1.
Count
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Count or countess is a title in European countries for a noble of varying status, but historically deemed to convey an approximate rank intermediate between the highest and lowest titles of nobility. The word count came into English from the French comte, itself from Latin comes—in its accusative comitem—meaning “companion”, the adjective form of the word is comital. The British and Irish equivalent is an earl, alternative names for the count rank in the nobility structure are used in other countries, such as Graf in Germany and Hakushaku during the Japanese Imperial era. In the Western Roman Empire, Count came to indicate generically a military commander, in the Eastern Roman Empire, from about the seventh century, count was a specific rank indicating the commander of two centuries. Military counts in the Late Empire and the Germanic successor kingdoms were often appointed by a dux, the position of comes was originally not hereditary. By virtue of their estates, many counts could pass the title to their heirs—but not always. For instance, in Piast Poland, the position of komes was not hereditary, the title had disappeared by the era of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the office had been replaced by others. Only after the Partitions of Poland did the title of count resurface in the title hrabia, in the United Kingdom, the equivalent Earl can also be used as a courtesy title for the eldest son of a duke or marquess. In Italy, by contrast, all the sons of certain counts were counts, in Sweden there is a distinction between counts created before and after 1809. All children in comital families elevated before 1809 are called count/countess, the following lists are originally based on a Glossary on Heraldica. org by Alexander Krischnig. The male form is followed by the female, and when available, apart from all these, a few unusual titles have been of comital rank, not necessarily to remain there. Dauphin was a comital title in southern France, used by the Dauphins of Vienne and Auvergne. The Dauphin was the lord of the province known as the région Dauphiné. Conde-Barão Count-Baron is a title used in Portugal, notably by D. Luís Lobo da Silveira, 7th Baron of Alvito. His palace in Lisbon still exists, located in a named after him. The German Graf and Dutch graaf stems from the Byzantine-Greek grapheus meaning he who calls a meeting together), the Ottoman military title of Serdar was used in Montenegro and Serbia as a lesser noble title with the equivalent rank of a Count. Since Louis VII, the highest precedence amongst the vassals of the French crown was enjoyed by those whose benefice or temporal fief was a pairie, i. e. In the eleventh century, conti like the Count of Savoy or the Norman Count of Apulia, were virtually sovereign lords of broad territories
2.
Poitiers
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Poitiers is a city on the Clain river in west-central France. It is a commune and the capital of the Vienne department, Poitiers is a major university centre. The centre of town is picturesque and its streets include predominant historical architecture, especially religious architecture and this battles consequences partly provoked the Jacquerie. The city of Poitiers is strategically situated on the Seuil du Poitou, the Seuil du Poitou connects the Aquitaine Basin to the South to the Paris Basin to the North. This area is an important geographic crossroads in France and Western Europe, poitierss primary site sits on a vast promontory between the valleys of the Boivre and the Clain. The old town occupies the slopes and the summit of a plateau which rises 130 feet above the streams which surround it on three sides, thus Poitiers benefits from a very strong tactical situation. This was an important factor before and throughout the Middle Ages. Inhabitants of Poitiers are referred to as Poitevins or Poitevines, although this denomination can be used for anyone from the Poitou province, as of 2015, the population of Poitiers was 298,339. One out of three people in Poitiers is under the age of 30 and one out of four residents in Poitiers is a student, the climate in the Poitiers area is mild with mild temperature amplitudes, and adequate rainfall throughout the year. The Köppen Climate Classification subtype for this type of climate is Cfb, Poitiers was founded by the Celtic tribe of the Pictones and was known as the oppidum Lemonum before Roman influence. The name is said to have come from the Celtic word for elm, after Roman influence took over, the town became known as Pictavium, or later Pictavis, after the original Pictones inhabitants themselves. There is a history of archeological finds from the Roman era in Poitiers. In fact until 1857 Poitiers hosted the ruins of a vast Roman amphitheatre, remains of Roman baths, built in the 1st century and demolished in the 3rd century, were uncovered in 1877. In 1879 a burial-place and tombs of a number of Christian martyrs were discovered on the heights to the south-east of the town, the names of some of the Christians had been preserved in paintings and inscriptions. Not far from these tombs is a dolmen, which is 6.7 metres long,4.9 metres broad and 2.1 metres high. The Romans also built at least three aqueducts and this extensive ensemble of Roman constructions suggests Poitiers was a town of first importance, possibly even the capital of the Roman province of Gallia Aquitania during the 2nd century. The first foundations of the Baptistère Saint-Jean can be traced to that era of open Christian evangelization and he was named Doctor of The Church by Pope Pius IX. In the 4th century, a thick wall 6m wide and 10m high was built around the town and it was 2.5 km long and stood lower on the naturally defended east side and at the top of the promontory
3.
Poitou
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Poitou was a province of west-central France whose capital city was Poitiers. The region of Poitou was called Thifalia in the sixth century, there is a marshland called the Poitevin Marsh on the Gulf of Poitou, on the west coast of France, just north of La Rochelle and west of Niort. By the Treaty of Paris of 1259, King Henry III of England recognized his loss of continental Plantaganet territory to France. During the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries Poitou was a hotbed of Huguenot activity among the nobility, many of the Acadians who settled in what is now Nova Scotia beginning in 1604, and later in New Brunswick, came from the region of Poitou. After the Acadians were deported by the British beginning in 1755, a large portion of these refugees were also deported to Louisiana in 1785 and eventually became known as Cajuns. The common thread connecting both phenomena is an assertion of a local identity and opposition to the central government in Paris, whatever its composition. Large parts of the Angelique series of novels are set in 17th century Poitou. Count of Poitiers for a list of the Comtes de Poitou, poitou-Charentes for the present-day région including Poitiers. Poitevin, the French regional language spoken in Poitou
4.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
5.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
6.
Aquitaine
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Aquitaine, archaic Guyenne/Guienne was a traditional region of France, and was an administrative region of France until 1 January 2016. It is now part of the new region Nouvelle-Aquitaine and it is situated 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 five departments of Dordogne, Lot-et-Garonne, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Landes, in the Middle Ages, Aquitaine was a kingdom and a duchy, whose boundaries fluctuated considerably. This has been demonstrated by various Aquitanian names and words that were recorded by the Romans, whether this Aquitanian language 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 known. The original Aquitania at the time of Caesars conquest of Gaul included the area bounded by the Garonne River, the Pyrenees, the name may stem from Latin aqua, maybe derived from the town Aquae Augustae, Aquae Tarbellicae or just Aquis or as a more general geographical feature. In 392, the Roman imperial provinces were restructured and Aquitania Prima, Aquitania Secunda, accounts of Aquitania during the Early Middle Ages are a blur, lacking precision, but there was much unrest. The Visigoths were called into Gaul as foederati, legalizing their status within the Empire, eventually they established themselves as the de facto rulers in south-west Gaul as central Roman rule collapsed. Visigoths established their capital in Toulouse, but their tenure on Aquitaine was feeble, 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 to the south of the Loire. The Roman Aquitania Tertia remained in place as Novempopulania, where a duke was appointed to hold a grip over the Basques and these dukes were quite detached from central Frankish overlordship, sometimes governing as independent rulers with strong ties to their kinsmen south of the Pyrenees. As of 660, the foundations for an independent Aquitaine/Vasconia polity were established by the duke Felix of Aquitaine, a united Basque-Aquitanian realm reached its heyday under Odo the Greats rule. Odo was required to pledge allegiance to the Frankish Charles Martel in exchange for help against the advancing Arabic forces, Basque-Aquitanian self-rule temporarily came to a halt, definitely in 768 after the assassination of Waifer. Seguin, count of Bordeaux and Duke of Vasconia, seemed to have attempted a detachment from the Frankish central authority on Charlemagnes death, the new emperor Louis the Pious reacted by removing him from his capacity, which stirred the Basques into rebellion. Before Pepins death, emperor Louis had appointed a new king in 832, his son Charles the Bald, however scarce, some Frankish population and nobles settled down in regions like Albigeois, Carcassone, Toulouse, and Provence and Lower Rhone. After the death of the king Dagobert I, the Merovingian tenure south of the Loire became largely nominal, with the power being in the hands of autonomous regional leaders. The Franks may have largely assimilated to the preponderant Gallo-Roman culture by the 8th century. Still, in the Battle of Toulouse, the Aquitanian duke Odo is said to be leading an army of Aquitanians, on the other hand, the Franks didnt mix with the Basques, keeping separate paths. Recorded evidence points to their deployment across Aquitaine in a capacity as a mainstay of the Dukes forces. Romans are cited as living in the cities of Aquitaine, as opposed to the Franks, in 1058, the Duchy of Vasconia and Aquitaine merged under the rule of William VIII, Duke of Aquitaine
7.
Saint Warinus
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Warinus of Poitiers was the Franco-Burgundian Count of Poitiers and Count of Paris and later Saint Warinus, Martyr of the Franks. He was the son of Saint Sigrada of Sainte-Marie de Soissons and he was the father of Saint Leudwinus. In 677 A. D. Warinus was stoned to death near Arras because of a feud between his brother Leodegarius and Ebroin, the Frankish Mayor of the Palace of Neustria, Warinus was born in Autun, Saône-et-Loire, Burgundy. He was the son of Bodilon, a Count of Poitiers and Sigrada of Alsace and he was the founder of the famous noble family of the Guideschi. As a nobleman, Warinus spent his childhood at the court of Clotaire II and he married Gunza von Treves, a Frankish noblewoman in France. His wife came from an influential Frankish family and was the sister of Saint Basinus of Treves, st. Warinus - Saints & Angels - Catholic Online
8.
Renaud of Poitiers
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Renaud was Frankish Count of Herbauges, Count of Poitiers and Count of Nantes. His name is also spelled Rainaldus or Ragenold, and he is known as Reginald in English. He is referred to as Renaud of Aquitaine, but seems to have been a member of the Rorgonid family of Maine. The County of Herbauges consisted of three south of the Loire, Arballicus, Metallicus, and Teofalicus and was separate from the County of Poitou. His appointment as Count is prior to July 835 when he appears in a battle against the Normans in Noirmoutier, after the death of Count Ricwin of Nantes at the Battle of Fontenay, he was appointed by Charles the Bald as Count of Nantes. This was at the expense of Lambert II of Nantes, who had fought for Charles at Fontenay, and was considered the heir of his father. Disappointed in his ambitions, Lambert II broke with Charles the Bald and turned to Nominoe, Duke of Brittany, Nominoe and Lambert intended to join forces to capture Nantes. Having fortified Nantes, Renaud heard that Nominoe had been incapacitated by a serious illness, Renaud decided to take the initiative, by raiding into Breton territory. At the junction of the diocese of Alet and county of Nantes, at the Battle of Messac, Erispoe was initially defeated by Renaud. Shortly afterwards, however, the arrival of Lamberts troops allowed Erispoe to counter-attack in force. Renaud himself was killed the day afterwards, during the pursuit, the Bretons may also have been assisted by the Viking warlord Håstein, who is said to have personally killed Renaud. However, other assert that Lambert killed Renaud and that the Viking force arrived shortly afterwards. The Vikings sacked Nantes and killed its bishop, Lambert occupied the town, but was unable to hold it. Renauds son Hervé was killed in battle against Lambert a year later, recent studies suggest that another of Renauds sons Ragenold became Count of Herbauges, then Maine and Marquis of Neustria
9.
Bernard I of Poitiers
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Bernard II was the count of Poitou from 840 until his death. He was probably a member of the Guilhemid family and his brothers were Turpio and Emenon, counts of Angoulême and Périgord, respectively. According to Ademar of Chabannes, writing 150 years after the events, Emenon was count of Poitou in 838 and he supported the succession of Pippins son, Pippin II, but the Emperor Louis the Pious instead bestowed the kingdom of Aquitaine on his own youngest son, Charles. Bernard was resident in Poitiers in 839, when the emperor led an army against it, forcing Emenon to flee to their brother Turpio at Angoulême and Bernard to flee to Renaud, Louis named Ranulf I as count of Poitou in Emenons place. Although Bernard fled to Renaud of Herbauges, this does not indicate that Bernard was in revolt, since Renaud was a supporter of Emperor Louis. In 840, Emenon submitted to the emperor and it is possible that Bernard did the same, Louis died on 20 June 840, and during the ensuing civil war between his sons, Pippin II seized control of Aquitaine. He besieged Poitiers, which resisted under its bishop, Ebroin and it is not clear if Bernard was appointed count by Pippin II in opposition to Ranulf, or if he was appointed by Charles to oppose Pippin. In any case, there is no evidence that during this time the city of Poitiers was administered by other than the bishop. During the civil war, Bernard joined Renaud of Herbauges in putting down the rebellion of Lambert, Renaud died in 843 and his son Hervé continued the fight against Lambert. Bernard was killed in combat in February 844, Bernards wife was Belihildis, known only from a bull of Pope John VIII excommunicating her son, Marquis Bernard of Gothia. The Historia inventionis et translationis reliquiarium Sancti Baudelli martyris records that her son had an uncle named Gauzlin who was an abbot before he was a bishop and this most likely refers to Gauzlin, abbot of Saint-Denis and then bishop of Paris. He was a son of Count Rorgon I of Maine and Bilichildis, besides Bernard of Gothia, Bernard and Belihildis had another son named Emenon. Bernard, count of Poitou, at the Fondation for Medieval Genealogy
10.
Emenon
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Emenon was the Count of Poitou, Périgord, and Angoulême. It is unknown who nominated him count of Poitou, but it was probably Pepin I of Aquitaine, during his tenure in Poitou, the Empress Judith was imprisoned in the abbey of Sainte-Croix at Poitiers for a while. The country of Herbauges was taken from him and given in benefice to Ragenold of Neustria, when Pepin died, Emenon joined the nobles who proclaimed Pepin II king. Louis invaded Aquitaine and took Poitiers, passing Christmas there in 839, Emenon became count of Périgord and Angoulême in 863. He died in battle with Landri, Count of Saintes, who was also killed and he married Sancha, daughter of Sancho II of Gascony, and left a son, Arnold, who became duke of Gascony. By a second wife, a daughter of Odo I, Count of Troyes, he left two sons, Adhemar, who inherited Poitou and Angoulême, and Adalelm, who later became Count of Troyes
