburn won the Academy Award for Best Actress and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama), and remade for television in 2003 with Patrick Stewart and Glenn Close (for which Close won the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress In A Mini-series or Motion Picture Made for Television and was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress - Miniseries or a Movie).
The depiction of Eleanor in the play Becket, which was filmed in 1964 with Pamela Brown as Eleanor, contains historical inaccuracies, as acknowledged by the author, Jean Anouilh.
In 2004, Catherine Muschamp's one-woman play, Mother of the Pride, toured the UK with Eileen Page in the title role. In 2005, Chapelle Jaffe played the same part in Toronto.
The character "Queen Elinor" appears in William Shakespeare's King John, along with other members of the family. On television, she has been portrayed in this play by Una Venning in the BBC Sunday Night Theatre version (1952) and by Mary Morris in the BBC Shakespeare version (1984).
She figures prominently in Sharon Kay Penman's novels, When Christ And His Saints Slept, Time and Chance, and Devil's Brood. She appears briefly in Here Be Dragons. Penman has also written a series of historical mysteries where she, in old age, sends a trusted servant to unravel various puzzles. The titles are The Queen's Man, Cruel as the Grave, Dragon's Lair, and Prince of Darkness.
E.L. Konigsburg's young adult novel, A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver, takes place in Heaven of the late 20th century, where Eleanor of Aquitaine, Empress Matilda, and William the Marshall are waiting for King Henry II to be admitted to heaven at last. The Abbot Suger stops to chat with Eleanor and stays to wait, too. To pass the time, the four recall Eleanor's time on Earth. The flashbacks on earth are set during the Middle Ages in France and England, with a brief trip to the Holy Land. The flashbacks trace the highlights of Eleanor's life from 1137 (when she is fifteen years old and about to wed Louis Capet, soon to be King Louis VII of France) to her death in 1204. Her life encompasses the rule of England by her husband Henry II and by her sons Richard and John. A humorous, highly original, and intelligent introduction for young readers to a fascinating chapter in history. Originally published in 1973, it's been put back in print by Atheneum, in 2001.
Christy English's historical novel, The Queen's Pawn, published in April 2010, depicts Eleanor of Aquitaine from 1169–1173, during her marriage to King Henry II of England and her relationship with Princess Alais of France. In April 2011, English published a second novel, To Be Queen, which is another historical novel centered on Eleanor of Aquitaine's life. This novel covers the years 1132-1152, from before she became Duchess of Aquitaine until the end of her first marriage to Louis VII of France. Also published in April 2010 was the novel The Captive Queen by Alison Weir, detailing Eleanor's life from when she first met Henry II of England to her death in 1204.
Eleanor has also featured in a number of screen versions of Ivanhoe and the Robin Hood story. She has been played by Martita Hunt in The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952), Jill Esmond in the British TV adventure series The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955–1960), Phyllis Neilson-Terry in the British TV adventure series Ivanhoe (1958), Yvonne Mitchell in the BBC TV drama series The Legend of Robin Hood (1975), Siân Phillips in the TV series Ivanhoe (1997), and Tusse Silberg in the TV series The New Adventures of Robin Hood (1997). She was portrayed by Lynda Bellingham in the BBC series Robin Hood. Most recently, she was portrayed by Eileen Atkins in Robin Hood (2010).
She has also been portrayed by Mary Clare in the silent film Becket (1923), based on a play by Alfred Lord Tennyson, Prudence Hyman in the British children's TV series Richard the Lionheart (1962), and Jane Lapotaire in the BBC TV drama series The Devil's Crown (1978), which dramatised the reigns of Henry II, Richard I and John.
Eleanor is played by Jane Lapotaire in Mike Walker's BBC Radio 4 series Plantagenet (2010).
Eleanor and Rosamund Clifford, as well as Henry II and Rosamund's father appear in Gaetano Donizetti's opera Rosmonda d'Inghilterra with a libretto by Felice Romani, which was premiered in Florence, at the Teatro Pergola, in 27 February 1834. A recording made by Opera Rara (1994), features Nelly Miricioiu as Eleanor and Renée Fleming as Rosamund.
Eleanor is also associated with Nicole des Jardins in Arthur C. Clarke's series Rendezvous with Rama. She is often cited as a role model for Nicole along with Joan of Arc
Ancestors[link]
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Issue[link]
File:The Children of Henry II.jpg
Issue of Eleanor & Henry
| Name | Birth | Death | Marriage(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| By Louis VII of France (married 12 July 1137, annulled 21 March 1152) | |||
| Marie, Countess of Champagne | 1145 | 11 March 1198 | married Henry I, Count of Champagne; had issue |
| Alix, Countess of Blois | 1151 | 1198 | married Theobald V, Count of Blois; had issue |
| By Henry II of England (married 18 May 1152, widowed 6 July 1189) | |||
| William IX, Count of Poitiers | 17 August 1153 | April 1156 | never married; no issue |
| Henry the Young King | 28 February 1155 | 11 June 1183 | married Margaret of France; no surviving issue. |
| Matilda, Duchess of Saxony | June 1156 | 13 July 1189 | married Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony; had issue |
| Richard I of England | 8 September 1157 | 6 April 1199 | married Berengaria of Navarre; no issue |
| Geoffrey II, Duke of Brittany | 23 September 1158 | 19 August 1186 | married Constance, Duchess of Brittany; had issue |
| Eleanor, Queen of Castile | 13 October 1162 | 31 October 1214 | married Alfonso VIII of Castile; had issue |
| Joan, Queen of Sicily | October 1165 | 4 September 1199 | married 1) William II of Sicily 2) Raymond VI of Toulouse; had issue |
| John, King of England | 27 December 1166 | 19 October 1216 | married 1) Isabella, Countess of Gloucester 2) Isabella, Countess of Angoulême; had issue |
See also[link]
References[link]
- ^ Meade, Marion. “Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Biography”. Penguin Books, 1977, p. 106
- ^ Meade, Marion. “Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Biography”. Penguin Books, 1977, p. 122
- ^ a b Marion Meade, Eleanor of Aquitaine: a biography, Penguin Books, 1977
- ^ citation, Ralph Turner: Eleanor of Aquitaine p.28
- ^ citation Weir, Alison: Eleanor Of Aquitaine: A Life p.13
- ^ (French) Biographie d'Aliénor d'Aquitaine
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Alison Weir, Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life, Ballantine Books, 2001
- ^ Ros Horton, Sally Simmons; Women Who Changed the World; Quercus, 2007
- ^ Alison Weir, Eleanor of Aquitaine: by the wrath of God, Queen of England, Jonathan Cape, 1999
- ^ a b c Fiona Swabey, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Courtly Love, and the Troubadours, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004
- ^ Amy Ruth Kelly, Eleanor of Aquitaine and the four kings, Harvard University Press, 1978
- ^ citation Weir, Alison: Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life p. 25
- ^ a b c Bonnie Wheeler, John Carmi Parsons; Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady; Palgrave Macmillan, 2003
- ^ Meade, Marion (2002). Eleanor of Aquitaine. Phoenix Press. p. 51. "...[Adelaide] perhaps [based] her preconceptions on another southerner, Constance of Provence...tales of her allegedly immodest dress and language still continued to circulate amongst the sober Franks."
- ^ Meade, Marion: Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Biography, page 100, Hawthorn Books, 1977
- ^ Natasha Hodgson, Women, Crusading and the Holy Land in Historical Narrative (Boydell, 2007) 131-134 on Eleanor's 'adultery
- ^ Chronique de Touraine
- ^ Martin Aurell, The Plantagenet empire, 1154–1224, Pearson Education, 2007
- ^ Weir, Alison, Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life, pages 154–155, Ballantine Books, 1999
- ^ a b Weir, Alison. Eleanor of Aquitaine: a Life. New York: Ballantine, 2000. Print.
- ^ Capellanus, Andreas. The Art of Courtly Love. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Ed. Joseph Laurence Black. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 2009. Print.
- ^ Brooks, Polly Schoyer. Queen Eleanor, Independent Spirit of the Medieval World: a Biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine. New York: J.B. Lippincott, 1983. Print.[page needed]
- ^ Kelly, Amy. "Eleanor of Aquitaine and Her Courts of Love." Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies 12.1 (1937): 3–19.
- ^ Kelly, Amy. "Eleanor of Aquitaine and Her Courts of Love." Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies 12.1 (1937): 12.
- ^ William of Newburgh, Book II, Chapter 7
- ^ a b Roger of Hoveden
- ^ a b Eleanor of Aquitaine. Alison Weir 1999
- ^ Ms. S. Berry, Senior Archivist at the Somerset Archive and Record Service, identified this "archdeacon of Wells" as Thomas of Earley, noting his family ties to Henry II and the Earleys' philanthropies (Power of a Woman, ch. 33, and endnote 40).
- ^ Eleanor of Aquitaine. Alison Weir 1999.
- ^ Alison Weir, Eleanor of Aquitaine: by the wrath of God, Queen of England, Jonathan Cape, 1999
- ^ Nancy Plain, Eleanor of Aquitaine and the High Middle Ages, Marshall Cavendish, 2005
- ^ Mark Turnham Elvins, Mark of Whitstable, Mark of Whistable Staff; Gospel Chivalry: Franciscan Romanticism; Marshall Cavendish, 2005
Biographies and printed works[link]
- Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen of France, Queen of England, Ralph V. Turner (2009)
- Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady, John Carmi Parsons & Bonnie Wheeler (2002)
- Queen Eleanor: Independent Spirit of the Medieval World, Polly Schover Brooks (1983) (for young readers)
- Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Biography, Marion Meade (1977)
- Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings, Amy Kelly (1950)
- Eleanor of Aquitaine: The Mother Queen, Desmond Seward (1978)
- Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life, Alison Weir (1999)
- (French) Le lit d'Aliénor, Mireille Calmel (2001)
- The Royal Diaries, Eleanor Crown Jewel of Aquitaine, Kristiana Gregory (2002)
- Women of the Twelfth Century, Volume 1 : Eleanor of Aquitaine and Six Others, Georges Duby
- A Proud Taste For Scarlet and Miniver, E. L. Konigsburg (1973)
- The Book of Eleanor: A Novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Pamela Kaufman (2002)
- The Courts of Love, Jean Plaidy (1987)
- Power of a Woman. Memoirs of a turbulent life: Eleanor of Aquitaine, Robert Fripp (2006)
- The Origin and Meaning of Courtly Love: A Critical Study of European Scholarship, Roger Boase (1977), Manchester University Press
- Duchess of Aquitaine, Margaret Ball (2006), St. Martin's Press
- The Queen's Pawn, Christy English (2010), New American Library
- Alienor: The Young Life of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Mark Richard Beaulieu (2012)
- Eleanor of Aquitaine, Curtis Howe Walker (1950)
External links[link]
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Eleanor of Aquitaine |
- The Eleanor Vase preserved at the Louvre
- RoyaList Online interactive family tree (en)
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Eleanor of Aquitaine
Born: 1124 Died: 1 April 1204 |
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| French nobility | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by William X/VIII |
Duchess of the Aquitainians 9 April 1137 – 1 April 1204 with Louis the Young (1137–1152) Henry Curtmantle (1152–1189) Richard the Lionheart (1189–1199) John Lackland (1199–1204) |
Succeeded by John |
| Countess of Poitiers 9 April 1137 – c. 1153 with Louis the Young (1137–1152) Henry Curtmantle (1152–1153) |
Succeeded by William IX |
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| French royalty | ||
| Preceded by Adelaide of Maurienne |
Queen consort of the Franks 12 July 1137 – March 1152 Served alongside: Adelaide of Maurienne (25 July – 1 August 1137) |
Vacant
Title next held by
Constance of Castile |
| English royalty | ||
| Vacant
Title last held by
Matilda I of Boulogne |
Queen consort of the English 25 October 1154 – 6 July 1189 Served alongside: Margaret of France (1172–1183) |
Vacant
Title next held by
Berengaria of Navarre |
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|||||||||||
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Eleanor Of Aquitaine |
| Alternative names | Aliénor d’Aquitaine |
| Short description | Queen consort, patroness |
| Date of birth | 1122 or 1124 |
| Place of birth | Aquitaine |
| Date of death | 1 April 1204 |
| Place of death | Fontevraud Abbey, Fontevraud |
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This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is about human society. For other uses, see Civilization (disambiguation).
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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2010) |
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Civilization (or civilisation) is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally hierarchical and urbanized. In a classical context, people were called "civilized" to set them apart from barbarians, while in a modern-day context, "civilized peoples" have been contrasted with primitive peoples.
There is a tendency to use the term in a less strict way, to mean approximately the same thing as "culture" and therefore, the term can more broadly refer to any important and clearly defined human society.[citation needed] Still, even when used in this second sense, the word is often restricted to apply only to societies that have attained a particular level of advancement-especially the founding of cities.
The level of advancement of a civilization is often measured by its progress in agriculture, long-distance trade, occupational specialization, a special governing class and urbanism. Aside from these core elements, a civilization is often marked by any combination of a number of secondary elements, including a developed transportation system, writing, standardized measurement, currency, contractual and (tort-based) legal systems, characteristic art and architecture, mathematics, enhanced scientific understanding, metallurgy, political structures, and an astronomical understanding.
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Etymology[link]
The word civilization comes from the Latin civilis, meaning civil, related to the Latin civis, meaning citizen, and civitas, meaning city or city-state.[4]
In the sixth century, the Byzantine Emperor Justinian oversaw the consolidation of Roman civil law. The resulting collection is called the Corpus Juris Civilis. In the 11th century, professors at the University of Bologna, Western Europe's first university, rediscovered the Corpus Juris Civilis, and its influence began to be felt across Europe. In 1388, the word civil appeared in English meaning "of or related to citizens."[5] In 1704, civilization was used to mean "a law which makes a criminal process into a civil case." Civilization was not used in its modern sense to mean "the opposite of barbarism"—as contrasted to civility, meaning politeness or civil virtue—until the second half of the 18th century.
According to Emile Benveniste (1954[6]), the earliest written occurrence in English of civilisation in its modern sense may be found in Adam Ferguson's An Essay on the History of Civil Society (Edinburgh, 1767 - p. 2): "Not only the individual advances from infancy to manhood, but the species itself from rudeness to civilisation."
It should be noted that this usage incorporates the concept of superiority and maturity of "civilized" existence, as contrasted to "rudeness", which is used to denote coarseness, as in a lack of refinement or "civility."
Before Benveniste's inquiries, the New English Dictionary quoted James Boswell's conversation with Samuel Johnson concerning the inclusion of Civilization in Johnson's dictionary:
On Monday, March 23 (1772), I found him busy, preparing a fourth edition of his folio Dictionary... He would not admit civilization, but only civility. With great deference to him I thought civilization, from to civilize, better in the sense opposed to barbarity than civility, as it is better to have a distinct word for each sense, than one word with two senses, which civility is, in his way of using it.
Benveniste demonstrated that previous occurrences could be found, which explained the quick adoption of Johnson's definition. In 1775 the dictionary of Ast defined civilization as "the state of being civilized; the act of civilizing",[6] and the term was frequently used by Adam Smith in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776).[6] Beside Smith and Ferguson, John Millar also used it in 1771 in his Observations concerning the distinction of ranks in society.[6]
The history of the word in English appears to be connected with the parallel development in French, which may be the original source. As the first occurrence of civilization in French was found by Benveniste in the Marquis de Mirabeau's L'Ami des hommes ou traité de la population (written in 1756 but published in 1757), Benveniste's query was to know if the English word derived from the French, or if both evolved independently — a question which needed more research. According to him, the word civilization may in fact have been used by Ferguson as soon as 1759.[6]
Furthermore, Benveniste notes that, contrasted to civility, a static term, civilization conveys a sense of dynamism. He thus writes that:
It was not only a historical view of society; it was also an optimist and resolutely non theological interpretation of its evolution which asserted itself, sometimes at the insu of those who proclaimed it, and even if some of them, and first of all Mirabeau, still counted religion as the first factor of 'civilization.[6][7]
In the late 1700s and early 1800s, both during the French revolution, and in English, "civilization" was referred to in the singular, never the plural, because it referred to the progress of humanity as a whole. This is still the case in French.[8] More recently "civilizations" is sometimes used as a synonym for the broader term "cultures" in both popular and academic circles.[9] However, the concepts of civilization and culture are not always considered interchangeable. For example, a small nomadic tribe may be judged not to have a civilization, but it would surely be judged to have a culture (defined as "the arts, customs, habits... beliefs, values, behavior and material habits that constitute a people's way of life").
Civilization is not always seen as an improvement. One historically important distinction between culture and civilization stems from the writings of Rousseau, and particularly his work concerning education, Emile. In this perspective, civilization, being more rational and socially driven, is not fully in accordance with human nature, and "human wholeness is achievable only through the recovery of or approximation to an original prediscursive or prerational natural unity". (See noble savage.) From this notion, a new approach was developed especially in Germany, first by Johann Gottfried Herder, and later by philosophers such as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. This sees cultures (plural) as natural organisms which are not defined by "conscious, rational, deliberative acts" but rather a kind of pre-rational "folk spirit". Civilization, in contrast, though more rational and more successful concerning material progress, is seen as un-natural, and leads to "vices of social life" such as guile, hypocrisy, envy, and avarice.[8] During World War II, Leo Strauss, having fled Germany, argued in New York that this approach to civilization was behind Nazism and German militarism and nihilism.[10]
In his book The Philosophy of Civilization, Albert Schweitzer outlined the idea that there are dual opinions within society: one regarding civilization as purely material and another regarding civilization as both ethical and material. He stated that the current world crisis was, then in 1923, due to a humanity having lost the ethical conception of civilization. In this same work, he defined civilization, saying that it "is the sum total of all progress made by man in every sphere of action and from every point of view in so far as the progress helps towards the spiritual perfecting of individuals as the progress of all progress."
Characteristics[link]
Social scientists such as V. Gordon Childe have named a number of traits that distinguish a civilization from other kinds of society.[11] Civilizations have been distinguished by their means of subsistence, types of livelihood, settlement patterns, forms of government, social stratification, economic systems, literacy, and other cultural traits.
All civilizations have depended on agriculture for subsistence. Growing food on farms results in a surplus of food, particularly when people use intensive agricultural techniques such as irrigation and crop rotation. Grain surpluses have been especially important because they can be stored for a long time. A surplus of food permits some people to do things besides produce food for a living: early civilizations included artisans, priests and priestesses, and other people with specialized careers. A surplus of food results in a division of labor and a more diverse range of human activity, a defining trait of civilizations. However, in some places hunter-gatherers have had access to food surpluses, such as among some of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest and perhaps during the Mesolithic Natufian culture. It is possible that food surpluses and relatively large scale social organization and division of labor predates plant and animal domestication.[12]
Civilizations have distinctly different settlement patterns from other societies. The word civilization is sometimes simply defined as "'living in cities'".[13] Non-farmers tend to gather in cities to work and to trade.
Compared with other societies, civilizations have a more complex political structure, namely the state.[15] State societies are more stratified[16] than other societies; there is a greater difference among the social classes. The ruling class, normally concentrated in the cities, has control over much of the surplus and exercises its will through the actions of a government or bureaucracy. Morton Fried, a conflict theorist, and Elman Service, an integration theorist, have classified human cultures based on political systems and social inequality. This system of classification contains four categories:[citation needed]
- Hunter-gatherer bands, which are generally egalitarian.[17]
- Horticultural/pastoral societies in which there are generally two inherited social classes; chief and commoner.
- Highly stratified structures, or chiefdoms, with several inherited social classes: king, noble, freemen, serf and slave.
- Civilizations, with complex social hierarchies and organized, institutional governments.[18]
Economically, civilizations display more complex patterns of ownership and exchange than less organized societies. Living in one place allows people to accumulate more personal possessions than nomadic people. Some people also acquire landed property, or private ownership of the land. Because a percentage of people in civilizations do not grow their own food, they must trade their goods and services for food in a market system, or receive food through the levy of tribute, redistributive taxation, tariffs or tithes from the food producing segment of the population. Early civilizations developed money as a medium of exchange for these increasingly complex transactions. To oversimplify, in a village the potter makes a pot for the brewer and the brewer compensates the potter by giving him a certain amount of beer. In a city, the potter may need a new roof, the roofer may need new shoes, the cobbler may need new horseshoes, the blacksmith may need a new coat, and the tanner may need a new pot. These people may not be personally acquainted with one another and their needs may not occur all at the same time. A monetary system is a way of organizing these obligations to ensure that they are fulfilled fairly.
Writing, developed first by people in Sumer, is considered a hallmark of civilization and "appears to accompany the rise of complex administrative bureaucracies or the conquest state."[19] Traders and bureaucrats relied on writing to keep accurate records. Like money, writing was necessitated by the size of the population of a city and the complexity of its commerce among people who are not all personally acquainted with each other. However, writing is not always necessary for civilization. The Inca civilization of the Andes did not use writing at all, yet it still functioned as a society.
Aided by their division of labor and central government planning, civilizations have developed many other diverse cultural traits. These include organized religion, development in the arts, and countless new advances in science and technology.
Through history, successful civilizations have spread, taking over more and more territory, and assimilating more and more previously-uncivilized people. Nevertheless, some tribes or people remain uncivilized even to this day. These cultures are called by some "primitive," a term that is regarded by others as pejorative. "Primitive" implies in some way that a culture is "first" (Latin = primus), that it has not changed since the dawn of humanity, though this has been demonstrated not to be true. Specifically, as all of today's cultures are contemporaries, today's so-called primitive cultures are in no way antecedent to those we consider civilized. Many anthropologists use the term "non-literate" to describe these peoples.
Civilization has been spread by colonization, invasion, religious conversion, the extension of bureaucratic control and trade, and by introducing agriculture and writing to non-literate peoples. Some non-civilized people may willingly adapt to civilized behaviour. But civilization is also spread by the technical, material and social dominance that civilization engenders.
Cultural identity[link]
"Civilization" can also refer to the culture of a complex society, not just the society itself. Every society, civilization or not, has a specific set of ideas and customs, and a certain set of manufactures and arts that make it unique. Civilizations tend to develop intricate cultures, including literature, professional art, architecture, organized religion, and complex customs associated with the elite.
The intricate culture associated with civilization has a tendency to spread to and influence other cultures, sometimes assimilating them into the civilization (a classic example being Chinese civilization and its influence on nearby civilizations such as Korea, Japan and Vietnam). Many civilizations are actually large cultural spheres containing many nations and regions. The civilization in which someone lives is that person's broadest cultural identity.
Many historians have focused on these broad cultural spheres and have treated civilizations as discrete units. Early twentieth-century philosopher Oswald Spengler,[20] uses the German word "Kultur," "culture," for what many call a "civilization". Spengler believes a civilization's coherence is based on a single primary cultural symbol. Cultures experience cycles of birth, life, decline, and death, often supplanted by a potent new culture, formed around a compelling new cultural symbol. Spengler states civilization is the beginning of the decline of a culture as, "...the most external and artificial states of which a species of developed humanity is capable."[20]
This "unified culture" concept of civilization also influenced the theories of historian Arnold J. Toynbee in the mid-twentieth century. Toynbee explored civilization processes in his multi-volume A Study of History, which traced the rise and, in most cases, the decline of 21 civilizations and five "arrested civilizations." Civilizations generally declined and fell, according to Toynbee, because of the failure of a "creative minority", through moral or religious decline, to meet some important challenge, rather than mere economic or environmental causes.
Samuel P. Huntington defines civilization as "the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of that which distinguishes humans from other species." Huntington's theories about civilizations are discussed below.[21]
Complex systems[link]
Another group of theorists, making use of systems theory, looks at a civilization as a complex system, i.e., a framework by which a group of objects can be analyzed that work in concert to produce some result. Civilizations can be seen as networks of cities that emerge from pre-urban cultures, and are defined by the economic, political, military, diplomatic, social, and cultural interactions among them. Any organization is a complex social system, and a civilization is a large organization. Systems theory helps guard against superficial but misleading analogies in the study and description of civilizations.
Systems theorists look at many types of relations between cities, including economic relations, cultural exchanges, and political/diplomatic/military relations. These spheres often occur on different scales. For example, trade networks were, until the nineteenth century, much larger than either cultural spheres or political spheres. Extensive trade routes, including the Silk Road through Central Asia and Indian Ocean sea routes linking the Roman Empire, Persian Empire, India, and China, were well established 2000 years ago, when these civilizations scarcely shared any political, diplomatic, military, or cultural relations. The first evidence of such long distance trade is in the ancient world. During the Uruk period Guillermo Algaze has argued that trade relations connected Egypt, Mesopotamia, Iran and Afghanistan.[22] Resin found later in the Royal Tombs of Ur it is suggested was traded northwards from Mozambique.
Many theorists argue that the entire world has already become integrated into a single "world system", a process known as globalization. Different civilizations and societies all over the globe are economically, politically, and even culturally interdependent in many ways. There is debate over when this integration began, and what sort of integration – cultural, technological, economic, political, or military-diplomatic – is the key indicator in determining the extent of a civilization. David Wilkinson has proposed that economic and military-diplomatic integration of the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations resulted in the creation of what he calls the "Central Civilization" around 1500 BCE.[23] Central Civilization later expanded to include the entire Middle East and Europe, and then expanded to a global scale with European colonization, integrating the Americas, Australia, China and Japan by the nineteenth century. According to Wilkinson, civilizations can be culturally heterogeneous, like the Central Civilization, or homogeneous, like the Japanese civilization. What Huntington calls the "clash of civilizations" might be characterized by Wilkinson as a clash of cultural spheres within a single global civilization. Others point to the Crusades as the first step in globalization. The more conventional viewpoint is that networks of societies have expanded and shrunk since ancient times, and that the current globalized economy and culture is a product of recent European colonialism.
Future[link]
Political scientist Samuel Huntington[24] has argued that the defining characteristic of the 21st century will be a clash of civilizations. According to Huntington, conflicts between civilizations will supplant the conflicts between nation-states and ideologies that characterized the 19th and 20th centuries. These views have been strongly challenged by others like Edward Said, Muhammed Asadi and Amartya Sen.[25] Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris have argued that the "true clash of civilizations" between the Muslim world and the West is caused by the Muslim rejection of the West's more liberal sexual values, rather than a difference in political ideology, although they note that this lack of tolerance is likely to lead to an eventual rejection of (true) democracy.[26] In Identity and Violence Sen questions if people should be divided along the lines of a supposed 'civilization', defined by religion and culture only. He argues that this ignores the many others identities that make up people and leads to a focus on differences.
Some environmental scientists see the world entering a Planetary Phase of Civilization, characterized by a shift away from independent, disconnected nation-states to a world of increased global connectivity with worldwide institutions, environmental challenges, economic systems, and consciousness.[27][28] In an attempt to better understand what a Planetary Phase of Civilization might look like in the current context of declining natural resources and increasing consumption, the Global scenario group used scenario analysis to arrive at three archetypal futures: Barbarization, in which increasing conflicts result in either a fortress world or complete societal breakdown; Conventional Worlds, in which market forces or Policy reform slowly precipitate more sustainable practices; and a Great Transition, in which either the sum of fragmented Eco-Communalism movements add up to a sustainable world or globally coordinated efforts and initiatives result in a new sustainability paradigm.[29]
Author Derrick Jensen argues that modern civilization is intrinsically directed towards the domination of the environment and humanity itself in a harmful and destructive fashion.[30]
The Kardashev scale classifies civilizations based on their level of technological advancement, specifically measured by the amount of energy a civilization is able to harness. The Kardashev scale makes provisions for civilizations far more technologically advanced than any currently known to exist (see also: Civilizations and the Future, Space civilization).
Fall of civilizations[link]
Main article: Societal collapse
There have been many explanations put forward for the collapse of civilization. Some focus on historical examples, and others on general theory.
- Ibn Khaldūn's Muqaddimah influenced theories of the analysis, growth and decline of the Islamic civilization. He suggested repeated invasions from nomadic peoples limited development and led to social collapse.
- Edward Gibbon's work The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was a well-known and detailed analysis of the fall of Roman civilization. Gibbon suggested the final act of the collapse of Rome was the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 CE. For Gibbon:
The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of the ruin is simple and obvious; and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it has subsisted for so long.[Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 2nd ed., vol. 4, ed. by J. B. Bury (London, 1909), pp. 173–174.-Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.--Part VI. General Observations On The Fall Of The Roman Empire In The West.]
- Theodor Mommsen in his "History of Rome (Mommsen)", suggested Rome collapsed with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE and he also tended towards a biological analogy of "genesis," "growth," "senescence," "collapse" and "decay."
- Oswald Spengler, in his "Decline of the West" rejected Petrarch's chronological division, and suggested that there had been only eight "mature civilizations." Growing cultures, he argued, tend to develop into imperialistic civilizations which expand and ultimately collapse, with democratic forms of government ushering in plutocracy and ultimately imperialism.
- Arnold J. Toynbee in his "A Study of History" suggested that there had been a much larger number of civilizations, including a small number of arrested civilizations, and that all civilizations tended to go through the cycle identified by Mommsen. The cause of the fall of a civilization occurred when a cultural elite became a parasitic elite, leading to the rise of internal and external proletariats.
- Joseph Tainter in "The Collapse of Complex Societies" suggested that there were diminishing returns to complexity, due to which, as states achieved a maximum permissible complexity, they would decline when further increases actually produced a negative return. Tainter suggested that Rome achieved this figure in the 2nd Century CE.
- Jared Diamond in his 2005 book "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" suggests five major reasons for the collapse of 41 studied cultures: environmental damage, such as deforestation and soil erosion; climate change; dependence upon long-distance trade for needed resources; increasing levels of internal and external violence, such as war or invasion; and societal responses to internal and environmental problems.
- Peter Turchin in his Historical Dynamics and Andrey Korotayev et al. in their Introduction to Social Macrodynamics, Secular Cycles, and Millennial Trends suggest a number of mathematical models describing collapse of agrarian civilizations. For example, the basic logic of Turchin's "fiscal-demographic" model can be outlined as follows: during the initial phase of a sociodemographic cycle we observe relatively high levels of per capita production and consumption, which leads not only to relatively high population growth rates, but also to relatively high rates of surplus production. As a result, during this phase the population can afford to pay taxes without great problems, the taxes are quite easily collectible, and the population growth is accompanied by the growth of state revenues. During the intermediate phase, the increasing overpopulation leads to the decrease of per capita production and consumption levels, it becomes more and more difficult to collect taxes, and state revenues stop growing, whereas the state expenditures grow due to the growth of the population controlled by the state. As a result, during this phase the state starts experiencing considerable fiscal problems. During the final pre-collapse phases the overpopulation leads to further decrease of per capita production, the surplus production further decreases, state revenues shrink, but the state needs more and more resources to control the growing (though with lower and lower rates) population. Eventually this leads to famines, epidemics, state breakdown, and demographic and civilization collapse (Peter Turchin. Historical Dynamics. Princeton University Press, 2003:121–127).
- Peter Heather argues in his book The Fall of the Roman Empire: a New History of Rome and the Barbarians[31] that this civilization did not end for moral or economic reasons, but because centuries of contact with barbarians across the frontier generated its own nemesis by making them a much more sophisticated and dangerous adversary. The fact that Rome needed to generate ever greater revenues to equip and re-equip armies that were for the first time repeatedly defeated in the field, led to the dismemberment of the Empire. Although this argument is specific to Rome, it can also be applied to the Asiatic Empire of the Egyptians, to the Han and Tang dynasties of China, to the Muslim Abbasid Caliphate, and others.
- Bryan Ward-Perkins, in his book The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization,[32] shows the real horrors associated with the collapse of a civilization for the people who suffer its effects, unlike many revisionist historians who downplay this. The collapse of complex society meant that even basic plumbing disappeared from the continent for 1,000 years. Similar Dark Age collapses are seen with the Late Bronze Age collapse in the Eastern Mediterranean, the collapse of the Maya, on Easter Island and elsewhere.
- Arthur Demarest argues in Ancient Maya: The Rise and Fall of a Rainforest Civilization,[33] using a holistic perspective to the most recent evidence from archaeology, paleoecology, and epigraphy, that no one explanation is sufficient but that a series of erratic, complex events, including loss of soil fertility, drought and rising levels of internal and external violence led to the disintegration of the courts of Mayan kingdoms which began a spiral of decline and decay. He argues that the collapse of the Maya has lessons for civilization today.
- Jeffrey A. McNeely has recently suggested that "A review of historical evidence shows that past civilizations have tended to over-exploit their forests, and that such abuse of important resources has been a significant factor in the decline of the over-exploiting society."[34]
- Thomas Homer-Dixon in "The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization", considers that the fall in the energy return on investments; the energy expended to energy yield ratio, is central to limiting the survival of civilizations. The degree of social complexity is associated strongly, he suggests, with the amount of disposable energy environmental, economic and technological systems allow. When this amount decreases civilizations either have to access new energy sources or they will collapse....
History[link]
Early civilizations[link]
Further information: Prehistory and Cradle of Civilization
The process of sedentarization is first thought to have occurred around 12,000 BCE in the Levant region of southwest Asia though other regions around the world soon followed. The emergence of civilization is generally associated with the Neolithic, or Agricultural Revolution, which occurred in various locations between 8,000 and 5,000 BCE, specifically in southwestern/southern Asia, northern/central Africa and Central America.[36] This revolution marked the beginning of stable agriculture and animal domestication which enabled economies and cities to develop.
The following articles discuss the development of major early civilizations.
Antiquity (Axial Age)[link]
Further information: Hinduism and Ancient Greek Religion
Karl Jaspers, the German historical philosopher, proposed that the ancient civilizations were affected greatly by an Axial Age in the period between 800 BCE–200 BCE during which a series of male sages, prophets, religious reformers and philosophers, from China, India, Iran, Israel and Greece, changed the direction of civilizations.[37] William H. McNeill proposed that this period of history was one in which culture contact between previously separate civilizations saw the "closure of the oecumene", and led to accelerated social change from China to the Mediterranean, associated with the spread of coinage, larger empires and new religions. This view has recently been championed by Christopher Chase-Dunn and other world systems theorists.
- Mediterranean civilizations of the Classical Period
- Middle East
- Persia since the Achaemenids
- Second Temple Judaism
- Ancient India
- Ancient China (Qin Dynasty, Han Dynasty)
- Ancient Nomads (Xiongnu, Huns, Kok Turk Empire)
Medieval to Early Modern[link]
Further information: Middle Ages and Early Modern period
- Christendom
- Islamic World
- Asia
- Chola Empire, India
- Pandya Empire, India
- Chera Kingdom, India
- Pallava Kingdom, India
- Tang China
- Goryeo Korea
- Mongol Empire (Yuan)
- Ming China
- Feudal Japan
- Confucian Vietnam
- South East Asia
- Funan, Chenla, Champa, Anghor Cambodia
- Dvaravati, Hariphunchai, Sukhothai, Ayutthaya Kingdom, pre Modern Thailand
- Pagan Burma
- Chola, Pallava, Sri Vijaya, Sailendra, Mataram and Majapahit
- Mesomerican civilizations
- Andean civilizations
- African civilizations
Contemporary[link]
Further information: Modernity
Further information: cultural bloc, Major world religions, world language, and The Clash of Civilizations
- Western World
- Islamic world
- Arab world
- Middle East
- Turkey (in transition from the Islamic World to the Western World)
- North Africa
- Somalia
- Eastern world / Far East
- Sub-Saharan Africa
-
- South Africa (to the Western World)
-
See also[link]
- Anarcho-primitivism
- Barbarian
- Civilized core
- Cradle of civilization
- Culture
- History of the world
- Human population
- Intermediate Region
- Kardashev scale
- Mission civilisatrice
- Muslim world
- Proto-civilization
- Sedentism
- Western civilization
Notes[link]
- ^ Hans Kung, Tracing the Way : Spiritual Dimensions of the World Religions, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006, page 248
- ^ Kairouan Capital of Political Power and Learning in the Ifriqiya (Muslim Heritage)
- ^ Nurdin Laugu, « The Roles of Mosque Libraries through History », Al-Jami‘ah, vol. 45, n°1, 2007, page 105
- ^ Larry E. Sullivan (2009), The SAGE glossary of the social and behavioral sciences, Editions SAGE, p. 73
- ^ "Civil", Merriam-Webster, 226.
- ^ a b c d e f Émile Benveniste, "Civilisation. Contribution à l'histoire du mot" (Civilisation. Contribution to the history of the word), 1954, published in Problèmes de linguistique générale, Editions Gallimard, 1966, pp.336-345 (translated by Mary Elizabeth Meek as Problems in general linguistics, 2 vols., 1971)
- ^ Benveniste (French): Ce n'était pas seulement une vue historique de la société; c'était aussi une interprétation optimiste et résolument non théologique de son évolution qui s'affirmait, parfois à l'insu de ceux qui la proclamaient, et même si certains, et d'abord Mirabeau, comptaient encore la religion comme le premier facteur de la "civilization".
- ^ a b Velkley, Richard (2002), "The Tension in the Beautiful: On Culture and Civilization in Rousseau and German Philosophy", Being after Rousseau: Philosophy and Culture in Question, The University of Chicago Press, pp. 11–30
- ^ "Civilization" (1974), Encyclopædia Britannica 15th ed. Vol. II, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 956. Retrieved 25 August 2007.
- ^ "On German Nihilism" (1999, originally a 1941 lecture), Interpretation 26, no. 3 edited by David Janssens and Daniel Tanguay.
- ^ Gordon Childe, V., What Happened in History (Penguin, 1942) and Man Makes Himself (Harmondsworth, 1951)
- ^ "Göbekli Tepe". National Geographic. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/06/gobekli-tepe/mann-text/1. Retrieved 18 Mat 2011.
- ^ Tom Standage (2005), A History of the World in 6 Glasses, Walker & Company, 25.
- ^ Gary B. Ferngren (2002). "Science and religion: a historical introduction". JHU Press. p.33. ISBN 0-8018-7038-0
- ^ Grinin, Leonid E (Ed) et al (2004), "The Early State and its Alternatives and Analogues" (Ichitel)
- ^ Bondarenko, Dmitri et al (2004), "Alternatives to Social Evolution" in Grinin op cit.
- ^ DeVore, Irven, and Lee, Richard (1999) "Man the Hunter" (Aldine)
- ^ Beck, Roger B.; Linda Black, Larry S. Krieger, Phillip C. Naylor, Dahia Ibo Shabaka, (1999). World History: Patterns of Interaction. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell. ISBN 0-395-87274-X.
- ^ Pauketat, Timothy R. 169.
- ^ a b Spengler, Oswald, Decline of the West: Perspectives of World History (1919)
- ^ Samuel P. Huntington (1997), The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order, Simon and Schuster, p. 43
- ^ Algaze, Guillermo, The Uruk World System: The Dynamics of Expansion of Early Mesopotamian Civilization" (Second Edition, 2004) (ISBN 978-0-226-01382-4)
- ^ Wilkinson, David, The Power Configuration Sequence of the Central World System, 1500-700 BCE (2001)
- ^ Huntington, Samuel P., The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, (Simon & Schuster, 1996)
- ^ Asadi, Muhammed (2007-01-22). "A Critique of Huntington’s "Clash of Civilizations"". Selves and Others. http://www.selvesandothers.org/article15618.html. Retrieved 2009-01-23.
- ^ Inglehart, Ronald; Pippa Norris (March/April 2003). "The True Clash of Civilizations". Global Policy Forum. http://www.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/cultural/2003/0304clash.htm. Retrieved 2009-01-23.
- ^ Orion > Thoughts on America
- ^ Kosmos Journal Paths to Planetary Civilization
- ^ GTinitiative.org
- ^ Jensen, Derrick (2006), "Endgame: The Problem of Civilisation", Vol 1 & Vol 2 (Seven Stories Press)
- ^ ISBN 0-19-515954-3
- ^ ISBN 0-19-280728-5
- ^ ISBN 0-521-53390-2
- ^ McNeely, Jeffrey A. (1994) "Lessons of the past: Forests and Biodiversity" (Vol 3, No 1 1994. Biodiversity and Conservation)
- ^ Diamond, J.; Bellwood, P. (2003). "Farmers and Their Languages: The First Expansions". Science 300 (5619): 597–603. Bibcode 2003Sci...300..597D. DOI:10.1126/science.1078208. PMID 12714734. edit
- ^ "Origin of agriculture and domestication of plants and animals linked to early Holocene climate amelioration", Anil K. Gupta*, Current Science, Vol. 87, No. 1, 10 July 2004
- ^ Tarnas, Richard (1993). The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas that Have Shaped Our World View (Ballantine Books)
References[link]
- Ankerl, Guy (2000) [2000]. Global communication without universal civilization. INU societal research. Vol.1: Coexisting contemporary civilizations: Arabo-Muslim, Bharati, Chinese, and Western. Geneva: INU Press. ISBN 2-88155-004-5.
- Clash of Civilizations and information on other civilizations, Discussion and news surrounding the clash and concepts such as dialog, equality, acceptance etc. between civilizations.
- BBC on civilization
- Wiktionary: civilization, civilize
- Brinton, Crane (et al.) (1984). A History of Civilization: Prehistory to 1715 (6th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-389866-0.
- Casson, Lionel (1994). Ships and Seafaring in Ancient Times. London: British Museum Press. ISBN 0-7141-1735-8.
- Chisholm, Jane; and Anne Millard (1991). Early Civilization. illus. Ian Jackson. London: Usborne. ISBN 1-58086-022-2.
- Collcutt, Martin; Marius Jansen, and Isao Kumakura (1988). Cultural Atlas of Japan. New York: Facts on File. ISBN 0-8160-1927-4.
- Drews, Robert (1993). The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 B.C.. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-04811-8.
- Edey, Maitland A. (1974). The Sea Traders. New York: Time-Life Books. ISBN 0-7054-0060-3.
- Fairservis, Walter A., Jr. (1975). The Threshold of Civilization: An Experiment in Prehistory. New York: Scribner. ISBN 0-684-12775-X.
- Fernández-Armesto, Felipe (2000). Civilizations. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-90171-1.
- Ferrill, Arther (1985). The Origins of War: From the Stone Age to Alexander the Great. New York: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-25093-6.
- Fitzgerald, C. P. (1969). The Horizon History of China. New York: American Heritage. ISBN 0-8281-0005-5.
- Fuller, J. F. C. (1954-57). A Military History of the Western World. 3 vols.. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
- From the Earliest Times to the Battle of Lepanto. ISBN 0-306-80304-6 (1987 reprint).
- From the Defeat of the Spanish Armada to the Battle of Waterloo. ISBN 0-306-80305-4 (1987 reprint).
- From the American Civil War to the End of World War II. ISBN 0-306-80306-2 (1987 reprint).
- Gowlett, John (1984). Ascent to Civilization. London: Collins. ISBN 0-00-217090-6.
- Hawkes, Jacquetta (1968). Dawn of the Gods. London: Chatto & Windus. ISBN 0-7011-1332-4.
- Hawkes, Jacquetta; with David Trump (1976). The Atlas of Early Man. London: Dorling Kindersley. ISBN 0-312-09746-8 (1993 reprint).
- Hicks, Jim (1974). The Empire Builders. New York: Time-Life Books.
- Hicks, Jim (1975). The Persians. New York: Time-Life Books.
- Johnson, Paul (1987). A History of the Jews. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-79091-9.
- Jensen, Derrick (2006). Endgame. New York: Seven Stories Press. ISBN 978-1-58322-730-5.
- Keppie, Lawrence (1984). The Making of the Roman Army: From Republic to Empire. Totowa, N.J.: Barnes & Noble. ISBN 0-389-20447-1.
- Korotayev, Andrey, World Religions and Social Evolution of the Old World Oikumene Civilizations: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2004. ISBN 0-7734-6310-0
- Kradin, Nikolay. Archaeological Criteria of Civilization. Social Evolution & History, Vol. 5, No 1 (2006): 89-108. ISSN 1681-4363.
- Lansing, Elizabeth (1971). The Sumerians: Inventors and Builders. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-036357-9.
- Lee, Ki-Baik (1984). A New History of Korea. trans. Edward W. Wagner, with Edward J. Shultz. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-61575-1.
- McGaughey, William (2000). Five Epochs of Civilization. Minneapolis: Thistlerose Publications. ISBN 0-9605630-3-2.
- Nahm, Andrew C. (1983). A Panorama of 5000 Years: Korean History. Elizabeth, N.J.: Hollym International. ISBN 0-930878-23-X.
- Oliphant, Margaret (1992). The Atlas of the Ancient World: Charting the Great Civilizations of the Past. London: Ebury. ISBN 0-09-177040-8.
- Rogerson, John (1985). Atlas of the Bible. New York: Infobase Publishing. ISBN 0-8160-1206-7.
- Sandall, Roger (2001). The Culture Cult: Designer Tribalism and Other Essays. Boulder, Colo.: Westview. ISBN 0-8133-3863-8.
- Sansom, George (1958). A History of Japan: To 1334. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-0523-2 (1996 reprint).
- Southworth, John Van Duyn (1968). The Ancient Fleets: The Story of Naval Warfare Under Oars, 2600 B.C.–1597 A.D.. New York: Twayne.
- Thomas, Hugh (1981). An Unfinished History of the World (rev. ed.). London: Pan. ISBN 0-330-26458-3.
- Yap, Yong; and Arthur Cotterell (1975). The Early Civilization of China. New York: Putnam. ISBN 0-399-11595-1.
- A. Nuri Yurdusev, International Relations and the Philosophy of History: A Civilizational Approach (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).
- Beck, Roger B.; Linda Black, Larry S. Krieger, Phillip C. Naylor, Dahia Ibo Shabaka, (1999). World History: Patterns of Interaction. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell. ISBN 0-395-87274-X.
External links[link]
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Look up civilization in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Civilization |
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http://ru.wn.com/Цивилизация
http://cs.wn.com/Civilizace
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http://pl.wn.com/Cywilizacja
http://hi.wn.com/सभ्यता
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This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization
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This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
| Anthony Delon | |
|---|---|
 Anthony Delon at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival |
|
| Born | (1964-09-30) September 30, 1964 (age 47) Mid-City West, Los Angeles, California |
| Citizenship | French, U.S. citizen |
| Years active | 1986 - present |
| Spouse | Sophie Clerico, (m. June 27, 2006) |
| Children | 2 daughters, Lou Delon (1996-02-04) February 4, 1996 (age 16), Liv Delon (2001-08-25) August 25, 2001 (age 10) |
Anthony Delon (born September 30, 1964 Hollywood) is a French-American actor, and son of actors Alain Delon[1] and Nathalie Delon (Francine Canovas).
Contents |
Biography[link]
Delon is the former boyfriend of Princess Stéphanie of Monaco.[1]
Personal Life[link]
Atony Delon married Sophie Clerico in 2006
Selected filmography[link]
- Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1987)
- Desert of Fire (1997)
- Frenchman's Creek (1998)
- Paris Connections (2010)
- Polisse (2011)
References[link]
- ^ a b "Intelligence Report". Parade Magazine: 12. April 22, 1990. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=mKYpAAAAIBAJ&sjid=fIYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3839,6540450&dq=anthony-delon. Retrieved September 4, 2010.
External links[link]
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Delon, Anthony |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | French Actor |
| Date of birth | 30 September 1964 |
| Place of birth | Hollywood, California |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
 |
This article about a French stage actor or actress is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
| This article about a French film and television actor or actress is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
http://wn.com/Anthony_Delon
Related pages:
http://ru.wn.com/Делон, Энтони
http://fr.wn.com/Anthony Delon
http://de.wn.com/Anthony Delon
http://it.wn.com/Anthony Delon
http://es.wn.com/Anthony Delon
http://pl.wn.com/Anthony Delon
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Delon
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
| Mylène Farmer | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Mylène Jeanne Gautier |
| Born | (1961-09-12) 12 September 1961 (age 50) Pierrefonds, Quebec, Canada |
| Origin | Paris, France |
| Genres | Pop, rock, electronica |
| Occupations | Singer, songwriter, actress |
| Years active | 1984–present |
| Labels | Polydor Records |
| Associated acts | Moby, Seal, Archive, Alizée, Jean-Louis Murat, RedOne |
Mylène Farmer (pronounced: [milɛn faʁmœʁ]), born Mylène Jeanne Gautier[1] [milɛn ɡotje]; born 12 September 1961), is a French singer, songwriter, occasional actress and author.
She has sold more than 30 million records[2] and is among the most successful recording artists of all time in France. She holds the record for the most number one hits in the French charts, with twelve to date, eight of which were consecutive.
Contents
|
Biography and career[link]
Early years[link]
Mylène Farmer was born in Pierrefonds, Quebec, Canada. Her parents moved from France in the late 1950s as Farmer's father, Max, pursued an engineering contract on a dam. Her family returned to France when she was eight, settling in the Parisian suburb of Ville d'Avray. In her teenage years, Farmer was passionate about horse-riding, qualifying as a riding instructor at the equestrian centre in Saumur. At the age of 17, however, Farmer discovered acting and she abandoned the stables to take a three-year course at the Cours Florent, a drama school in Paris. Changing her name to Mylène Farmer as a tribute to her idol, 1930s Hollywood actress Frances Farmer, she began to earn a living as a model acting in several TV ads such as Fiskars, Caisse d'Epargne etc.
In 1984, Farmer met Laurent Boutonnat, a young film student, after replying to a newspaper ad for an actress for a small film he was working on. Farmer and Boutonnat became friends and forged a creative partnership, writing and producing the music. Boutonnat, whose ambition was to become a film director, was the force behind Mylène’s videos.
Farmer gained fame with songs featuring shocking yet poetic lyrics, and explicit music videos: "Maman a tort" was about the love of a young girl for her female hospital nurse. "Pourvu qu'elles soient douces" contains hints of sodomy; the video, set in the 18th century, featured a caning. "Libertine" is said to feature the first full frontal nudity appearance by a singer on a major music video. "Que mon cœur lâche" was about love with condoms in the age of AIDS; the video for the song features a scene in which God tells Jesus he will not send him to Earth again because the last time "was a disaster". The videos for "Beyond My Control" and "Je te rends ton amour" were censored because of their sexual and violent content; later released in a video single, the latter one became the highest selling release of that kind in France.
Her most well-known songs include "Désenchantée", "Pourvu qu'elles soient douces", "Sans contrefaçon", "Libertine", "XXL", "C'est une belle journée", "Rêver", "Les Mots" and "Oui mais... non".
Debut (1984–1989)[link]
Boutonnat and a young songwriter, Jérôme Dahan, had written a song, and were auditioning to find a singer to record it. Farmer was eventually chosen and recorded the song, "Maman a tort" (one of the few songs not to be written by Farmer herself), which was released to good success in March 1984. The video cost the modest sum of 5000 FR but caused a stir in the music world.[3] However, the following single, "On est tous des imbéciles", was met with little praise.
Despite the mitigated success of her first two singles, Farmer, helped by Boutonnat, started working on her first album. Even if this album was almost entirely written and composed by Boutonnat, it was then that it was decided that Farmer would write the lyrics of her songs and Boutonnat would compose the music and direct the videos. "Libertine", the album's lead single, was released in March 1986 and set the tone for Farmer's musical style. The sensual, romantic lyrics were inspired by 19th-century literature. As for the video, which had a running time of more than 10 minutes, Boutonnat was inspired by the film Barry Lyndon and the novels of the Marquis de Sade, thus giving the video a cinematic style. Farmer, lit by candlelight, is shrouded in mystery and sexual ambiguity, it also was the very first video in which a French female singer appeared full frontal nude. The following single, "Tristana", also met success and the video also had a cinematic approach that impressed the audience. Meanwhile, another single from the album, Plus grandir, also shot in cinematic 35 mm, was released.[4]
In 1988, Boutonnat and Farmer began work on her next album, Ainsi soit je... (a play on the French expression ainsi soit-il, meaning "so be it" or "amen"). This album, infused with a much darker atmosphere, is more sexually ambiguous than her previous one, featuring songs inspired by Mylène’s favourite authors, including the French romantic poet Charles Baudelaire and the American horror writer Edgar Allan Poe. The album sold 1.8 million copies on the back of the Nº2 hit "Sans contrefaçon" as well as the first Nº1 hit of her career, "Pourvu qu'elles soient douces". The other singles, "Sans logique" and title song were also hits in France, while the Juliette Gréco cover "Déshabillez-moi" became a fan favourite. Ainsi soit je... was the best-selling female album in France of the 1980s.[5]
In spite of her drama courses, Farmer found it difficult to overcome shyness when in front of an audience. It was only after hesitation that she agreed to make a concert tour in 1989. After singing in a small venue in Saint-Étienne as a test, the singer came to Paris to perform at the Palais des Sports for a week in May. Following the positive response of the audience, she agreed for a full-scale 52-date tour through francophone Europe. A live album documenting the tour was released at the end of the year, titled En Concert, also containing a new song, "A quoi je sers", in which she questions the future of her career. The costumes of the tour were designed by the French designer Thierry Mugler.
It was also during this period that it was noticed that Farmer rarely gave interviews or appeared in public, even if she is now even less inclined to public exposure than at the time.[6]
[edit] L'Autre... and "Désenchantée" (1990–1992)
By the turn of the decade Farmer was a full-blown superstar in France, but it wasn't until the release of her third album, L'Autre..., and single "Désenchantée" that she became iconic. The album, released on 8 April 1991, displayed a new image to her audience: more mature, more confident, with very short hair and a more defiant attitude (as evidenced in the videos for "Désenchantée" and particularly "Je t'aime mélancolie", in which Farmer plays a professional boxer fighting a male opponent). The music had also evolved in comparison to her previous records. The lyrics now approached a larger scope of subjects such as religion ("Agnus Dei"), politics ("Désenchantée") and press criticism ("Je t'aime mélancolie").
"Désenchantée", the album's lead single, became a phenomenon in French pop music, striking a universal chord with its political lyrics. The song hit Nº1 in France, remaining 9 weeks atop of the chart. At the time, it went on to become the best selling French single of all time (both in country and around the globe), according to Guinness Book of World Records. It also spent 6 weeks at Nº1 in Belgium, and made the Top 10 in Canada and the Top 20 in Austria and the Netherlands. It is considered by many to be Farmer's signature-song.[7] It was accompanied by an epic video, in which Mylène plays a rebelling prisoner in a facility which resembles a concentration camp or gulag.[8]
Following the phenomenal success of "Désenchantée", Farmer released three more very successful singles from the album: "Regrets", a gold-selling Nº3 duet performed with Jean-Louis Murat, "Je t'aime mélancolie" (Nº3) and "Beyond My Control" (Nº8), the latter having a blood-and-sex-charged video that was banned from airplay. The success of the singles helped its parent album sell close to 2 million copies in France alone, having been certified Diamond.[9] It spent a then-record 20 weeks at the pole position of the French charts, as well as topping the chart in Belgium and making top 10 in Canada. It has become Farmer's best selling studio album.
Prior to the release of the album's third single, on 14 November 1991[7] a disturbed man who had been stalking Farmer entered the Polydor Records headquarters in Paris and held employees at gunpoint demanding to talk to her. The man had previously written the singer some fan mail, which she did not respond to. He killed the receptionist. Following this occurrence, Farmer shunned media attention and left France to live in Los Angeles for a few weeks.[10]
In late 1992, she released the remix album Dance Remixes, a two-disc set containing 14 remixes of the singer's greatest dance hits plus a new song : the single "Que mon cœur lâche". As usual, Farmer did not shy away from controversy; "Que mon cœur lâche", a song dealing with AIDS and sexual relations, is accompanied by a video directed by Luc Besson (the first time in the singer's career that a video wasn't directed by Boutonnat) in which Farmer plays an angel sent down to earth by God (who refuses to send Jesus again, stating that "last time it was a disaster") to save mankind from itself. The imagery in the clip references pop stars, condoms, prostitution, homosexuality and drug use. The single was also recorded in an English version, "My Soul Is Slashed".
Giorgino (1992–1994)[link]
"Que mon cœur lâche" would be the last single released by Farmer in 3 years. In the meantime the singer would star in a movie, as her longtime collaborator had written a script he had wanted to direct for a long time. The result was the ill-fated Giorgino (1994). The film, shot in English, was a huge critical and commercial flop. Budgeted at 80 million Francs, it was seen by only 60 000 people and recovered only 1% of its budget.[11] One of the main reasons for the film's flop was its 3-hour-plus length. According to Farmer herself, the bad reception of Giorgino was particularly hard on Boutonnat, who was directing his first feature film,[12] something he would not do again for 13 years until the release of Jacquou le Croquant in 2007. Following the lukewarm reception of the film, Farmer decided to leave France to take a long break in the USA.
[edit] Anamorphosée (1995–1997)
During her time in California, Farmer started to write her fourth studio album, Anamorphosée. The album was launched by "XXL", a rock song with blasting electric guitars, and a video directed by Marcus Nispel featuring Mylène strapped to the front of a moving train. The single became her first to debut at Nº1. Anamorphosée debuted at Nº2 in the album charts and sold half a million copies in 3 months. The album continued to sell well with the release of "L'Instant X", "California" (a jazzy-pop ballad bolstered with bass guitar featuring a highly acclaimed video directed by Abel Ferrara), "Comme j'ai mal" and "Rêver", which helped the album reach Nº1 in January 1997 – 16 months after its release – becoming Diamond. The album is the first to contain music written by Farmer ("Tomber 7 fois...").
In summer 1996, Farmer embarked on her second concert tour which met with huge success. The corresponding live album, Live à Bercy, is currently the best-selling French live album ever. During the tour, Farmer sang a Raï version of Michel Polnareff's La Poupée qui fait non with Khaled, which was released as a promotional single from the live album and became a Top 10 hit in France.
[edit] Innamoramento and Mylènium (1998–2000)
Farmer returned in spring 1999 with her 5th studio album Innamoramento. The lead single "L'Âme-stram-gram" was a futuristic up-tempo techno-ballad with erotic lyrics accompanied by a Chinese-themed video in which Farmer commits suicide to save her twin. Both the single and the album went straight to #2 on the charts.[13] The album is certified Diamond in France.
The video for the second single, "Je te rends ton amour", sparked controversy because of its religious blasphemy being condemned by the Catholic Church and banned by many networks. Despite this, Farmer released a video single, which became the highest selling release of that kind in France.
In late 1999, Farmer embarked on her third concert tour, the Mylenium Tour, which set the record of the highest grossing tour by a non-English speaking artist. The stage of the show featured a huge pharaonic statue at the center of the stage from which she emerged and flew before being carried down by the hand of this very statue. During the tour, Farmer released the album's third and fourth singles: "Souviens-toi du jour" and "Optimistique-moi".
After "Innamoramento", the last single of the album, she recorded "L'Histoire d'une fée, c'est..." for the animated film Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, and released her third live album and DVD documenting the Mylènium Tour along with "Dessine-moi un mouton", the promotional single for the live CD of the show.
Alizée (2000–2004)[link]
Main article: Alizée
In 2000, Farmer and Boutonnat had assembled songs and video ideas they felt appropriate for a younger, new star. They began the search for a female singer to break into the French charts – they found Alizée, a contestant on the French television show Graines de stars. They wrote and produced Alizée's albums Gourmandises and Mes courants électriques. Alizée's biggest hit, "Moi... Lolita" reached the top of the charts and she became the most successful French singer that year. In 2001, Le Figaro announced Farmer as top earning French entertainer of the year thanks, in part, to her writing, recording, and producing credits of Alizée's music, which earned 10.4 million €.[14][15]
Alizée's image was crafted by Farmer and Boutonnat; she was allowed a few interviews of no more than 20 minutes and a limited number of promotional appearances. In 2005, after two successful albums and a concert tour, Alizée amicably parted ways with the duo to meet different songwriters and producers.
[edit] Les mots (2001–2003)
At the end of 2001, and seventeen years into her career, Universal issued Farmer's first greatest hits collection: Les Mots whose title track and lead single, a duet with Seal, became an enormous hit. The music video of the song was the first one directed by Boutonnat since "Beyond My Control", and borrowed many influences from art. Les Mots was the Nº1 selling album of 2001 and 2002, and remains the best selling greatest hits album in France with more than 1.5 million sold. The album also featured the new tracks and singles, including Top 10 hits "C'est une belle journée" and "Pardonne-moi".
[edit] Avant que l'ombre... (2004–2006)
In December 2004, after a long period of silence, Farmer held a press conference announcing her new album, Avant que l'ombre..., and the single "Fuck Them All" as well as a special 13-night concert engagement at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy in January 2006. This era featured no further promotion, and marked a new level of reclusivity for the star, who simply stated : "What I have to say is in my music". She also announced her new series of concerts in Paris-Bercy, a show designed by Mark Fisher. She explained that she could not tour due to the complex sets of the performances of the show, which featured two stages, a mobile bridge to link the two stages and a curtain of words written with water.
The album debuted and spent several weeks at Nº1, selling nearly a million copies and going multi-platinum, although its commercial success is considered inferior to her previous albums because she made little if no effort to promote it. Nonetheless, all five singles became Top 10 hits in France, while the single "L'amour n'est rien..." became a very big success in Russia.
As announced in her press conference, she returned to the stage in January 2006 for 13 dates in Paris-Bercy. A live album and concert DVD, Avant que l'ombre... à Bercy were released in December 2006. Within months, the DVD became the best-selling music DVD in France ever.
After her concerts in Bercy, electronic musician Moby invited her to record a duet with him. Choosing "Slipping Away", Farmer translated the lyrics herself to French, and the resulting single became a phenomenal success in French-speaking countries, becoming her 4th No.1 single in France.
In 2007, Farmer's long-time songwriting partner, Laurent Boutonnat, directed his second feature film, Jacquou le Croquant. Farmer recorded the theme song of the film, "Devant soi", for the end credits. During that period, she also worked on the French version of Luc Besson's animated feature Arthur and the Minimoys, lending her voice to Selenia, the character voiced by Madonna in the international version. The movie was a box-office hit.
[edit] Point de Suture (2008–2010)
In March 2008, Universal confirmed Farmer would release her seventh studio album near the end of 2008, and embark on her fifth concert tour the following year, including two shows at the Stade de France. The record's lead single, "Dégénération", had a minimal electronic music while its video marked the singer's return to the scripted videos of the beginning of her career. The song became Farmer's 5th No.1 single.
The album, Point de Suture, released in stores on 25 August, followed suit debuting at Nº1 with over 100 000 copies sold in its first week in France. The electronic-driven album continues in the vein of Farmer's previous work, featuring a mix of ballads and upbeat, synth-driven pop songs.
Farmer's next four singles from the album, "Appelle mon numéro", "Si j'avais au moins...", "C'est dans l'air" and "Sextonik", all became No.1 hits in France, Farmer beating her own record. Farmer then had a record of nine No.1 hits in France, more than any other artist in French music history. It is also the first time that all five singles from her album became No.1 hits.
Meanwhile, in 2008 Farmer announced a new protégée in the vein of Alizée: Lisa, Farmer's niece. Her lead single, "Drole de creepie", was released in September 2008, produced and written by Boutonnat and Farmer. The song accompanied the hit children's series, Growing Up Creepie, and the video depicts Lisa dressed as Creepie Creecher. Unlike Farmer & Boutonnat's previous side-projects, Lisa is marketed primarily to children.
Farmer's sold-out tour began in May 2009 in Nice and ended in September 2009 in Brussels, gathering extremely positive response from the critics.[16] She also gave two concerts at the Stade de France, as well as other concerts in Russia, Belgium and Switzerland. The show was designed by Mark Fisher.
A new live album documenting her 2009 tour, N°5 on Tour, was released on 7 December 2009 and hit No.1 position in the charts, becoming double-platinum in its first week of release. A DVD of her Stade de France concerts followed on 12 April 2010, becoming instantly Diamond.
[edit] Bleu Noir (2010–2011)
In the latter half of 2010, the media reported that Mylène Farmer would work with Line Renaud and Ben Harper in their respective new releases. After thirty years of absence, Line Renaud released her new album in November 2010, which contains "C'est pas l'heure," a duet with Farmer, written by Farmer and Boutonnat. Also in November, Australian band INXS released the album Original Sin as a tribute to the late Michael Hutchence. Farmer covered "Never Tear Us Apart" with Ben Harper, featuring new lyrics in French written by Farmer.
It was announced surprisingly on 27 September 2010 that Farmer would be releasing a new single "Oui mais... non" to lead her next album. Unlike all the previous musical works by Farmer, Boutonnat was not included in the production or composition. Instead Farmer hired RedOne, known for his work with Lady Gaga to produce and write the music for the single. "Oui mais... non" was released to digital downloading markets on 11 October and hit No.1 on the French charts. Considering the music market crisis, it's her most successful single since 2002. This also makes her the only French singer to have number-one hits in four consecutive decades. The following singles, "Bleu Noir" and "Lonely Lisa", hit the top of the charts too, expanding her record with twelve No.1 singles.
The album Bleu Noir was released on 6 December 2010, produced by Farmer, RedOne, Moby and Archive. It entered the French album chart at No.1 and remained at the top for three consecutive weeks. It topped the 9th position in the French 2010 charts, with more than 300,000 copies sold in three weeks. It has sold so far over 600,000 copies,[17] reaching Diamond status, within three months of its release. It also broke the record for best debut in the Downloads Chart with 9,000 copies sold.
[edit] 2001-2011 (2011–Present)
Farmer's 2nd hits collection titled 2001.2011 was released in late 2011, featuring all of her hit singles recorded after Les Mots.
Filmography[link]
- Giorgino (1994 by Laurent Boutonnat) (portrayed Catherine Degrâce)
- Arthur et les Minimoys (Arthur and the Invisibles) (2006 by Luc Besson) (French voice of Princess Selenia)
- Arthur et la Vengeance de Maltazard (2009 by Luc Besson) (French voice of Princess Selenia)
- Arthur et la Guerre des Deux Mondes (2010 by Luc Besson) (French voice of Princess Selenia)
Discography[link]
Main article: Mylène Farmer discography
- Cendres de Lune (1986)
- Ainsi soit je... (1988)
- L'Autre... (1991)
- Anamorphosée (1995)
- Innamoramento (1999)
- Avant que l'ombre... (2005)
- Point de suture (2008)
- Bleu Noir (2010)
- TBA (2012)
Bibliography[link]
- By Mylène Farmer
- Lisa-Loup et le Conteur (2003) – Mylène Farmer – Anne Carrière Ed. – ISBN 2-84337-221-6 – A tale written and illustrated by Mylène Farmer
- Avant que l'ombre à Bercy – Paris 2006 (2006) – Mylène Farmer – Anne Carrière Ed. – ISBN 2-84337-433-2
- About Mylène Farmer
- Mylène Farmer (1989) – Patrick Milo – Albin Michel Ed.
- Mylène Farmer, Ainsi soit-elle (1990) – Philippe Seguy – Taillandier Ed.
- L'album photo Mylène Farmer (1991) – Geda Ed.
- Mystérieuse Sylphide (2000) – David Marguet – Idoles de la Pop Ed.
- Picture Book Mylène Farmer (2001) – Collectif – Omega Ed.
- Mylène Farmer de A à Z (2002) – Florence Rajon – MusicBook Ed.
- La part d'ombre (2003) – Caroline Bee, Antoine Bioy & Benjamin Thiry – Archipel Ed.
- Au Cœur du Mythe (2003) – Jean-Claude Perrier – Bartillat Ed.
- L'Ange Rouge (2003) – Béatrice Nouveau – Michel Lafon Ed.
- Le Mystère Mylène Farmer (2003) – Mathias Goudeau – Prélude & Fugue Ed.
- L'ange blessé (2004) – Caroline Bee – Librio Musique Ed.
- Mylène Farmer, de chair et de sang (2004) – Annie et Bernard Reval – France Empire Ed.
- Mylène Farmer (2004) – Bernard Violet – Fayard Ed.
- Mylène Farmer (2005) – Fabien Lecœuvre – VadeRetro Ed.
- Mylène Farmer & Vous : Le Référentiel (2005) – Maxime Lemen – Ter Prod Ed.
- Les Années Sygma (2005) – Sylvain Sennefelder & Maxime Lemen – Tear Prod Ed.
- Le Dictionnaire des Chansons de Mylène Farmer (2006) – Benoît Cachin – Tournon Ed.
- Fou de Mylène Farmer, deux années à l'attendre (2006) – Christophe-Ange Papini – K&B Ed.
- Belle de Scène (2006) – Julien Wagner – K&B Ed.
- Dans la peau de Mylène Farmer (2006) – Line Grégory – Michel Lafon Ed.
- Mylène Farmer Influences (2006) – Benoît Cachin – Tournon Ed.
- Mylène Farmer Phénoménale (2006) – Erwan Chuberre – City Ed.
- Mylène Farmer, le culte (2007) – Sophie Khairallah – Why Not Ed.[18]
- Le Référentiel Mylène Farmer 2008 (2007) – Renan Cornetto – K&B Ed.
- L'intégrale Mylène Farmer (2007) – Erwan Chuberre – City Ed.
- Mylène Farmer, la collection – L'ultime référentiel (2007) – Why Not Ed.[19]
- Sainte Mylène, Priez pour Moi ! (2007) – Erwan Chuberre – City Ed.
- Mais où est encore passée Mylène Farmer ? (2008) – Bioy/Beuh/Tudor – K&B Ed.
- Amylène analgésique (2008) – Arno Mothra – Komakino Ed.
- Mylène Farmer : la libertine (2008) – Thierry Wolf – La Lagune Ed.
- Mylène (2008) – Hugues Royer – Flammarion Ed.
- Mylène Farmer : des mots sur nos désirs (2009) – Erwan Chuberre – City Ed.
- Mylène Farmer : La culture de l'inaccessibilité (2010) – Julien Rigal Premium ed
Farmer has never acknowledged any of the works listed above. "Everything that is said about me is false..." ("Tout ce qui est dit sur moi est faux...")
Companies owned by Farmer[link]
| Name | Immatriculation | Legal status | Activity | Headquarters | Capital | Trivia |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Requiem Publishing | 26 October 1989 | SARL | Sound recording and music publishing | 15 Rue de Douai, Paris | 200 000 € | Co-directed by Laurent Boutonnat |
| Stuffed Monkey | 13 December 1993 | SARL | Sound recording and music publishing | 4 Rue de la Paix, Paris | 100 000 € | Staffings : 5 (Mylène Gautier, Paul Van Parys...) |
| Innamoramento | 12 December 1997 | SARL | Institutional and advertising films production | 4 Rue de la Paix, Paris | 45 000 € | |
| Dichotomie | 29 November 2000 | SARL | Sound recording and music publishing | 4 Rue de la Paix, Paris | 8000 € | |
| Isiaka | 27 February 2002 | SARL | Sound recording and music publishing | 15 Rue de Douai, Paris | 8000 € | Co-directed by Laurent Boutonnat |
| SCI ML | 19 February 2003 | Civil society | Rental of lands and other properties | 15 Rue de Douai, Paris | 225 000 € | Co-directed by Laurent Boutonnat |
Unofficial fanclub[link]
The Mylène Farmer-International Fan Club (MFIFC) existed from 1995 to 2001. At its peak, it had over ten thousand subscribers in 37 countries.[21] The club published subscriber-only fanzines, which included interviews with people who personally knew Mylène, including Khaled, Marcus Nispel, Abel Ferrara, H. R. Giger and Paco Rabanne. They also organised a fan tour in which several members attended concerts in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
See also[link]
 |
Book: Mylène Farmer |
| Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print. | |
References[link]
- ^ The American society of composers, authors and publishers [1] . Retrieved 26 April 2009.
- ^ Émission 24 h people (Direct 8) du 16 (voir en ligne).
- ^ "Maman a tort". Devant-soi.com. http://www.devant-soi.com/clipographie/01%20-%20Maman%20a%20tort/maman-a-tort.htm. Retrieved 28 July 2010.
- ^ Mister Biz, 1999 March
- ^ Les 100 albums les plus vendus des années 80, Gilles Verlant, 2007, ISBN 88-6112-051-2
- ^ Télé Magazine 2480, 2003 May
- ^ a b Julien AUTIER, Philippe LEZE, Guillaume DATEZ & Sarah HOFER (14 January 2007). "Le site référence sur Mylène Farmer". Mylene.Net. http://mylene.net/mylene/d_lautre.php. Retrieved 28 July 2010.
- ^ Instant-Mag, Nº. 20, 2005, p. 9
- ^ SNEP[Full citation needed]
- ^ Télé 7 Jours, December 1992
- ^ "Mylène Farmer – Giorgino le film – Laurent Boutonnat". Sans-logique.com. http://www.sans-logique.com/mylene-farmer/giorgino/. Retrieved 28 July 2010.
- ^ Julien AUTIER, Philippe LEZE, Guillaume DATEZ & Sarah HOFER (14 January 2007). "Le site référence sur Mylène Farmer". Mylene.Net. http://mylene.net/mylene/filmographie2.php. Retrieved 28 July 2010.
- ^ "Innamoramento.net : Classements". Innamoramento.net. http://www.innamoramento.net/classements.
- ^ Figaro Entreprises, 14 February 2002
- ^ Mylène Farmer Biography at RFI Musique
- ^ Julien AUTIER, Philippe LEZE, Guillaume DATEZ & Sarah HOFER (14 January 2007). "Le site référence sur Mylène Farmer". Mylene.Net. http://www.mylene.net/modules/index.php?r=360. Retrieved 28 July 2010.
- ^ TV Magazine, July 2011
- ^ Editionswhynot.com
- ^ Editionswhynot.com
- ^ List of companies owned by Mylène Farmer societe.com . Retrieved 27 March 2009.
- ^ "Enterrement de première classe pour le Mylène Farmer International Fan-Club". Actustar.com. http://www.actustar.com/Actualites/8613/enterrement-de-premi-classe-pour-le-myl-farmer-international-fan-club. Retrieved 1 June 2001.
External links[link]
|
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mylène Farmer |
- Mylène Farmer at the Internet Movie Database
- Mylène Farmer on Facebook
- Listen to Mylène Farmer's discography
- Mylène.net (French)
- Sans-Logique.com
- Mylene Farmer's photos, videos, songs (English)
- Mylene Farmer's Concerts, Tourdates, Bio, Songs, Videos, Lyrics, Awards, Filmograpy, Videography and Discography (English)
- Mylene Farmer Fan-Made French website and Forum (English/French)
- Mylene Farmer`s Photos archive
- Mylene Farmer México (Spanish)
- Mylene Farmer Romania (Romanian)
- Mylene Farmer Innamoramento.net Big Site (French)
- Mylene Farmer Mylene-01.com Fans portal (French)
- M.F. International: Mylène Farmer & General French Music Forum (English)
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Farmer, Mylene |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | |
| Date of birth | 12 September 1961 |
| Place of birth | Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
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This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
