1.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
2.
Gascon language
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Gascon is a dialect of Occitan. It is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn in southwestern France and it has about 250,000 speakers worldwide. Aranese, a southern Gascon variety, is spoken in Catalonia and has greatly influenced recently by Catalan. Both these influences tend to differentiate it more and more from the dialects of Gascon spoken in France, since the 2006 adoption of the new statute of Catalonia, Aranese is co-official with Catalan and Spanish in Catalonia. See Occitan, Debates concerning linguistic classification, there is a proven Basque substrate in the development of Gascon. This explains some of the differences that exist between Gascon and other Occitan dialects. A typically Gascon feature that may arise from this substrate is the change from f to h, thus we have Gascon hèsta or. A similar change took place in continental Spanish, thus Latin facere gives Spanish hacer. Note that modern Basque has had influence from Gascon in words like beira, polit to mention. One way for the introduction of Gascon influence into Basque came about through language contact in bordering areas of the Northern Basque Country, acting as adstrate. A poll conducted in Béarn in 1982 indicated that 51% of the population could speak Gascon, 70% understood it, the usual term for Gascon is patois, a word designating in France a non-official and usually devaluated dialect or language, regardless of the concerned region. It is mainly in Béarn that the population uses concurrently the term Béarnais to designate its Gascon forms and this is because of the political past of Béarn, which was independent and then part of a sovereign state from 1347 to 1620. In fact, there is no unified Béarnais dialect, as the language differs considerably throughout the province, many of the differences in pronunciation can be divided into east, west, and south. For example, an a at the end of words is pronounced ah in the west, o in the east, because of Béarns specific political past, Béarnais has been distinguished from Gascon since the 16th century, not for linguistic reasons. Gascon comprises three main areas, The Garonnais Gascon used on and next to the river Garonne valley. These regions know the least specific Gascon forms, the Southern Gascon used in the south and in the south-west of the linguistic Gascon zone. The Gascon of these regions is the one with the most distinctive characteristics of Gascon, the Intermediary Gascon in an intermediary zone between the two just mentioned. Occitan conjugation Languages of France Vergonha Darrigrand, Robert
3.
Basque language
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Basque is the language spoken by the Basques. Linguistically, Basque is unrelated to the languages of Europe and indeed, as a language isolate. The Basques are indigenous to, and primarily inhabit, the Basque Country, the Basque language is spoken by 27% of Basques in all territories. Of these, 93% are in the Spanish area of the Basque Country, native speakers live in a contiguous area that includes parts of four Spanish territories and the three ancient provinces in France. However, in those Basque-speaking regions that supported the uprising the Basque language was more than merely tolerated, overall, in the 1960s and later, the trend reversed and education and publishing in Basque began to flourish. As a part of process, a standardized form of the Basque language. Besides its standardised version, the five historic Basque dialects are Biscayan, Gipuzkoan, and Upper Navarrese in Spain and they take their names from the historic Basque provinces, but the dialect boundaries are not congruent with province boundaries. Euskara Batua was created so that Basque language could be easily understood by all Basque speakers—in formal situations. In both Spain and France, the use of Basque for education varies from region to region, a language isolate, Basque is believed to be one of the few surviving pre-Indo-European languages in Europe, and the only one in Western Europe. Basque has adopted a good deal of its vocabulary from the Romance languages, the Basque alphabet uses the Latin script. In Basque, the name of the language is officially Euskara, three etymological theories of the name Euskara are taken seriously by linguists and Vasconists. In French, the language is normally called basque, though in recent times euskara has become common, Spanish has a greater variety of names for the language. Today, it is most commonly referred to as el vasco, la lengua vasca, both terms, vasco and basque, are inherited from Latin ethnonym Vascones, which in turn goes back to the Greek term οὐασκώνους, an ethnonym used by Strabo in his Geographica. The Spanish term Vascuence, derived from Latin vasconĭce, has acquired negative connotations over the centuries and is not well-liked amongst Basque speakers generally, Basque is geographically surrounded by Romance languages but is a language isolate unrelated to them. It is the last remaining descendant of one of the languages of Western Europe. Consequently, its prehistory may not be reconstructible by means of the comparative method except by applying it to differences between dialects within the language. Little is known of its origins, but a form of the Basque language likely was present in Western Europe before the arrival of the Indo-European languages to the area. Others find this unlikely, see the aizkora controversy, Latin inscriptions in Gallia Aquitania preserve a number of words with cognates in the reconstructed proto-Basque language, for instance, the personal names Nescato and Cison
4.
Provinces of France
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The Kingdom of France was organized into provinces until March 4,1790, when the establishment of the department system superseded provinces. The provinces of France were roughly equivalent to the counties of England. In some cases, several regions or departments share names with the historic provinces. The list below shows the provinces of France at the time of their dissolution during the French Revolution. Capital cities are shown in parentheses, bold indicates a city that was also the seat of a judicial and quasi-legislative body called either a parlement or a conseil souverain. In some cases, this body met in a different city than the capital, comtat Venaissin, a Papal fief 36. Imperial Free City of Mulhouse 37, montbéliard, a fief of Württemberg Partial display of historical provincial arms, Ancien Régime in France Gallery of French coats of arms Coat of arms Heraldry
5.
Guyenne
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Guyenne or Guienne was an old French province which corresponded roughly to the Aquitania Secunda of the Romans and the archdiocese of Bordeaux. The name Guyenne comes from Aguyenne, a deformation of Aquitania. In the 12th century, it formed with the Gascony the duchy of Aquitaine which passed under the dominion of the kings of England by the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine to Henry II. In the 13th century, through the conquests of Philip II, Louis VIII and Louis IX and it is at this point that Guyenne became distinct from Aquitaine. It then comprised the Bordelais, the Bazadais, part of Périgord, Limousin, Quercy and Rouergue, still united with Gascony, it formed a duchy extending from the Charentes to the Pyrenees. At the treaty of Brétigny, King Edward III of England acquired the sovereignty of the duchy of Guyenne, together with Aunis, Saintonge, Angoumois. The victories of Bertrand du Guesclin and Gaston III, Count of Foix, in 1451, it was conquered and finally united to the French crown by Charles VII. In 1469, Louis XI gave it in exchange for Champagne and Brie to his brother Charles, Duke of Berry, after death in 1472. Guyenne then formed a government which from the 17th century onwards was united with Gascony, the government of Guyenne and Gascony, with its capital at Bordeaux, lasted till the end of the Ancien Régime. Under the French Revolution, the formed from Guyenne proper were those of Gironde, Lot-et-Garonne, Dordogne, Lot, Aveyron
6.
French Revolution
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Through the Revolutionary Wars, it unleashed a wave of global conflicts that extended from the Caribbean to the Middle East. Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in human history, the causes of the French Revolution are complex and are still debated among historians. Following the Seven Years War and the American Revolutionary War, the French government was deeply in debt, Years of bad harvests leading up to the Revolution also inflamed popular resentment of the privileges enjoyed by the clergy and the aristocracy. Demands for change were formulated in terms of Enlightenment ideals and contributed to the convocation of the Estates-General in May 1789, a central event of the first stage, in August 1789, was the abolition of feudalism and the old rules and privileges left over from the Ancien Régime. The next few years featured political struggles between various liberal assemblies and right-wing supporters of the intent on thwarting major reforms. The Republic was proclaimed in September 1792 after the French victory at Valmy, in a momentous event that led to international condemnation, Louis XVI was executed in January 1793. External threats closely shaped the course of the Revolution, internally, popular agitation radicalised the Revolution significantly, culminating in the rise of Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins. Large numbers of civilians were executed by revolutionary tribunals during the Terror, after the Thermidorian Reaction, an executive council known as the Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795. The rule of the Directory was characterised by suspended elections, debt repudiations, financial instability, persecutions against the Catholic clergy, dogged by charges of corruption, the Directory collapsed in a coup led by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799. The modern era has unfolded in the shadow of the French Revolution, almost all future revolutionary movements looked back to the Revolution as their predecessor. The values and institutions of the Revolution dominate French politics to this day, the French Revolution differed from other revolutions in being not merely national, for it aimed at benefiting all humanity. Globally, the Revolution accelerated the rise of republics and democracies and it became the focal point for the development of all modern political ideologies, leading to the spread of liberalism, radicalism, nationalism, socialism, feminism, and secularism, among many others. The Revolution also witnessed the birth of total war by organising the resources of France, historians have pointed to many events and factors within the Ancien Régime that led to the Revolution. Over the course of the 18th century, there emerged what the philosopher Jürgen Habermas called the idea of the sphere in France. A perfect example would be the Palace of Versailles which was meant to overwhelm the senses of the visitor and convince one of the greatness of the French state and Louis XIV. Starting in the early 18th century saw the appearance of the sphere which was critical in that both sides were active. In France, the emergence of the public sphere outside of the control of the saw the shift from Versailles to Paris as the cultural capital of France. In the 1750s, during the querelle des bouffons over the question of the quality of Italian vs, in 1782, Louis-Sébastien Mercier wrote, The word court no longer inspires awe amongst us as in the time of Louis XIV
7.
Regions of France
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France is divided into 18 administrative regions, including 13 metropolitan regions and 5 overseas regions. The current legal concept of region was adopted in 1982, the term région was officially created by the Law of Decentralisation, which also gave regions their legal status. The first direct elections for representatives took place on 16 March 1986. In 2016, the number of regions was reduced from 27 to 18 through amalgamation, in 2014, the French parliament passed a law reducing the number of metropolitan regions from 22 to 13 with effect from 1 January 2016. However, the region of Upper and Lower Normandy is simply called Normandy. Permanent names were to be proposed by the new regional councils by 1 July 2016, the legislation defining the new regions also allowed the Centre region to officially change its name to Centre-Val de Loire with effect from January 2015. Two regions, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, opted to retain their interim names, between 1982 and 2015, there were 22 regions in Metropolitan France. Before 2011, there were four regions, in 2011 Mayotte became the fifth. Regions lack separate legislative authority and therefore cannot write their own statutory law and they levy their own taxes and, in return, receive a decreasing part of their budget from the central government, which gives them a portion of the taxes it levies. They also have considerable budgets managed by a council made up of representatives voted into office in regional elections. A regions primary responsibility is to build and furnish high schools, in March 2004, the French central government unveiled a controversial plan to transfer regulation of certain categories of non-teaching school staff to the regional authorities. Critics of this plan contended that tax revenue was insufficient to pay for the costs. In addition, regions have considerable power over infrastructural spending, e. g. education, public transit, universities and research. This has meant that the heads of regions such as Île-de-France or Rhône-Alpes can be high-profile positions. Number of regions controlled by each coalition since 1986, Overseas region is a recent designation, given to the overseas departments that have similar powers to those of the regions of metropolitan France. Radio France Internationale in English Overseas regions Ministère de lOutre-Mer some explanations about the past and current developments of DOMs and TOMs
8.
Nouvelle-Aquitaine
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Nouvelle-Aquitaine is the largest administrative region in France, located in the southwest of the country. The region was created by the reform of French Regions in 2014 through the merger of three regions, Aquitaine, Limousin and Poitou-Charentes. It covers 84,061 km2 – or 1⁄8 of the country – and has approximately 5,800,000 inhabitants, the new region was established on 1 January 2016, following the regional elections in December 2015. It is the largest region in France by area, with a slightly larger than that of Austria. Its largest city, Bordeaux, together with its suburbs and satellite cities, forms the 7th-largest metropolitan area of France, with 850,000 inhabitants. The region has 25 major urban areas, among which the most important after Bordeaux are Bayonne, Limoges, Poitiers, Pau, after Île-de-France, New Aquitaine is the premier French region in research and innovation, with five universities and several Grandes Ecoles. Many companies specializing in surfing and related sports have located along the coast, in terms of culture, the new region includes major parts of Southern France, marked by Basque, Occitan and Oïl cultures. Historically, it is the successor to medieval Aquitaine. In June 2016, a group headed by historian Anne-Marie Cocula. The decision came after the favorite, Aquitaine, faced resistance by regional politicians from Limousin. The other popular favorite, Grande Aquitaine, was rejected for its connotation with a feeling of superiority, alain Rousset, president of the region, concurred with the working groups conclusion, reaffirming that he considered the acronym ALPC no choice at all. On 27 June 2016, just a few days ahead of the 1 July deadline, frances Conseil dÉtat approved New-Aquitaine as the new name of the region on 28 September 2016, effective 30 September 2016. Nouvelle-Aquitaine is delimited by four other French regions, three communities in Spain to the south, and the North Atlantic Ocean to the west. Its largest city and only metropolis is Bordeaux, in the heart of an agglomeration of nearly one million inhabitants. Taking into consideration the area, the new region is home to six of the fifty largest metropolitan areas of French territory. It is part of five watersheds facing the Atlantic Ocean, Loire, Charente, Garonne and Dordogne and Adour, giving rivers bordering land dedicated mostly to viticulture and to agriculture. This diverse area is the area of the oyster, mussel, the Landes forest, by far the most extensive, covering almost one million hectares, making it the largest artificial forest of Western Europe. The Landes forest is included in the Landes de Gascogne Regional Natural Park
9.
Landes (department)
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Landes is a department in southwestern France. Landes is one of the original 83 departments that were created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790 and it was created from parts of the provinces of Guyenne and Gascony. During the first part of the century large parts of the department were covered with poorly drained heathland which is the origin of its name. The vegetation covered rich soil and was burned off, leaving excellent pasturage for sheep. The sheep were managed by shepherds who moved around on stilts, 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, Landes is part of the current region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine and is surrounded by the departments of Gironde, Lot-et-Garonne, Gers, and Pyrénées-Atlantiques, as well as the Atlantic Ocean on the west. With an area stretching over more than 9000 km², Landes is, after Gironde and it is well known for the Côte dArgent beach which is Europes longest, and attracts many surfers to Mimizan and Hossegor each year. The President of the General Council is Henri Emmanuelli of the Socialist Party, in terms of agriculture, Landes is known for its large pine forests which are the raw material for a timber and resin industries in the region. The forests were planted in the nineteenth century to prevent erosion of the regions sandy soil by the sea. Cantons of the Landes department Communes of the Landes department Arrondissements of the Landes department Prefecture website Conseil Général website Landes at DMOZ
10.
Gironde
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Gironde is a department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of southwest France. It is named for the Gironde estuary, a major waterway, 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 and it was created from parts of the former provinces of Guyenne and Gascony. From 1793 to 1795, the name was changed to Bec-dAmbès to avoid the association with the revolutionary party. Gironde is part of the current region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine and is surrounded by the departments of Landes, Lot-et-Garonne, Dordogne and Charente-Maritime, with an area of 10,000 km², Gironde is the largest department in metropolitan France. If overseas departments are included, however, Girondes land area is dwarfed by the 83,846 km² of Guyane, Gironde is well known for the Côte dArgent beach which is Europes longest, attracting many surfers to Lacanau each year. It is also the birthplace of Jacques-Yves Cousteau who studied the sea, the Great Dune of Pyla in Arcachon Bay near Bordeaux is the tallest sand dune in Europe. The President of the General Council is Jean-Luc Gleyze of the Socialist Party
11.
Lot-et-Garonne
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Lot-et-Garonne is a department in the southwest of France named after the Lot and Garonne rivers. Lot-et-Garonne is one of the original departments created on March 4,1790. It was created from part of the province of Guyenne and Gascony, 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 created department of Tarn-et-Garonne. Lot-et-Garonne is part of the current region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine and is surrounded by the departments of Lot, Tarn-et-Garonne, Gers, Landes, Gironde, the north of the department is composed by limestone hills. Between Lot and Garonne, there is a plateau carved by many valleys, in the west of the department, the Landes forest is planted in the sand. Between the forest and Agen, there is the Albret, a very hilly. Food-processing, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals are all major industries of the department, the inhabitants of the department are called Lot-et-Garonnais
12.
Occitanie
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Occitanie is an administrative region of France that was created on 1 January 2016 from former French regions Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées. Frances Conseil dÉtat approved Occitanie as the new name of the region on 28 September 2016, the new Région Occitanie should not be confused with the wider cultural entity of Occitania, of which the new administrative region is part. The new region covers an area of more than 72,724 km2 with a population of 5,626,858. As the provisional name of the new region, the text of the law specified the hyphenated names of the predecessors, Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées. As for most of the regions, a permanent name was proposed by the new regional council. Enacted in 2014, the reform of the regions has been subject to debate for many years. The provisional name of the region was withdrawn on 30 September 2016, toulouse Montpellier Nîmes Perpignan Béziers Montauban Languedoc-Roussillon Midi-Pyrénées Regions of France Occitania Merger of the regions - France 3
13.
Gers
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The Gers is a department in the Occitanie region in the southwest of France named after the Gers River. In the Middle Ages, the Lordship of LIsle-Jourdain was nearby, the Gers is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from parts of the provinces of Guyenne. In 1808 it lost Lavit on its side to the newly created department of Tarn-et-Garonne. The culture is largely agricultural, with emphasis on the local gastronomical specialties such as, Armagnac brandy, Côtes de Gascogne, Floc de Gascogne, Foie gras. Also, some prominent cultivated crops are corn, colza, sunflowers, the Gascon language is a dialect of Occitan, but it is not widely spoken. The department is characterised by sleepy bastide villages and rolling hills with the Pyrenees visible to the south, alexandre Dumas, père created the famous Gersois dArtagnan, the fourth musketeer of The Three Musketeers. A museum to dArtagnan is found in the Gersois village of Lupiac, a horse race at the Auteuil Hippodrome has been named after André Boingnères, a notable local race-horse owner and the successful mayor of Termes-dArmagnac between 1951 and 1976. The President of the General Council is Jean-Pierre Pujol of the Socialist Party, located in southwestern France, the Gers is part of the Occitanie region. It is surrounded by the departments of Hautes-Pyrénées, Haute-Garonne, Tarn-et-Garonne, Lot-et-Garonne, Landes, the Gers is often referred to as amongst the least densely populated, or most rural, areas in all of Western Europe. List of the 10 most important cities of the département, The annual rain varies from more than 900 mm in the south-west of the department, to less than 700 mm in the North-East. The winters vary, with only occasional freezing temperatures, but the climate mild and dry. The summers are hot and dry, the temperatures often is exceeding 40°. Auch is together with Toulouse and Millau one of the hottest cities of France, with often more than 300 sunny days in the year
14.
Tarn-et-Garonne
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Tarn-et-Garonne is a department in the southwest of France. It is traversed by the Rivers Tarn and Garonne, from which it takes its name and this area was originally part of the former provinces of Quercy and Languedoc. The department was created in 1808 by Napoléon Bonaparte, with territory being taken from the departments of Lot, Haute-Garonne, Lot-et-Garonne, Gers and Aveyron. The department is mostly rural with fertile land in the broad river valley. The departmental prefecture is Montauban, and some of the large communes include Castelsarrasin, Molières, Caussade, Valence-dAgen. Quercy was part of Aquitania prima under the Romans, and Christianity was introduced during the 4th century, early in the 6th century the area fell under the authority of the Franks, and in the 7th century became part of the autonomous Duchy of Aquitaine. At the end of the 10th century its rulers were the counts of Toulouse. The kings of both England and France around this time tried to curry favour by adding to the privileges of the towns, in 1360, the Treaty of Brétigny was signed and the whole of Quercy passed to England. However, in the 1440s the English were finally expelled by the newly created army of Charles VII of France, in the 16th century Quercy was a stronghold of the Protestants, and the scene of fierce religious conflicts. The civil wars of the reign of Louis XIII largely took place around Montauban, before the departments formation in the nineteenth century, the northern half formed part of the old province of Quercy and the southern half, part of Languedoc. The department was created on 4 November 1808 during the First French Empire by a decision of Napoleon and he was impressed by their loyalty and granted their request. The department was formed out of territories that had previously been part of neighbouring areas, more than half of the territory was taken from the Department of Lot, over one-third was taken from Haute-Garonne, and the rest from the departments of Lot-et-Garonne, Gers, and Aveyron. The first Prefect was Félix Le Peletier dAunay, who was installed in his post on 31 December 1808, tarn-et-Garonne constitutes part of the Occitanie region in southern France. It borders on the departments of Lot to the north, Aveyron to the northeast, Tarn to the east, Haute-Garonne to the south, the capital of the department is Montauban which lies about 50 km north of Toulouse. Montauban is situated on the bank of the river Tarn at its confluence with the river Tescou. The second largest commune in the department is Castelsarrasin which stands near the confluence of the Tarn, Montauban is connected to the Garonne via the 11 km Canal de Montech. In the northeast of the department is higher land in the form of limestone known as the Causses. The highest point in the department, at 510 m, is the Pech Maurel, the economy of the department depends mainly on agriculture but there is also some industry, and it benefits from its proximity to Toulouse
15.
Haute-Garonne
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Haute-Garonne is a department in the southwest of France named after the Garonne river. Its main city and capital is Toulouse, Haute-Garonne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from part of the province of Languedoc. The reduction in its area resulted from a decree dated 21 November 1808. The new department, created in response to the pleadings of various locally powerful politicians, the districts lost to Tarn-et-Garonne in 1808 were those of Montech and Castelsarrasin. Haute-Garonne is part of the current region of Occitanie and is surrounded by the departments of Hautes-Pyrénées, Gers, Tarn-et-Garonne, Tarn, Aude and it also borders Spain in the south. The department is crossed by the course of the Garonne River for nearly 200 kilometers. The borders of the department follow the river, the Garonne enters France from Spain at the town of Fos, and goes through Toulouse and leaves the department. The extreme south of the department lies in the Pyrenees mountain range and is very mountainous, the highest elevation is the Peak of Perdiguère, at 3,222 meters above sea level. This department was the base of former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. The President of the General Council is Pierre Izard of the Socialist Party, the inhabitants of the department are called Haut-Garonnais. The greatest population concentration is around Toulouse, the south of the department is quite sparsely populated. More than a million people inhabited the department at the last census in 1999, young people are well represented with 55% of the population under the age of 40 and of those, 16% are between the ages of 20 and 29. This is because Toulouse is a university town, the largest towns are, The department has four ski resorts
16.
Basques
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The Basques are an indigenous ethnic group characterised by the Basque language, a common Basque culture and shared ancestry to the ancient Vascones and Aquitanians. The Basques are known as, Euskaldunak in Basque Vasco in Spanish Basque in French, the English word Basque may be pronounced /bɑːsk/ or /bæsk/ and derives from the French Basque, which is derived from Gascon Basco, cognate with Spanish Vasco. These, in turn, come from Latin Vasco, plural Vascones, several coins from the 2nd and 1st centuries BC found in the Basque Country bear the inscription barscunes. The place where they were minted is not certain, but is thought to be somewhere near Pamplona, in Basque, the people call themselves the euskaldunak, singular euskaldun, formed from euskal- and -dun, euskaldun literally means a Basque speaker. Therefore, the neologism euskotar, plural euskotarrak, was coined in the 19th century to mean a culturally Basque person, alfonso Irigoyen posits that the word euskara is derived from an ancient Basque verb enautsi to say and the suffix -ara. Thus euskara would literally mean way of saying, way of speaking, one item of evidence in favour of this hypothesis is found in the Spanish book Compendio Historial, written in 1571 by the Basque writer Esteban de Garibay. He records the name of the Basque language as enusquera and it may, however, be a writing mistake. In the 19th century, the Basque nationalist activist Sabino Arana posited an original root euzko which, he thought, on the basis of this putative root, Arana proposed the name Euzkadi for an independent Basque nation, composed of seven Basque historical territories. Aranas neologism Euzkadi is still used in both Basque and Spanish, since it is now the official name of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country. Since the Basque language is unrelated to Indo-European, it has long thought to represent the people or culture that occupied Europe before the spread of Indo-European languages there. A comprehensive analysis of Basque genetic patterns has shown that Basque genetic uniqueness predates the arrival of agriculture in the Iberian Peninsula and it is thought that Basques are a remnant of the early inhabitants of Western Europe, specifically those of the Franco-Cantabrian region. Basque tribes were mentioned in Roman times by Strabo and Pliny, including the Vascones, the Aquitani. There is enough evidence to support the hypothesis that at that time, castile deprived Navarre of its coastline by conquering key western territories, leaving the kingdom landlocked. The Basques were ravaged by the War of the Bands, bitter partisan wars between local ruling families, weakened by the Navarrese civil war, the bulk of the realm eventually fell before the onslaught of the Spanish armies. However, the Navarrese territory north of the Pyrenees remained beyond the reach of an increasingly powerful Spain, Lower Navarre became a province of France in 1620. Nevertheless, the Basques enjoyed a deal of self-government until the French Revolution and the Carlist Wars. On either side of the Pyrenees, the Basques lost their native institutions, labourd, Lower Navarre, and Soule were integrated into the French department system, with Basque efforts to establish a region-specific political-administrative entity failing to take off to date. The corresponding Basque names of these territories are Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa, the BAC only includes three of the seven provinces of the currently called historical territories
17.
Gascony
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Gascony is an area of southwest France that was part of the Province of Guyenne and Gascony prior to the French Revolution. The region is defined, and the distinction between Guyenne and Gascony is unclear, by some they are seen to overlap, while others consider Gascony a part of Guyenne. Most definitions put Gascony east and south of Bordeaux and it is currently divided between the region of Aquitaine and the region of Midi-Pyrénées. 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. From medieval times until today, the Gascon language has been spoken, Gascony is the land of dArtagnan, who inspired Alexandre Dumass character dArtagnan in The Three Musketeers. It is also home to Henry III of Navarre, who became king of France as Henry IV. In pre-Roman times, the inhabitants of Gascony were the Aquitanians, the Aquitanians inhabited a territory limited to the north and east by the Garonne River, to the south by the Pyrenees mountain range, and to the west by the Atlantic Ocean. In the 50s BC, Aquitania was conquered by lieutenants of Julius Caesar, later, in 27 BC, during the reign of Emperor Augustus, the province of Gallia Aquitania was created. In 297, as Emperor Diocletian reformed the administrative structures of the Roman Empire, the territory of Novempopulania corresponded quite well to what we call now Gascony. The Aquitania Novempopulana or Novempopulania suffered like the rest of the Western Roman Empire from the invasions of Germanic tribes, the Visigoths were defeated by the Franks in 507, and fled into Spain and Septimania, as well as Albania. Novempopulania then became part of the Frankish Kingdom like the rest of southern France, however, Novempopulania was far away from the home base of the Franks in northern France, and was only very loosely controlled by the Franks. Modern historians reject this hypothesis, which is sustained by no archeological evidence, for Juan José Larrea, and Pierre Bonnassie, a Vascon expansionism in Aquitany is not proved and is not necessary to understand the historical evolution of this region. This Basque-related culture and race is, whatever the origin, attested in Medieval documents, the word Vasconia evolved into Wasconia, and then into Gasconia. The gradual abandonment of the Basque-related Aquitanian language in favor of a local vulgar Latin, was not reversed, the replacing local vulgar Latin evolved into Gascon. It was heavily influenced by the original Aquitanian language, quite paradoxically the Basques from the French side of the Basque Country traditionally call anyone who does not speak Basque a Gascon. Meanwhile, Viking raiders conquered several Gascon towns, among them Bayonne in 842–844 and their attacks in Gascony may have helped the political disintegration of the Duchy until their defeat against William II Sánchez of Gascony in 982. In turn, the weakened ethnic polity known as Duchy of Wasconia/Wascones, unable to get round the general spread of feudalization and his 1152 marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine allowed the future Henry II to gain control of his new wifes possessions of Aquitaine and Gascony. This addition to his already plentiful holdings made Henry the most powerful vassal in France, in 1248, Simon de Montfort was appointed Governor in the unsettled Duchy of Gascony
18.
Occitan language
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Occitan, also known as lenga dòc by its native speakers, is a Romance language. It is spoken in southern France, Italys Occitan Valleys, Monaco, and Spains Val dAran, collectively, Occitan is also spoken in the linguistic enclave of Guardia Piemontese. However, there is controversy about the unity of the language, others include Catalan in this family, as the distance between this language and some Occitan dialects is similar to the distance among different Occitan dialects. In fact, Catalan was considered an Occitan dialect until the end of the 19th century, today, Occitan is an official language in Catalonia, where a subdialect of Gascon known as Aranese is spoken in the Val dAran. Since September 2010, the Parliament of Catalonia has considered Aranese Occitan to be the preferred language for use in the Val dAran. Unlike other Romance languages such as French or Spanish, there is no written standard language called Occitan. Instead, there are competing norms for writing Occitan, some of which attempt to be pan-dialectal, There are also significant lexical differences, where some dialects have words cognate with French, and others have Catalan and Spanish cognates. Nonetheless, there is a significant amount of mutual intelligibility, the long-term survival of Occitan is in grave doubt. According to the UNESCO Red Book of Endangered Languages, four of the six dialects of Occitan are considered severely endangered. The name Occitan comes from lenga dòc, òc being the Occitan word for yes and this was not, of course, the only defining characteristic of each group. The word òc came from Vulgar Latin hoc, while oïl originated from Latin hoc illud, Old Catalan, and now the Catalan of Northern Catalonia also have hoc. Other Romance languages derive their word for yes from the Latin sic, thus, etc. such as Spanish sí, Eastern Lombard sé, Sicilian and Italian sì, or Portuguese sim. French uses si to answer yes in response to questions that are asked in the negative sense, the name Occitan is sometimes considered a neologism, however, it was attested around 1300 as occitanus, a crossing of oc and aquitanus. For many centuries, the Occitan dialects were referred to as Limousin or Provençal, after Frédéric Mistrals Félibrige movement in the 19th century, Provençal achieved the greatest literary recognition and so became the most popular term for Occitan. The term first came into fashion in Italy, currently, linguists use the terms Provençal and Limousin strictly to refer to specific varieties within Occitania, keeping the name Occitan for the language as a whole. Many non-specialists, however, continue to refer to the language as Provençal, NO·L LI TOLRÀ NO·L LI DEVEDARÀ NI NO LEN DECEBRÀ. Nec societatem non AURÀ, si per castellum recuperare NON O FA, et si recuperare potuerit in potestate Froterio et Raimundo LO TORNARÀ, carolingian litanies, both written and sung in Latin, were answered to in Old Occitan by the audience. Occitan was the vehicle for the poetry of the medieval troubadours and trobairises, At that time
19.
Charles de Batz de Castelmore d'Artagnan
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Charles Ogier de Batz de Castelmore, Comte dArtagnan served Louis XIV as captain of the Musketeers of the Guard and died at the Siege of Maastricht in the Franco-Dutch War. A fictionalized account of his life by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras formed the basis for the dArtagnan Romances of Alexandre Dumas, the heavily fictionalized version of dArtagnan featured in Dumas works and their subsequent screen adaptations is now far more widely known than the real historical figure. DArtagnan was born near Lupiac in south-western France and his father, Bertrand de Batz, was the son of a newly ennobled merchant, Arnaud de Batz, who purchased the castle of Castelmore. Charles de Batz went to Paris in the 1630s, using the name of his mother, daughter of an illustrious family, d’Artagnan joined the guards in the mid-1630s and served under Captain des Essarts. The regiment saw action in the early 1640s, taking part in sieges at Arras, Aire-sur-la-Lys, la Bassée and Bapaume in 1640-41 and Collioure. Whether or not d’Artagnan was personally involved is unclear, but it is likely he took part in some, if not all, while in the Musketeers, dArtagnan sought the protection of the influential Cardinal Mazarin, Frances principal minister since 1643. In 1646, the Musketeers company was dissolved, but dArtagnan continued to serve his protector Mazarin, DArtagnan had a career in espionage for Cardinal Mazarin, in the years after the first Fronde. Due to dArtagnans faithful service during this period, Louis XIV entrusted him with many secret and he followed Mazarin during his exile in 1651 in the face of the hostility of the aristocracy. In 1652 dArtagnan was promoted to lieutenant in the Gardes Françaises, in 1658, he became a second lieutenant in the newly reformed Musketeers. This was a promotion, as the Musketeers were far more prestigious than the Gardes-Françaises, DArtagnan was famous for his connection with the arrest of Nicolas Fouquet. Fouquet was Louis XIVs finance commissioner and aspired to take the place of Mazarin as the Kings advisor, Fouquet was also a lover of grand architecture and employed the greatest architects and artisans in the building of his Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte. He celebrated the completion with a most extravagant feast, at which every guest was given a horse, to prevent his escape by bribery, dArtagnan was assigned to guard him for four years until Fouquet was sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1667, dArtagnan was promoted to captain-lieutenant of the Musketeers, as befitted his rank and position, he could be identified by his striking burgundy, white and black livery—the colours of the commanding officer of the Musketeers. Another of dArtagnans assignments was the governorship of Lille, which was won in battle by France in 1667, DArtagnan was an unpopular governor and longed to return to battle. He found his chance when Louis XIV went to war with the Dutch Republic in the Franco-Dutch War, after being recalled to service, dArtagnan was subsequently killed in battle on 25 June 1673, when a musket ball tore into his throat at the Siege of Maastricht. The French historian Odile Bordaz believes that he was buried in Saint Peter and Paul Church in Wolder, the real dArtagnans life was used as the basis for Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras novel Les mémoires de M. dArtagnan. Alexandre Dumas in turn used Sandras novel as the source for his dArtagnan Romances. DArtagnan is initially portrayed by Dumas as a youth, and tries to engage the Comte de Rochefort
20.
Alexandre Dumas
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Alexandre Dumas, also known as Alexandre Dumas, père, was a French writer. His works have translated into nearly 100 languages, and he is one of the most widely read French authors. His novels have been adapted since the twentieth century for nearly 200 films. Dumas last novel, The Knight of Sainte-Hermine, unfinished at his death, was completed by a scholar and published in 2005 and it was published in English in 2008 as The Last Cavalier. Prolific in several genres, Dumas began his career by writing plays and he also wrote numerous magazine articles and travel books, his published works totalled 100,000 pages. In the 1840s, Dumas founded the Théâtre Historique in Paris and his father, General Thomas-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie, was born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue to a French nobleman and an enslaved African woman. At age 14 Thomas-Alexandre was taken by his father to France, Dumas fathers aristocratic rank helped young Alexandre acquire work with Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans. He later began working as a writer, finding early success, decades later, in the election of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte in 1851, Dumas fell from favour and left France for Belgium, where he stayed for several years. Upon leaving Belgium, Dumas moved to Russia for a few years before going to Italy, in 1861, he founded and published the newspaper LIndipendente, which supported the Italian unification effort. In 1864, he returned to Paris, though married, in the tradition of Frenchmen of higher social class, Dumas had numerous affairs. In his lifetime, he was known to have at least four illegitimate or natural children and he acknowledged and assisted his son, Alexandre Dumas, to become a successful novelist and playwright. They are known as Alexandre Dumas père and Alexandre Dumas fils, among his affairs, in 1866, Dumas had one with Adah Isaacs Menken, an American actress then less than half his age and at the height of her career. The English playwright Watts Phillips, who knew Dumas in his life, described him as the most generous. He also was the most delightfully amusing and egotistical creature on the face of the earth and his tongue was like a windmill – once set in motion, you never knew when he would stop, especially if the theme was himself. Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was born in 1802 in Villers-Cotterêts in the department of Aisne, in Picardy and he had two older sisters, Marie-Alexandrine and Louise-Alexandrine. Their parents were Marie-Louise Élisabeth Labouret, the daughter of an innkeeper, at the time of Alexandres birth, his father was impoverished. It is not known whether she was born in Saint-Domingue or in Africa, brought as a boy to France by his father and legally freed there, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas Davy was educated in a military school and joined the army as a young man. As an adult, Thomas-Alexandre used his mothers name, Dumas, as his surname after a break with his father, Dumas was promoted to general by the age of 31, the first soldier of Afro-Antilles origin to reach that rank in the French army
21.
The Three Musketeers
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The Three Musketeers is a historical novel by Alexandre Dumas. Set in 1625–1628, it recounts the adventures of a man named dArtagnan after he leaves home to travel to Paris. In genre, The Three Musketeers is primarily a historical and adventure novel, the story was first serialised from March to July 1844, during the July Monarchy, four years before the French Revolution of 1848 violently established the Second Republic. The authors father, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, had been a well-known General in Frances Republican army during the French Revolutionary Wars, the story of dArtagnan is continued in Twenty Years After and The Vicomte of Bragelonne, Ten Years Later. Le comte de la Fère, etc, in the meanwhile, since godfathers are second fathers, as it were, we beg the reader to lay to our account, and not to that of the Comte de la Fère, the pleasure or the ennui he may experience. This being understood, let us proceed with our story, the book he referred to was Mémoires de M. dArtagnan, capitaine lieutenant de la première compagnie des Mousquetaires du Roi by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras. The book was borrowed from the Marseille public library, and the remains to this day. The Three Musketeers was written in collaboration with Auguste Maquet, who worked with Dumas on its sequels. Maquet would suggest plot outlines after doing research, Dumas then expanded the plot, removing some characters, including new ones. The Three Musketeers was first published in form in the newspaper Le Siècle between March and July 1844. In 1625 France, dArtagnan leaves his family in Gascony and travels to Paris to join the Musketeers of the Guard, at an inn in Meung-sur-Loire, an older man derides dArtagnans horse. The older mans companions beat dArtagnan unconscious with a cooking pot and his letter of introduction to Monsieur de Tréville, the commander of the Musketeers, is also stolen. DArtagnan resolves to avenge himself upon the man, in Paris, dArtagnan visits M. de Tréville at the headquarters of the Musketeers, but without the letter, Tréville politely refuses his application. He does, however, write a letter of introduction to an academy for young gentlemen which may prepare him for recruitment at a later time. As dArtagnan prepares himself for the first duel, he realizes that Athos seconds are Porthos and Aramis, as dArtagnan and Athos begin, Cardinal Richelieus guards appear and try to arrest dArtagnan and the three Musketeers for illegal dueling. Although outnumbered, the four men win the battle, dArtagnan seriously wounds Jussac, one of the Cardinals officers and a renowned fighter. After learning of this, King Louis XIII appoints dArtagnan to Des Essarts company of the Kings Guards, dArtagnan hires a servant, finds lodgings, and reports to Monsieur des Essart. Des Essarts company is a less prestigious regiment in which he must serve for two years before being considered for the Musketeers, shortly after, his landlord speaks to him about his wife Constance Bonacieuxs kidnapping
22.
Henry IV of France
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Henry IV, also known by the epithet Good King Henry, was King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610 and King of France from 1589 to 1610. He was the first French monarch of the House of Bourbon, baptised as a Catholic but raised in the Protestant faith by his mother Jeanne dAlbret, Queen of Navarre, he inherited the throne of Navarre in 1572 on the death of his mother. As a Huguenot, Henry was involved in the French Wars of Religion, barely escaping assassination in the St. Bartholomews Day massacre, and later led Protestant forces against the royal army. Henry, as Head of the House of Bourbon, was a direct descendant of Louis IX of France. Upon the death of his brother-in-law and distant cousin Henry III of France in 1589 and he initially kept the Protestant faith and had to fight against the Catholic League, which denied that he could wear Frances crown as a Protestant. To obtain mastery over his kingdom, after four years of stalemate, as a pragmatic politician, he displayed an unusual religious tolerance for the era. Notably, he promulgated the Edict of Nantes, which guaranteed religious liberties to Protestants and he was assassinated in 1610 by François Ravaillac, a fanatical Catholic, and was succeeded by his son Louis XIII. Considered a usurper by some Catholics and a traitor by some Protestants, an unpopular king immediately after his accession, Henrys popularity greatly improved after his death, in light of repeated victories over his enemies and his conversion to Catholicism. The Good King Henry was remembered for his geniality and his concern about the welfare of his subjects. He was celebrated in the popular song Vive le roi Henri, Henry was born in Pau, the capital of the joint Kingdom of Navarre with the sovereign principality of Béarn. His parents were Queen Joan III of Navarre and her consort, Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme, although baptised as a Roman Catholic, Henry was raised as a Protestant by his mother, who had declared Calvinism the religion of Navarre. As a teenager, Henry joined the Huguenot forces in the French Wars of Religion, on 9 June 1572, upon his mothers death, he became King of Navarre. At Queen Joans death, it was arranged for Henry to marry Margaret of Valois, daughter of Henry II, the wedding took place in Paris on 18 August 1572 on the parvis of Notre Dame Cathedral. On 24 August, the Saint Bartholomews Day Massacre began in Paris, several thousand Protestants who had come to Paris for Henrys wedding were killed, as well as thousands more throughout the country in the days that followed. Henry narrowly escaped death thanks to the help of his wife and he was made to live at the court of France, but he escaped in early 1576. On 5 February of that year, he formally abjured Catholicism at Tours and he named his 16-year-old sister, Catherine de Bourbon, regent of Béarn. Catherine held the regency for nearly thirty years, Henry became heir presumptive to the French throne in 1584 upon the death of Francis, Duke of Anjou, brother and heir to the Catholic Henry III, who had succeeded Charles IX in 1574. Because Henry of Navarre was the senior agnatic descendant of King Louis IX, King Henry III had no choice
23.
Classical antiquity
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It is the period in which Greek and Roman society flourished and wielded great influence throughout Europe, North Africa and Southwestern Asia. Conventionally, it is taken to begin with the earliest-recorded Epic Greek poetry of Homer, and continues through the emergence of Christianity and it ends with the dissolution of classical culture at the close of Late Antiquity, blending into the Early Middle Ages. Such a wide sampling of history and territory covers many disparate cultures, Classical antiquity may refer also to an idealised vision among later people of what was, in Edgar Allan Poes words, the glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome. The culture of the ancient Greeks, together with influences from the ancient Near East, was the basis of art, philosophy, society. The earliest period of classical antiquity takes place before the background of gradual re-appearance of historical sources following the Bronze Age collapse, the 8th and 7th centuries BC are still largely proto-historical, with the earliest Greek alphabetic inscriptions appearing in the first half of the 8th century. Homer is usually assumed to have lived in the 8th or 7th century BC, in the same period falls the traditional date for the establishment of the Ancient Olympic Games, in 776 BC. The Phoenicians originally expanded from Canaan ports, by the 8th century dominating trade in the Mediterranean, carthage was founded in 814 BC, and the Carthaginians by 700 BC had firmly established strongholds in Sicily, Italy and Sardinia, which created conflicts of interest with Etruria. The Etruscans had established control in the region by the late 7th century BC, forming the aristocratic. According to legend, Rome was founded on April 21,753 BC by twin descendants of the Trojan prince Aeneas, Romulus and Remus. As the city was bereft of women, legend says that the Latins invited the Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, leading to the integration of the Latins and the Sabines. Archaeological evidence indeed shows first traces of settlement at the Roman Forum in the mid-8th century BC, the seventh and final king of Rome was Tarquinius Superbus. As the son of Tarquinius Priscus and the son-in-law of Servius Tullius, Superbus was of Etruscan birth and it was during his reign that the Etruscans reached their apex of power. Superbus removed and destroyed all the Sabine shrines and altars from the Tarpeian Rock, the people came to object to his rule when he failed to recognize the rape of Lucretia, a patrician Roman, at the hands of his own son. Lucretias kinsman, Lucius Junius Brutus, summoned the Senate and had Superbus, after Superbus expulsion, the Senate voted to never again allow the rule of a king and reformed Rome into a republican government in 509 BC. In fact the Latin word Rex meaning King became a dirty and hated throughout the Republic. In 510, Spartan troops helped the Athenians overthrow the tyrant Hippias, cleomenes I, king of Sparta, put in place a pro-Spartan oligarchy conducted by Isagoras. Greece entered the 4th century under Spartan hegemony, but by 395 BC the Spartan rulers removed Lysander from office, and Sparta lost her naval supremacy. Athens, Argos, Thebes and Corinth, the two of which were formerly Spartan allies, challenged Spartan dominance in the Corinthian War, which ended inconclusively in 387 BC
24.
Aquitanian language
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The Aquitanian language was spoken on both sides of the western Pyrenees in ancient Aquitaine and in the areas south of the Pyrenees in the valleys of the Basque Country before the Roman conquest. It probably survived in Aquitania until the Early Middle Ages, archaeological, toponymical, and historical evidence show that it was a Vasconic language or group of languages that represent a precursor of the Basque language. The most important pieces of evidence are a series of votive, Aquitanian and its related descendant, Basque, are commonly thought to be a remnant of the languages spoken in Western Europe before the arrival of Indo-European speakers. Cavalli-Sforza describes this weakest of the five patterns he obtained as isolated remnants of the population of Europe. It corresponds roughly to the spread of rhesus negative blood types. Cavalli-Sforzas conclusion that the Basques are a genetic isolate as well as a one has since been widely discussed. It may be possible to trace the Aquitanians more or less back to the Chalcolithic culture of Artenac, but the age of the Aquitanian language. Almost all of the Aquitanian inscriptions that have been north of the Pyrenees are in the territory that Greek. Anthroponyms, Belexeia, Lavrco, Borsei, Andereseni, Nescato, Cissonbonnis, Sembecconi, Gerexo, Bihossi, theonyms, Baigorixo, Ilunno, Arixoni, Artahe, Ilurberrixo, Astoiluno, Haravsoni, Leherenno etc. Theonyms, Larrahe, Loxae / Losae, Lacubegi, Selatse / Stelaitse, Helasse, since ancient times there have been indications of a relationship between Southwestern France and the Basques. During the Roman conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar, Aquitania was the territory between Garonne and the Pyrenees and it was inhabited by tribes of horsemen who Caesar said were very distinct in customs and language from the Celts of Gaul. During the Middle Ages, this territory was named Gascony, derived from Vasconia, there are many clues that indicate that Aquitanian was spoken in the Pyrenees, at least as far east as Val dAran. This strong formal element can be traced at either side of the range as far west as an imaginary line roughly stretching from Pamplona to Bayonne. Other than place-names and little evidence, the picture is not very clear at the west of the Basque Country. Archaeological findings in Iruña-Veleia in 2006 were initially claimed as evidence of the antiquity of Basque in the south but were dismissed as forgery. The Cantabrians are also mentioned as relatives or allies of Aquitanians, the Vascones who occupied modern Navarra, are usually identified with the Basques, their name being one of the most important pieces of evidence. In 1960, a stele with Aquitanian names was found in Lerga, Gorrochategui, Joaquín, Onomástica indígena de Aquitania, Bilbao. 609–34 Gorrochategui, Joaquín, The Basque Language and its Neighbors in Antiquity, Towards a History of the Basque Language, hoz, Javier de, El poblamiento antiguo de los Pirineos desde el punto de vista lingüístico, Muntanyes i Població
25.
Indo-European languages
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The Indo-European languages are a language family of several hundred related languages and dialects. There are about 445 living Indo-European languages, according to the estimate by Ethnologue, the most widely spoken Indo-European languages by native speakers are Spanish, English, Hindustani, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, and Punjabi, each with over 100 million speakers. Today, 46% of the population speaks an Indo-European language as a first language. The Indo-European family includes most of the languages of Europe, and parts of Western, Central. It was also predominant in ancient Anatolia, the ancient Tarim Basin and most of Central Asia until the medieval Turkic migrations, all Indo-European languages are descendants of a single prehistoric language, reconstructed as Proto-Indo-European, spoken sometime in the Neolithic era. Several disputed proposals link Indo-European to other language families. In the 16th century, European visitors to the Indian subcontinent began to notice similarities among Indo-Aryan, Iranian, in 1583, English Jesuit missionary Thomas Stephens in Goa wrote a letter to his brother in which he noted similarities between Indian languages and Greek and Latin. Another account to mention the ancient language Sanskrit came from Filippo Sassetti, a merchant born in Florence in 1540, writing in 1585, he noted some word similarities between Sanskrit and Italian. However, neither Stephens nor Sassettis observations led to further scholarly inquiry and he included in his hypothesis Dutch, Albanian, Greek, Latin, Persian, and German, later adding Slavic, Celtic, and Baltic languages. However, Van Boxhorns suggestions did not become known and did not stimulate further research. Ottoman Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi visited Vienna in 1665–1666 as part of a diplomatic mission, gaston Coeurdoux and others made observations of the same type. Coeurdoux made a comparison of Sanskrit, Latin and Greek conjugations in the late 1760s to suggest a relationship among them. Thomas Young first used the term Indo-European in 1813, deriving from the extremes of the language family. A synonym is Indo-Germanic, specifying the familys southeasternmost and northwesternmost branches, a number of other synonymous terms have also been used. Franz Bopps Comparative Grammar appeared between 1833 and 1852 and marks the beginning of Indo-European studies as an academic discipline, the classical phase of Indo-European comparative linguistics leads from this work to August Schleichers 1861 Compendium and up to Karl Brugmanns Grundriss, published in the 1880s. Brugmanns neogrammarian reevaluation of the field and Ferdinand de Saussures development of the theory may be considered the beginning of modern Indo-European studies. This led to the laryngeal theory, a major step forward in Indo-European linguistics. Isolated terms in Luwian/Hittite mentioned in Semitic Old Assyrian texts from the 20th and 19th centuries BC, Hittite texts from about 1650 BC, Armenian, writing known from the beginning of the 5th century AD
26.
Garonne
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The Garonne is a river in southwest France and northern Spain, with a length of 602 kilometres. It flows into the Atlantic Ocean at Bordeaux, the name derives from Garumna, a Latinized version of the old Aquitanian name meaning stony river. The Uelh deth Garona at 1,862 metres above sea level has been considered as the source of the Garonne. From this point a brook runs for 2.5 kilometres until the bed of the main upper Garonne valley, the river runs for another 38 kilometres until the French border at Pont de Rei,40.5 kilometres in total. At the confluence, the Ruda-Garona carries 2.6 cubic metres per second of water, the Ratera-Saboredo cirque has been pointed by many researchers as the origin of the Garonne. The Garonne follows the Aran Valley northwards into France, flowing via Toulouse and Agen towards Bordeaux, the Gironde flows into the Atlantic Ocean. Along its course, the Garonne is joined by three major rivers, the Ariège, the Tarn, and the Lot. Just after Bordeaux, the Garonne meets the Dordogne at the Bec dAmbès, forming the Gironde estuary, other tributaries include the Save and the Gers. The Garonne is one of the few rivers in the world exhibit a tidal bore. In 2010 and 2012, some detailed studies were conducted in the Garonnes Arcins channel between Arcins Island and the right bank close to Lastrene township. A striking feature of the data sets was the large and rapid fluctuations in turbulent velocities and turbulent stresses during the tidal bore. From the ocean, ships pass through the Gironde estuary until the mouth of the Garonne, the Garonne remains navigable for larger vessels up to the Pont de Pierre in Bordeaux. River vessels can sail upstream to Castets-en-Dorthe, where the Garonne Lateral Canal joins the river, prior to the building of the Garonne Lateral Canal, constructed between 1838 and 1856, river shipping used the Garonne itself as far as Toulouse. However the navigation of the river was very uncertain. Instead the lateral canal takes the ships through 53 locks to the town of Toulouse, where the canal meets the Canal du Midi, the next stage of the Canal des Deux Mers. The Garonne Lateral Canal was subject to one of the largest infrastructure works in Europe during the 19th century, French minister Freycinet ordered that all major canals used for long distance transport be suitable for vessels of those standard dimensions. The extension of all of the former 30-metre locks to the new length was carried out throughout the lateral canal. The works were stopped, leading to the heritage status of the United Nations that has made the Canal du Midi famous
27.
Julius Caesar
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Gaius Julius Caesar, known as Julius Caesar, was a Roman politician, general, and notable author of Latin prose. He played a role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic. In 60 BC, Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey formed an alliance that dominated Roman politics for several years. Their attempts to power as Populares were opposed by the Optimates within the Roman Senate. Caesars victories in the Gallic Wars, completed by 51 BC, extended Romes territory to the English Channel, Caesar became the first Roman general to cross both the Channel and the Rhine, when he built a bridge across the Rhine and crossed the Channel to invade Britain. These achievements granted him unmatched military power and threatened to eclipse the standing of Pompey, with the Gallic Wars concluded, the Senate ordered Caesar to step down from his military command and return to Rome. Caesar refused the order, and instead marked his defiance in 49 BC by crossing the Rubicon with the 13th Legion, leaving his province, Civil war resulted, and Caesars victory in the war put him in an unrivalled position of power and influence. After assuming control of government, Caesar began a programme of social and governmental reforms and he centralised the bureaucracy of the Republic and was eventually proclaimed dictator in perpetuity, giving him additional authority. But the underlying political conflicts had not been resolved, and on the Ides of March 44 BC, a new series of civil wars broke out, and the constitutional government of the Republic was never fully restored. Caesars adopted heir Octavian, later known as Augustus, rose to power after defeating his opponents in the civil war. Octavian set about solidifying his power, and the era of the Roman Empire began, much of Caesars life is known from his own accounts of his military campaigns, and from other contemporary sources, mainly the letters and speeches of Cicero and the historical writings of Sallust. The later biographies of Caesar by Suetonius and Plutarch are also major sources, Caesar is considered by many historians to be one of the greatest military commanders in history. Caesar was born into a family, the gens Julia. The cognomen Caesar originated, according to Pliny the Elder, with an ancestor who was born by Caesarean section. The Historia Augusta suggests three alternative explanations, that the first Caesar had a head of hair, that he had bright grey eyes. Caesar issued coins featuring images of elephants, suggesting that he favored this interpretation of his name, despite their ancient pedigree, the Julii Caesares were not especially politically influential, although they had enjoyed some revival of their political fortunes in the early 1st century BC. Caesars father, also called Gaius Julius Caesar, governed the province of Asia and his mother, Aurelia Cotta, came from an influential family. Little is recorded of Caesars childhood, in 85 BC, Caesars father died suddenly, so Caesar was the head of the family at 16
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Augustus
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Augustus was the founder of the Roman Principate and considered the first Roman emperor, controlling the Roman Empire from 27 BC until his death in AD14. He was born Gaius Octavius into an old and wealthy equestrian branch of the plebeian gens Octavia and his maternal great-uncle Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, and Octavius was named in Caesars will as his adopted son and heir, then known as Octavianus. He, Mark Antony, and Marcus Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate to defeat the assassins of Caesar, following their victory at the Battle of Philippi, the Triumvirate divided the Roman Republic among themselves and ruled as military dictators. The Triumvate was eventually torn apart by the ambitions of its members. Lepidus was driven into exile and stripped of his position, in reality, however, he retained his autocratic power over the Republic as a military dictator. By law, Augustus held a collection of powers granted to him for life by the Senate, including supreme military command, and it took several years for Augustus to develop the framework within which a formally republican state could be led under his sole rule. He rejected monarchical titles, and instead called himself Princeps Civitatis, the resulting constitutional framework became known as the Principate, the first phase of the Roman Empire. The reign of Augustus initiated an era of peace known as the Pax Romana. Augustus dramatically enlarged the Empire, annexing Egypt, Dalmatia, Pannonia, Noricum, and Raetia, expanding possessions in Africa, expanding into Germania, beyond the frontiers, he secured the Empire with a buffer region of client states and made peace with the Parthian Empire through diplomacy. Augustus died in AD14 at the age of 75 and he probably died from natural causes, although there were unconfirmed rumors that his wife Livia poisoned him. He was succeeded as Emperor by his adopted son Tiberius, Augustus was known by many names throughout his life, At birth, he was named Gaius Octavius after his biological father. Historians typically refer to him simply as Octavius between his birth in 63 until his adoption by Julius Caesar in 44 BC, upon his adoption, he took Caesars name and became Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus in accordance with Roman adoption naming standards. He quickly dropped Octavianus from his name, and his contemporaries referred to him as Caesar during this period, historians. In 27 BC, following his defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra and it is the events of 27 BC from which he obtained his traditional name of Augustus, which historians use in reference to him from 27 BC until his death in AD14. While his paternal family was from the town of Velletri, approximately 40 kilometres from Rome and he was born at Ox Head, a small property on the Palatine Hill, very close to the Roman Forum. He was given the name Gaius Octavius Thurinus, his cognomen possibly commemorating his fathers victory at Thurii over a band of slaves. Due to the nature of Rome at the time, Octavius was taken to his fathers home village at Velletri to be raised. Octavius only mentions his fathers equestrian family briefly in his memoirs and his paternal great-grandfather Gaius Octavius was a military tribune in Sicily during the Second Punic War
29.
Gallia Aquitania
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Gallia Aquitania, also known as Aquitaine or Aquitaine Gaul, was a province of the Roman Empire. It lies in present-day southwest France, where it gives its name to the region of Aquitaine. It was bordered by the provinces of Gallia Lugdunensis, Gallia Narbonensis, fourteen Celtic tribes and twenty Aquitanian tribes occupied the northern parts of the Pyrenees and, from the country of the Cemmenus to the ocean, bounded by two rivers, the Garumna and the Liger. The major tribes are listed at the end of this section, most of the Atlantic coast of the Aquitani was sandy and thin-soiled, it grew millet, but was unproductive with respect to other products. Along this coast was also the gulf held by the Tarbelli, in their land, large quantities of gold could be mined with a minimum of refinement. The interior and mountainous country in this region had better soil, the Petrocorii and the Bituriges Cubi had fine ironworks, the Cadurci had linen factories, the Ruteni and the Gabales had silver mines. According to Strabo, the Aquitani were a wealthy people, the Romans called the tribal groups pagi. These were organized into larger groups that the Romans called civitates. These administrative groupings were later taken over by the Romans in their system of local control, Gaul as a nation was not a natural unit. In order to protect the route to Spain, Rome helped Massalia against bordering tribes, following this intervention, the Romans conquered what they called Provincia, or the ‘Province’ in 121 BC. Provincia extended from the Mediterranean to Lake Geneva, and was known as Narbonensis with its capital at Narbo. Some of the falls into modern Provence, still recalling the Roman name. The main struggle against the Romans came against Julius Caesar under Vercingetorix at Battle of Gergovia, the Gaulish commander was captured at the siege of Alesia and the war ended. Caesar seized the remainder of Gaul, justifying his conquest by playing on Roman memories of savage attacks over the Alps by Celts, italy was now to be defended from the Rhine. Caesar named Aquitania the triangle shaped territory between the Ocean, the Pyrenees and the Garonne river and he fought and almost completely subdued them in 56 BC after Publius Crassuss military exploits assisted by Celtic allies. New rebellions ensued anyway up to 27-28 BC, with Agrippa gaining a victory over the Gauls of Aquitania in 38 BC. It was the smallest region of all three mentioned above, following that a land stretching to the Loire River was added by Augustus. This reorganization took place after the census conducted in 27 BC, based on Agrippas observations of language, race, at this point, Aquitania along with Narbonensis, Lugdunensis and Belgica now made up Gallia and became an imperial province
30.
Loire
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The Loire is the longest river in France. With a length of 1,012 kilometres, it drains an area of 117,054 km2, or more than a fifth of Frances land area, and is the 171st longest river in the world. Its main tributaries include the rivers Nièvre, Maine and the Erdre on its bank, and the rivers Allier, Cher, Indre, Vienne. The Loire gives its name to six departments, Loire, Haute-Loire, Loire-Atlantique, Indre-et-Loire, Maine-et-Loire, the central part of the Loire Valley, located in the Centre-Val de Loire region, was added to the World Heritage Sites list of UNESCO on December 2,2000. Vineyards and chateaux are found along the banks of the river throughout this area, gallic rule ended in the valley in 56 BC when Julius Caesar conquered the adjacent provinces for Rome. Christianity was introduced into this valley from the 3rd century AD, as missionaries, in this period, settlers established vineyards and began producing wines. They were originally created as feudal strongholds, over centuries past, the name Loire comes from Latin Liger, which is itself a transcription of the native Gaulish name of the river. The Gaulish name comes from the Gaulish word liga, which means silt, sediment, deposit, alluvium, a word that gave French lie, as in sur lie, which in turn gave English lees. Liga comes from the Proto-Indo-European root *legʰ-, meaning to lie, lay as in the Welsh word Lleyg which gave many words in English, such as to lie, to lay, ledge, law, etc. At a certain point during the history of uplift in the Paris Basin. The former bed of the Loire séquanaise is occupied by the Loing, the Loire Valley has been inhabited since the Middle Palaeolithic period from 40–90 ka. Neanderthal man used stone tools to fashion boats out of tree trunks, modern man inhabited the Loire valley around 30 ka. By around 5000 to 4000 BC, they began clearing forests along the edges and cultivating the lands. They built megaliths to worship the dead, especially from around 3500 BC, the Gauls arrived in the valley between 1500 and 500 BC, and the Carnutes settled in Cenabum in what is now Orléans and built a bridge over the river. By 600 BC the Loire had already become an important trading route between the Celts and the Greeks. A key transportation route, it served as one of the highways of France for over 2000 years. The Phoenicians and Greeks had used pack horses to transport goods from Lyon to the Loire to get from the Mediterranean basin to the Atlantic coast, during the Roman period, they successfully subdued the Gauls in 52 BC and began developing Cenabum, which they named Aurelianis. They also began building the city of Caesarodunum, now Tours, the Romans used the Loire as far as Roanne, around 150 km downriver from the source
31.
Celts
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The history of pre-Celtic Europe remains very uncertain. According to one theory, the root of the Celtic languages, the Proto-Celtic language, arose in the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture of Central Europe. Thus this area is called the Celtic homeland. The earliest undisputed examples of a Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions beginning in the 6th century BC. Continental Celtic languages are attested almost exclusively through inscriptions and place-names, Insular Celtic languages are attested beginning around the 4th century in Ogham inscriptions, although it was clearly being spoken much earlier. Celtic literary tradition begins with Old Irish texts around the 8th century, coherent texts of Early Irish literature, such as the Táin Bó Cúailnge, survive in 12th century recensions. Between the 5th and 8th centuries, the Celtic-speaking communities in these Atlantic regions emerged as a cohesive cultural entity. They had a linguistic, religious and artistic heritage that distinguished them from the culture of the surrounding polities. By the 6th century, however, the Continental Celtic languages were no longer in wide use, Insular Celtic culture diversified into that of the Gaels and the Celtic Britons of the medieval and modern periods. A modern Celtic identity was constructed as part of the Romanticist Celtic Revival in Great Britain, Ireland, today, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton are still spoken in parts of their historical territories, and Cornish and Manx are undergoing a revival. The first recorded use of the name of Celts – as Κελτοί – to refer to a group was by Hecataeus of Miletus, the Greek geographer, in 517 BC. In the fifth century BC Herodotus referred to Keltoi living around the head of the Danube, the etymology of the term Keltoi is unclear. Possible roots include Indo-European *kʲel ‘to hide’, IE *kʲel ‘to heat’ or *kel ‘to impel’, several authors have supposed it to be Celtic in origin, while others view it as a name coined by Greeks. Linguist Patrizia De Bernardo Stempel falls in the group. Yet he reports Celtic peoples in Iberia, and also uses the ethnic names Celtiberi and Celtici for peoples there, as distinct from Lusitani, pliny the Elder cited the use of Celtici in Lusitania as a tribal surname, which epigraphic findings have confirmed. Latin Gallus might stem from a Celtic ethnic or tribal name originally and its root may be the Proto-Celtic *galno, meaning “power, strength”, hence Old Irish gal “boldness, ferocity” and Welsh gallu “to be able, power”. The tribal names of Gallaeci and the Greek Γαλάται most probably have the same origin, the suffix -atai might be an Ancient Greek inflection. Proto-Germanic *walha is derived ultimately from the name of the Volcae and this means that English Gaul, despite its superficial similarity, is not actually derived from Latin Gallia, though it does refer to the same ancient region
32.
Gauls
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The Gauls were Celtic peoples inhabiting Gaul in the Iron Age and the Roman period. Their Gaulish language forms the branch of the Continental Celtic languages. The Gauls emerged around the 5th century BC as the bearers of the La Tène culture north of the Alps, Gaul was never united under a single ruler or government, but the Gallic tribes were capable of uniting their forces in large-scale military operations. They reached the peak of their power in the early 3rd century BC, after this, Gaul became a province of the Roman Empire, and the Gauls were culturally assimilated into a Gallo-Roman culture, losing their tribal identities by the end of the 1st century AD. The Gauls of Gallia Celtica according to the testimony of Caesar called themselves Celtae in their own language, the name Gaul itself may be derived from Latin Galli, or it may be derived from the Germanic word Walha. Gaulish culture developed out of the Celtic cultures over the first millennia BC, the Urnfield culture represents the Celts as a distinct cultural branch of the Indo-European-speaking people. The spread of iron working led to the Hallstatt culture in the 8th century BC, the Hallstatt culture evolved into the La Tène culture in around the 5th century BC. The Greek and Etruscan civilizations and colonies began to influence the Gauls especially in the Mediterranean area, Gauls under Brennus invaded Rome circa 390 BC. Following the climate deterioration in the late Nordic Bronze Age, Celtic Gaul was invaded in the 5th century BC by tribes later called Gauls originating in the Rhine valley. Gallic invaders settled the Po Valley in the 4th century BC, defeated Roman forces in a battle under Brennus in 390 BC and raided Italy as far as Sicily. A large number of Gauls served in the armies of Carthage during the Punic Wars, in the Aegean world, an invasion of Eastern Gauls appeared in Thrace, north of Greece, in 281 BC. However, according to the Roman legend of the gold of Delphi. One king Cerethrius invaded the Thracians, while another Gallic king Bolgios invaded Macedonia and Illyria where he killed the Macedonian king Ptolemy Keraunos, in 278 BC Gaulish settlers in the Balkans were invited by Nicomedes I of Bithynia to help him in a dynastic struggle against his brother. They numbered about 10,000 fighting men and about the number of women and children. They were eventually defeated by the Seleucid king Antiochus I, in a battle where the Seleucid war elephants shocked the Galatians. While the momentum of the invasion was broken, the Galatians were by no means exterminated and continued to demand tribute from the Hellenistic states of Anatolia to avoid war,4,000 Galatians were hired as mercenaries by the Ptolemaic Egyptian king Ptolemy II Philadelphus in the 270 BC. According to Pausanias, soon after arrival the Celts plotted “to seize Egypt, ”, Galatians also participated at the victorious in 217 BC Battle of Raphia under Ptolemy IV Philopator, and continued to serve as mercenaries for the Ptolemaic Dynasty until its demise in 30 BC. They sided with the renegade Seleucid prince Antiochus Hierax, who reigned in Asia Minor, after the defeat, the Galatians continued to be a serious threat to the states of Asia Minor
33.
Diocletian
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Diocletian, born Diocles, was a Roman emperor from 284 to 305. Born to a family of low status in the Roman province of Dalmatia, after the deaths of Carus and his son Numerian on campaign in Persia, Diocletian was proclaimed emperor. The title was claimed by Carus other surviving son, Carinus. Diocletians reign stabilized the empire and marks the end of the Crisis of the Third Century and he appointed fellow officer Maximian as Augustus, co-emperor, in 286. Diocletian delegated further on 1 March 293, appointing Galerius and Constantius as Caesars, under this tetrarchy, or rule of four, each emperor would rule over a quarter-division of the empire. Diocletian secured the borders and purged it of all threats to his power. He defeated the Sarmatians and Carpi during several campaigns between 285 and 299, the Alamanni in 288, and usurpers in Egypt between 297 and 298, Galerius, aided by Diocletian, campaigned successfully against Sassanid Persia, the empires traditional enemy. In 299 he sacked their capital, Ctesiphon, Diocletian led the subsequent negotiations and achieved a lasting and favorable peace. He established new centres in Nicomedia, Mediolanum, Antioch. Building on third-century trends towards absolutism, he styled himself an autocrat, elevating himself above the masses with imposing forms of court ceremonies. Bureaucratic and military growth, constant campaigning, and construction increased the states expenditures. From at least 297 on, imperial taxation was standardized, made more equitable, not all of Diocletians plans were successful, the Edict on Maximum Prices, his attempt to curb inflation via price controls, was counterproductive and quickly ignored. Weakened by illness, Diocletian left the office on 1 May 305. He lived out his retirement in his palace on the Dalmatian coast and his palace eventually became the core of the modern-day city of Split in Croatia. Diocletian was born near Salona in Dalmatia, some time around 244 and his parents gave him the Greek name Diocles, or possibly Diocles Valerius. The modern historian Timothy Barnes takes his official birthday,22 December, other historians are not so certain. Diocles parents were of low status, and writers critical of him claimed that his father was a scribe or a freedman of the senator Anullinus, the first forty years of his life are mostly obscure. The Byzantine chronicler Joannes Zonaras states that he was Dux Moesiae, the often-unreliable Historia Augusta states that he served in Gaul, but this account is not corroborated by other sources and is ignored by modern historians of the period
34.
Novempopulania
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Novempopulania was one of the provinces created by Diocletian out of Gallia Aquitania, being also called Aquitania Tertia. The area of Novempopulania was historically the first one to receive the name of Aquitania, the territory extended within the triangular area outlined by the River Garonna, the Pyrenees and the ocean, as described by Caesar in De bello gallico for Gallia Aquitania. In his work, Caesar describes the Aquitania as being different in language and body make-up from their northerly neighbours, yet province Aquitania was enlarged by Augustus, and it began to signify a larger and more diverse territory. Novempopulania stands for the nine peoples making up the original territory and this fact is accounted for by the remains of the altar unearthed in the current Basque town of Hasparren. The number of peoples went on to be later, the tribes being identified with a corresponding capital town or civitas, namely Civitas Ausciorum. Elusa remained the city of Novempopulania throughout most of its existence. Wide evidence of slab engravings have been scattered all over the area comprising Novempopulania. Other than this, their tenure over Novempopulania may have been more nominal than real. Furthermore, after the 507 Battle of Vouille they were to be expelled from the area by the Francs, at this point, Vascones had taken on an extended meaning arguably encompassing all Basque language tribes, different from the more restricted definition provided at the time of Augustus. It later split into the Duchy of Gascony and the County of Vasconia, Aquitani Duchy of Vasconia Gascony Northern Basque Country Basque language
35.
Germanic peoples
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The Germanic peoples are an ethno-linguistic Indo-European group of Northern European origin. They are identified by their use of Germanic languages, which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age, the term Germanic originated in classical times when groups of tribes living in Lower, Upper, and Greater Germania were referred to using this label by Roman scribes. Tribes referred to as Germanic by Roman authors generally lived to the north, in about 222 BCE, the first use of the Latin term Germani appears in the Fasti Capitolini inscription de Galleis Insvbribvs et Germ. This may simply be referring to Gaul or related people, the term Germani shows up again, allegedly written by Poseidonios, but is merely a quotation inserted by the author Athenaios who wrote much later. Somewhat later, the first surviving detailed discussions of Germani and Germania are those of Julius Caesar, from Caesars perspective, Germania was a geographical area of land on the east bank of the Rhine opposite Gaul, which Caesar left outside direct Roman control. This usage of the word is the origin of the concept of Germanic languages. In other classical authors the concept sometimes included regions of Sarmatia, also, at least in the south there were Celtic peoples still living east of the Rhine and north of the Alps. Caesar, Tacitus and others noted differences of culture which could be found on the east of the Rhine, but the theme of all these cultural references was that this was a wild and dangerous region, less civilised than Gaul, a place that required additional military vigilance. Caesar used the term Germani for a specific tribal grouping in northeastern Belgic Gaul, west of the Rhine. He made clear that he was using the name in the local sense and these are the so-called Germani Cisrhenani, whom Caesar believed to be closely related to the peoples east of the Rhine, and descended from immigrants into Gaul. Caesar described this group of both as Belgic Gauls and as Germani. Gauls are associated with Celtic languages, and the term Germani is associated with Germanic languages, but Caesar did not discuss languages in detail. It has been claimed, for example by Maurits Gysseling, that the names of this region show evidence of an early presence of Germanic languages. The etymology of the word Germani is uncertain, the likeliest theory so far proposed is that it comes from a Gaulish compound of *ger near + *mani men, comparable to Welsh ger near, Old Irish gair neighbor, Irish gar- near, garach neighborly. Another Celtic possibility is that the name meant noisy, cf. Breton/Cornish garm shout, however, here the vowel does not match, nor does the vowel length ). Others have proposed a Germanic etymology *gēr-manni, spear men, cf. Middle Dutch ghere, Old High German Ger, Old Norse geirr. However, the form gēr seems far too advanced phonetically for the 1st century, has a vowel where a short one is expected. The term Germani, therefore, probably applied to a group of tribes in northeastern Gaul who may or may not have spoken a Germanic language
36.
Vandals
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The Vandals are believed to have migrated from southern Scandinavia to the area between the lower Oder and Vistula rivers during the 2nd century BC and to have settled in Silesia from around 120 BC. They are associated with the Przeworsk culture and were possibly the people as the Lugii. Around 400 the Vandals were pushed westwards again, this time by the Huns, in 409, the Vandals crossed the Pyrenees into the Iberian Peninsula, where their main groups, the Hasdingi and the Silingi, settled in Gallaecia and Baetica respectively. In 429, under king Genseric, the Vandals entered North Africa, by 439 they established a kingdom which included the Roman province of Africa as well as Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, Malta and the Balearic Islands. They fended off several Roman attempts to recapture the African province and their kingdom collapsed in the Vandalic War of 533–4, in which Justinian I managed to reconquer the province for the Eastern Roman Empire. Renaissance and Early Modern writers characterized the Vandals as barbarians, sacking and looting Rome and this led to the use of the term vandalism to describe any senseless destruction, particularly the barbarian defacing of artwork. However, modern historians tend to regard the Vandals during the period from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages as perpetuators, not destroyers. The connection would be that Vendel is the homeland of the Vandals prior to the Migration Period. Further possible homelands of the Vandals in Scandinavia are Vendsyssel in Denmark, the etymology of the name may be related to a Germanic verb *wand- to wander. The Germanic mythological figure of Aurvandil shining wanderer, dawn wanderer, evening star, much has forwarded the theory that the tribal name Vandal reflects worship of Aurvandil or the Dioscuri, probably involving an origin myth that the Vandalic kings were descended from Aurvandil. Some medieval authors applied the ethnonym Vandals to Slavs, Veneti, Wends and it was once thought that the Slovenes were the descendants of the Vandals, but this is not the view of modern scholars. The Vandals are believed to have migrated from southern Scandinavia to the area between the lower Oder and Vistula somewhere in the 2nd century BC, and to have settled in Silesia from around 120 BC. The earliest mention of the Vandals is from Pliny the Elder, tribes within this category who he mentions are the Burgundiones, Varini, Carini, and the Gutones. Most archaeologists and historians identify the Vandals with the Przeworsk culture, the bearers of the Przeworsk culture mainly practiced cremation, with occasional inhumation. The Lugii have been identified by historians as the same people as the Vandals. The Lugii are mentioned by Strabo, Tacitus and Ptolemy as a group of tribes living between the Vistula and the Oder. Neither Strabo, Tacitus or Ptolemy mentions the Vandals, while Pliny the Elder mentions the Vandals, according to John Anderson, the Lugii and Vandili are designations of the same tribal group, the latter an extended ethnic name, the former probably a cult-title. By the end of the 2nd century, the Vandals were divided in two main groups, the Silingi and the Hasdingi, with the Silingi being associated with Silesia
37.
Visigoths
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The Visigoths were the western branches of the nomadic tribes of Germanic peoples referred to collectively as the Goths. These tribes flourished and spread throughout the late Roman Empire in Late Antiquity, the Visigoths emerged from earlier Gothic groups who had invaded the Roman Empire beginning in 376 and had defeated the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. Relations between the Romans and the Visigoths were variable, alternately warring with one another and making treaties when convenient, the Visigoths invaded Italy under Alaric I and sacked Rome in 410. The Visigoths first settled in southern Gaul as foederati of the Romans – a relationship established in 418, however, they soon fell out with their Roman hosts and established their own kingdom with its capital at Toulouse. They next extended their authority into Hispania at the expense of the Suebi, in 507, however, their rule in Gaul was ended by the Franks under Clovis I, who defeated them in the Battle of Vouillé. After that, the Visigoth kingdom was limited to Hispania, in or around 589, the Visigoths under Reccared I converted from Arianism to Nicene Christianity, gradually adopting the culture of their Hispano-Roman subjects. Their legal code, the Visigothic Code abolished the practice of applying different laws for Romans. Once legal distinctions were no longer being made between Romani and Gothi, they became known collectively as Hispani, in the century that followed, the region was dominated by the Councils of Toledo and the episcopacy. In 711 or 712, a force of invading African Moors defeated the Visigoths in the Battle of Guadalete and their king and many members of their governing elite were killed, and their kingdom rapidly collapsed. During their governance of the Kingdom of Hispania, the Visigoths built several churches that survive and they also left many artifacts, which have been discovered in increasing numbers by archaeologists in recent times. The Treasure of Guarrazar of votive crowns and crosses is the most spectacular and they founded the only new cities in western Europe from the fall of the Western half of the Roman Empire until the rise of the Carolingian dynasty. Many Visigothic names are still in use in modern Spanish and Portuguese, contemporaneous references to the Gothic tribes use the terms Vesi, Ostrogothi, Thervingi, and Greuthungi. Most scholars have concluded that the terms Vesi and Tervingi were both used to refer to one particular tribe, while the terms Ostrogothi and Greuthungi were used to refer to another. In addition, the Notitia Dignitatum equates the Vesi with the Tervingi in a reference to the years 388–391, the earliest sources for each of the four names are roughly contemporaneous. The first recorded reference to the Tervingi is in a eulogy of the emperor Maximian, delivered in or shortly after 291 and it says that the Tervingi, another division of the Goths, joined with the Taifali to attack the Vandals and Gepidae. The first known use of the term Ostrogoths is in a document dated September 392 from Milan and this would explain why the latter terms dropped out of use shortly after 400, when the Goths were displaced by the Hunnic invasions. Wolfram believes that the people Zosimus describes were those Tervingi who had remained behind after the Hunnic conquest, for the most part, all of the terms discriminating between different Gothic tribes gradually disappeared after they moved into the Roman Empire. The last indication that the Goths whose king reigned at Toulouse thought of themselves as Vesi is found in a panegyric on Avitus by Sidonius Apollinaris dated 1 January 456, most recent scholars have concluded that Visigothic group identity emerged only within the Roman Empire
38.
Toulouse
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Toulouse is the capital city of the southwestern French department of Haute-Garonne, as well as of the Occitanie region. The city lies on the banks of the River Garonne,150 kilometres from the Mediterranean Sea,230 km from the Atlantic Ocean and it is the fourth-largest city in France with 466,297 inhabitants in January 2014. The Toulouse Metro area is, with 1312304 inhabitants as of 2014, Frances 4th metropolitan area after Paris, Lyon and Marseille and ahead of Lille and Bordeaux. Toulouse is the centre of the European aerospace industry, with the headquarters of Airbus, the Galileo positioning system, the SPOT satellite system, the Airbus Group, ATR and the Aerospace Valley. The city also hosts the European headquarters of Intel and CNESs Toulouse Space Centre, thales Alenia Space, and Astrium Satellites, Airbus Groups satellite system subsidiary, also have a significant presence in Toulouse. The University of Toulouse is one of the oldest in Europe and, with more than 103,000 students, is the fourth-largest university campus in France, after the Universities of Paris, Lyon and Lille. The air route between Toulouse Blagnac and Paris Orly is the busiest in Europe, transporting 2.4 million passengers in 2014, according to the rankings of LExpress and Challenges, Toulouse is the most dynamic French city. It is now the capital of the Occitanie region, the largest region in metropolitan France, sernin, the largest remaining Romanesque building in Europe, designated in 1998 because of its significance to the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route. Toulouse is in the south of France, north of the department of Haute-Garonne, the city is traversed by the Canal de Brienne, the Canal du Midi and the rivers Garonne, Touch and Hers-Mort. Toulouse has a subtropical climate which can be qualified as submediterranean due to its proximity to the Mediterranean climate zone. The Garonne Valley was a point for trade between the Pyrenees, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic since at least the Iron Age. The historical name of the city, Tolosa, it is of unknown meaning or origin, possibly from Aquitanian, or from Iberian, Tolosa enters the historical period in the 2nd century BC, when it became a Roman military outpost. After the conquest of Gaul, it was developed as a Roman city of Gallia Narbonensis. In the 5th century, Tolosa fell to the Visigothic kingdom and became one of its cities, in the early 6th century even serving as its capital. From this time, Toulouse was the capital of Aquitaine within the Frankish realm, in 721, Duke Odo of Aquitaine defeated an invading Umayyad Muslim army at the Battle of Toulouse. Odos victory was an obstacle to Muslim expansion into Christian Europe. Charles Martel, a later, won the Battle of Tours. The Frankish conquest of Septimania followed in the 750s, and a quasi-independent County of Toulouse emerged within the Carolingian sub-kingdom of Aquitaine by the late 8th century
39.
Francia
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The kingdom was founded by Clovis I, crowned first King of the Franks in 496. The tradition of dividing patrimonies among brothers meant that the Frankish realm was ruled, nominally, even so, sometimes the term was used as well to encompass Neustria north of the Loire and west of the Seine. Most Frankish Kings were buried in the Basilica of Saint Denis, modern France is still named Francia in Spanish and Italian. The Franks emerged in the 3rd century as a confederation of smaller Germanic tribes, such as the Sicambri, Bructeri, Ampsivarii, Chamavi and Chattuarii, in the area north and east of the Rhine. Some of these peoples, such as the Sicambri and Salians, already had lands in the Roman Empire, in 357 the Salian king entered the Roman Empire and made a permanent foothold there by a treaty granted by Julian the Apostate, who forced back the Chamavi to Hamaland. As Frankish territory expanded, the meaning of Francia expanded with it, after the fall of Arbogastes, his son Arigius succeeded in establishing a hereditary countship at Trier and after the fall of the usurper Constantine III some Franks supported the usurper Jovinus. Jovinus was dead by 413, but the Romans found it difficult to manage the Franks within their borders. The Frankish king Theudemer was executed by the sword, in c, around 428 the Salian king Chlodio, whose kingdom included Toxandria and the civitatus Tungrorum, launched an attack on Roman territory and extended his realm as far as Camaracum and the Somme. The kingdom of Chlodio changed the borders and the meaning of the word Francia permanently, Francia was no longer barbaricum trans Rhenum, but a landed political power on both sides of the river, deeply involved in Roman politics. Chlodios family, the Merovingians, extended Francia even further south, the core territory of the Frankish kingdom later came to be known as Austrasia. Chlodios successors are obscure figures, but what can be certain is that Childeric I, possibly his grandson, Clovis converted to Christianity and put himself on good terms with the powerful Church and with his Gallo-Roman subjects. In a thirty-year reign Clovis defeated the Roman general Syagrius and conquered the Roman exclave of Soissons, defeated the Alemanni, Clovis defeated the Visigoths and conquered their entire kingdom with its capital at Toulouse, and conquered the Bretons and made them vassals of Francia. He conquered most or all of the neighbouring Frankish tribes along the Rhine, by the end of his life, Clovis ruled all of Gaul save the Gothic province of Septimania and the Burgundian kingdom in the southeast. The Merovingians were a hereditary monarchy, the Frankish kings adhered to the practice of partible inheritance, dividing their lands among their sons. Cloviss sons made their capitals near the Frankish heartland in northeastern Gaul, Theuderic I made his capital at Reims, Chlodomer at Orléans, Childebert I at Paris, and Chlothar I at Soissons. During their reigns, the Thuringii, Burgundes, and Saxons and Frisians were incorporated into the Frankish kingdom, the fraternal kings showed only intermittent signs of friendship and were often in rivalry. Theuderic died in 534, but his adult son Theudebert I was capable of defending his inheritance, which formed the largest of the Frankish subkingdoms and the kernel of the later kingdom of Austrasia. Theudebert interfered in the Gothic War on the side of the Gepids and Lombards against the Ostrogoths, receiving the provinces of Rhaetia, Noricum, and part of Venetia
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Septimania
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Septimania was the western region of the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis that passed under the control of the Visigoths in 462, when Septimania was ceded to their king, Theodoric II. Under the Visigoths it was known as simply Gallia or Narbonensis and it corresponded roughly with the modern French region of Languedoc-Roussillon. It passed briefly to the Emirate of Córdoba in the century before its conquest by the Franks. The region was under the influence of the people from Toulouse, Provence, from the end of the thirteenth century it was known as Languedoc and its history is tied up with that of France. Another possible derivation of the name is in reference to the seven cities of the territory, Béziers, Elne, Agde, Narbonne, Lodève, Maguelonne, under Theodoric II, the Visigoths settled in Aquitaine as foederati of the Western Roman Empire. Sidonius Apollinaris refers to Septimania as theirs during the reign of Avitus, the Visigoths were then holding the Toulousain against the legal claims of the Empire, though they had more than once offered to exchange it for the Auvergne. In 462 the Empire, controlled by Ricimer in the name of Libius Severus, the Visigoths occupied Provence as well and only in 475 did the Visigothic king, Euric, cede it to the Empire by a treaty whereby the emperor Julius Nepos recognised the Visigoths full independence. The Visigoths, perhaps because they were Arians, met with the opposition of the Catholic Franks in Gaul, clovis defeated the Goths in the Battle of Vouillé and the child-king Amalaric was carried for safety into Iberia while Gesalec was elected to replace him and rule from Narbonne. Clovis, his son Theuderic I, and his Burgundian allies proceeded to conquer most of Visigothic Gaul, including the Rouergue, border warfare between Gallo-Roman magnates, including bishops, had existed with the Visigoths during the last phase of the Empire and it continued under the Franks. The Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great reconquered Narbonne from the Burgundians, Theudis was appointed regent at Narbonne by Theodoric while Amalaric was still a minor in Iberia. When Theodoric died in 526, Amalaric was elected king in his own right and he ceded Provence, which had at some point passed back into Visigothic control, to the Ostrogothic king Athalaric. The Franks did not try to hold the province, however, under Amalarics successor, however, the centre of gravity of the kingdom crossed the Pyrenees and Theudis made his capital in Barcelona. Originally, the Goths may have maintained their hold on the Albigeois, there is archaeological evidence that some enclaves of Visigothic population remained in Frankish Gaul, near the Septimanian border, after 507. The kings after Alaric II favoured Narbonne as a capital, under Theodoric Septimania had been safe from Frankish assault, but was raided by Childebert I twice. When Liuva I succeeded the throne in 568, Septimania was a frontier province. Liuva granted Iberia to his son Leovigild and took Septimania to himself, the Frankish attack of 585 was repulsed by Hermenegilds brother Reccared, who was ruling Narbonensis as a sub-king. Hermenegild died at Tarragona that year and it is possible that he had escaped confinement in Valencia and was seeking to join up with his Frankish allies, alternatively, the invasion may have occurred in response to Hermenegilds death. Reccared meanwhile took Beaucaire on the Rhône near Tarascon and Cabaret, guntram ignored two pleas for a peace in 586 and Reccared undertook the only Visigothic invasion of Francia in response
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Duchy of Gascony
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The Duchy of Gascony or Duchy of Vasconia, was a duchy in present southwestern France and northeastern Spain, part corresponding to the modern region of Gascony after 824. The Duchy of Gascony, then known as Wasconia, was originally a Frankish march formed to sway over the Basques. In the Hundred Years War, Charles V of France conquered most of Gascony by 1380, the corresponding portion within Spain became part of the Basque Kingdom of Navarre. Gascony was the territory of Roman Gallia Aquitania. This province, by the 2nd century, was extended to much of western Roman Gaul. Thus, the name of the Aquitani came to be transferred to the territory of central-western France later known as the Duchy of Aquitaine, in 293, Diocletian re-created the original province of Caesars Aquitania under the name of Novempopulania or Aquitania Tertia. Around 580, both the Visigothic kingdom and the kingdom of the Franks launched major campaigns against the Basques, in 587 Basques are cited as raiding the plains of Aquitaine, maybe to the west of Toulouse. Chilperic I sent his duke Bladastes stationed in Toulouse, but was defeated and this military push from a stronger centralized authority in Toledo placed more pressure on the Basques to get off the Ebro rich farmland than those already stretching all the way to the Garonne. In this period, the count of Bordeaux Galactorius is cited as fighting the Basques, who are portrayed as hiding out in the mountains, in 602, the Merovingians created a frontier duchy to their southwest during the tripartite wars between Franks, Visigoths, and Basques. A certain Genial was then appointed dux wasconum as a way of handling their relations with the Basques. At the same time, the Visigoths created the Duchy of Cantabria as a buffer against the Basques inhabiting west of current Navarre, about this period duke Francio is reported to vow allegiance to the Franks in Cantabria, an area inhabited by the Basques, but c. 612, the Gothic king Sisebut seems to have conquered the territory, in the years 610 and 612 respectively, the Gothic kings Gundemar and Sisebut launched attacks against the Basques. After a Basque attack in the Ebro valley in the year 621, Swinthila defeated them, however, the Basques relish was short-lived since they were brought to heel by Dagobert. By 626, it is certain that the extended up to the Pyrenees. In 643, there was another rebellion to the north of the Pyrenees and in 642 and 654 they battled against the Visigoths to the south, in Saragossa. From 589 to 684, the Bishop of Pamplona was absent from the Visigothic Councils of Toledo, under Felix and his successors, Frankish overlordship over these lands became merely nominal, and Vasconia became a prominent regional power. Independent dukes Lupus, Odo, Hunald and Waifer succeeded him respectively and their ethnicity is not certain, since records and their names are not conclusive. But the Umayyad invasion of 711 effected a shift in trends
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History of the Basques
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The Basques are an indigenous ethno-linguistic group mainly inhabiting Basque Country. In the 1st century, Strabo wrote that the parts of what are now Navarre. Three different peoples inhabited the territory of the present Basque Autonomous Community, historical sources do not state whether these tribes were related to the Vascones and/or the Aquitani. During the Middle Ages, the name Vascones and its derivates were extended to cover the entire Basque-speaking population of the present-day Basque Country, bordering areas and farther east and north. Many Basque archaeological sites, including cave dwellings such as Santimamiñe, provide evidence for continuity from Aurignacian times down to the Iron Age, the possibility therefore cannot be ruled out of at least some of the same people having continued to inhabit the area for thirty millennia. Some scholars have interpreted the Basque words aizto knife and aizkora axe as containing aitz stone, however, stone was abandoned in the Chalcolithic, and aizkora is sometimes considered to be loaned from Latin asciola, cf. Spanish azuela, Catalan aixol. A high concentration of Rh- among Basques, who have the highest level worldwide, had already been interpreted as suggestive of the antiquity, X chromosome microsatellites also seem to point to Basques being the most direct descendants from prehistoric Western Europeans. Having the highest percent of Western European genes but found also at high levels among neighbor populations, however, Mitochondrial DNA have cast doubts over this theory. The only archaeological evidence that could support this hypothesis would be that for the Ebro valley area. Basques arrived together with the Indo-Europeans, Linked to an unproven hypothesis that includes Basque. Even if such a Basque-Caucasian connection did exist, it would have to be at too great a depth to be relevant to Indo-European migrations. Apart from a Celtic presence in the Ebro valley during the Urnfield culture, the Basque language shows few certain Celtic or other Indo-European loans, other than those transmitted via Latin or Romance in historic times. Basques as an Iberian subgroup, Based on occasional use by early Basques of the Iberian alphabet, mattias Jakobsson from Uppsala University in Sweden analysed genetic material from eight Stone Age human skeletons found in El Portalón Cavern in Atapuerca, northern Spain. These individuals lived between 3,500 and 5,500 years ago, after the transition to farming in southwest Europe, the results show that these early Iberian farmers are the closest ancestors to present-day Basques. The official findings were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States America, the settlers brought the Aurignacian culture with them. At this stage, the Basque Country formed part of the archaeological Franco-Cantabrian province which extended all the way from Asturias to Provence, throughout this region, which underwent similar cultural developments with some local variation, Aurignacian culture was successively replaced by Gravettian, Solutrean, and Magdalenian cultures. Except for the Aurignacian, these all seem to have originated in the Franco-Cantabrian region, within the present-day Basque Country, settlement was limited almost exclusively to the Atlantic area, probably for climatic reasons. Hunters turned from large animals to smaller prey, and fishing, the southern part of the Basque Country was first settled in this period
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Early Middle Ages
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The Early Middle Ages marked the start of the Middle Ages of European history, lasting from the 6th to the 10th century CE. The Early Middle Ages followed the decline of the Western Roman Empire, the Early Middle Ages largely overlap with Late Antiquity. The term Late Antiquity is used to emphasize elements of continuity with the Roman Empire, the period saw a continuation of trends begun during late classical antiquity, including population decline, especially in urban centres, a decline of trade, and increased immigration. The period has been labelled the Dark Ages, a characterization highlighting the relative scarcity of literary and cultural output from this time, especially in Northwestern Europe. However, the Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantine Empire, continued to survive, many of these trends were reversed later in the period. In 800 the title of emperor was revived in Western Europe by Charlemagne, whose Carolingian Empire greatly affected later European social structure, Europe experienced a return to systematic agriculture in the form of the feudal system, which introduced such innovations as three-field planting and the heavy plow. Barbarian migration stabilized in much of Europe, although Northern Europe was greatly affected by the Viking expansion, starting in the 2nd century, various indicators of Roman civilization began to decline, including urbanization, seaborne commerce, and population. Archaeologists have identified only 40 percent as many Mediterranean shipwrecks from the 3rd century as from the first, estimates of the population of the Roman Empire during the period from 150 to 400 suggest a fall from 65 million to 50 million, a decline of more than 20 percent. Some scholars have connected this de-population to the Dark Ages Cold Period, Early in the 3rd century Germanic peoples migrated south from Scandinavia and reached the Black Sea, creating formidable confederations which opposed the local Sarmatians. In Dacia and on the north of the Black Sea the Goths. The arrival of the Huns in 372–375 ended the history of these kingdoms, the Huns, a confederation of central Asian tribes, founded an empire with a Turkic-speaking aristocracy. They had mastered the art of shooting composite recurve bows from horseback. The Goths sought refuge in Roman territory, agreeing to enter the Empire as unarmed settlers, however many bribed the Danube border-guards into allowing them to bring their weapons. The discipline and organization of a Roman legion made it a fighting unit. The Romans preferred infantry to cavalry because infantry could be trained to retain the formation in combat, while cavalry tended to scatter when faced with opposition. While a barbarian army could be raised and inspired by the promise of plunder, the legions required a government and taxation to pay for salaries, constant training, equipment. The decline in agricultural and economic activity reduced the empires taxable income, in the Gothic War, the Goths revolted and confronted the main Roman army in the Battle of Adrianople. The general decline in discipline also led to the use of smaller shields, not wanting to share the glory, Eastern Emperor Valens ordered an attack on the Therving infantry under Fritigern without waiting for Western Emperor Gratian, who was on the way with reinforcements
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Gregory of Tours
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Saint Gregory of Tours was a Gallo-Roman historian and Bishop of Tours, which made him a leading prelate of Gaul. He was born Georgius Florentius and later added the name Gregorius in honour of his maternal great-grandfather and he is the primary contemporary source for Merovingian history. St. Martins tomb was a pilgrimage destination in the 6th century. Gregory was born in Clermont, in the Auvergne region of central Gaul, Gregory had several noted bishops and saints as close relatives, and, according to Gregory, he was connected to thirteen of the eighteen bishops of Tours preceding him by ties of kinship. Gregorys paternal grandmother, Leocadia, descended from Vettius Epagatus, the martyr of Lyons. His father evidently died while Gregory was young and his mother moved to Burgundy where she had property. Gregory went to live with his paternal uncle St. Gallus, Bishop of Clermont), under whom, Gregory also received the clerical tonsure from Gallus. Having contracted an illness, he made a visit of devotion to the tomb of St. Martin at Tours. Upon his recovery, he began to pursue a career and was ordained deacon by Avitus. Upon the death of St. Euphronius, he was chosen as Bishop by the clergy and people, who had been charmed with his piety, learning and he spent most of his career at Tours, although he assisted at the council of Paris in 577. The rough world he lived in was on the cusp of the world of Antiquity. Gregory lived also on the border between the Frankish culture of the Merovingians to the north and the Gallo-Roman culture of the south of Gaul, at Tours, Gregory could not have been better placed to hear everything and meet everyone of influence in Merovingian culture. Tours lay on the highway of the navigable Loire. Five Roman roads radiated from Tours, which lay on the thoroughfare between the Frankish north and Aquitania, with Spain beyond. At Tours the Frankish influences of the north and the Gallo-Roman influences of the south had their chief contact, Gregory struggled through personal relations with four Frankish kings, Sigebert I, Chilperic I, Guntram, and Childebert II and he personally knew most of the leading Franks. Gregory wrote in Late Latin which departed from classical usage frequently in syntax, the Historia Francorum is in ten books. At this date Gregory had been bishop of Tours for two years, the second part, books V and VI, closes with Chilperic Is death in 584. During the years that Chilperic held Tours, relations between him and Gregory were tense, after hearing rumours that the Bishop of Tours had slandered his wife, Fredegund, Chilperic had Gregory arrested and tried for treason—a charge which threatened both Gregorys bishopric and his life
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Royal Frankish Annals
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The Royal Frankish Annals are Latin annals composed in Carolingian Francia, recording year-by-year the state of the monarchy from 741 to 829. The Annals are believed to have composed in successive sections by different authors. Copies of the annals can be categorized into five classes, based on additions and revisions to the text, of the three kings—Pepin, Charlemagne, and Louis—Charlemagne’s military chronicles are the most detailed, covering his victories against the Saxons, Bretons, and other peoples. Its destruction is a point in the annals, written to continue a jingoistic theme of Frankish triumphs against the “un-Frankish”. The unrevised text neglects to mention defeats suffered by Charlemagne, such as the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778, the Battle of Süntel is portrayed in the annals as a victory, as opposed to a crushing Frankish defeat at the hands of the Saxons. The 792 conspiracy of Pepin the Hunchback against Charlemagne is also omitted, the revised text, however, incorporates these events while maintaining a positive tone towards the emperor, presented as a peerless leader in battle. Charlemagne’s son, Louis the Pious, is shown engaging in battle by the annalists. The contrast between Louis and his father and grandfather is clear, such references to striking natural phenomena, strange happenings, and miracles become increasingly common in the annal entries for the 9th century. In addition to astronomical oddities, such as eclipses, the supernatural begins to enter the account, set against almost ritualistic yearly notices of the passages of Christmas. Nearly two-dozen villages are reported to have destroyed by heavenly fire in 823. Scholz regards this preoccupation as a reflection of a belief in a divine will, many of the worse omens also parallel growing dissatisfaction with Louis the Pious, which immediately after the end of the annals spilled into civil war between him and his sons. A more detailed account of Einhard’s procurement of the relics exists in his Translation and Miracles of Marcellinus, additionally, the annals provide the only attestation to the existence of Charlemagne’s personal elephant Abul-Abbas, aside from a mention by Einhard drawn from the annals. The annals survive in versions, widely distributed across the Frankish empire. Each version is marked with distinguishing features, and based on these features and this system still remains in use. The five classes of texts are lettered A through D, with an additional E class for the revised text. They are as follow, Class A texts end at the year 788, and are reflected in one of the earliest modern printings of the annals, that of Heinrich Canisius’s Francicorum Annalium fragmentum. Canisius also includes the years up to 793 in his printing, however, Class B texts go to, at the latest,813. Kurze notes that one of these was used by Regino of Prüm in his Chronicon, Class C texts are complete through 829
