AQUITAINE, the name of an ancient province in France, the extent of which has varied considerably from time to time. About the time of Julius Caesar the name Aquitania was given to that part of Gaul lying between the Pyrenees and the Garonne, and its inhabitants were a race, or races, distinct from the Celts. In keeping with the Roman policy of denationalization, the term Aquitania was extended, and under Augustus it included the whole of Gaul south and west of the Loire and the Allier, and thus ceased to possess ethnographical importance. In the 3rd century A.D. this larger Aquitania was divided into three parts : Aquitania Prima, the eastern part of the district between the Loire and the Garonne ; Aquitania Secunda, the western part of the same district ; and Aquitania Tertia, or Novempopulana, the region between the Garonne and the Pyrenees, or the original Aquitania. The seats of government were respectively Bourges, Bordeaux, and Eauze ; the province contained 26 cities, and was in the diocese of Vienne. Like the rest of Gaul, Aquitania ab sorbed a large measure of Roman civilization, and this continued to distinguish the district down to a late period. In the 5th century the Visigoths established themselves in Aquitania Se cunda, and also in parts of Aquitania Prima and Novempopulana, but after the defeat of their king, Alaric II., by the Franks under Clovis in 507, Aquitaine passed under the nominal rule of the Merovingian kings and was frequently partitioned among them.
The first line of dukes began about 66o with one Felix, who, like his successor, Lupus, probably owed allegiance to the Frankish kings, and whose seat of government was Toulouse. About the end of the 7th century an adventurer named Odo, or Eudes, made himself master of this region. Attacked by the Saracens, he inflicted on them a crushing defeat, but when they reappeared he was obliged to invoke the aid of Charles Martel, who, as the price of his support, claimed and received the homage of his ally. Odo was succeeded by his son Hunald, who, after carrying on a war against the Franks under Pippin the Short, retired to a convent, leaving both the kingdom and the conflict to Waifer, or Guaifer. For some years Waifer strenuously carried on an unequal struggle with the Franks, but he was assassinated in 768, and with him perished the national independence, although not the national individuality, of the Aquitanians. In 781 Charlemagne bestowed Aquitaine upon his son, Louis, and the province is re ferred to during the Carolingian period as a kingdom. When Louis succeeded Charlemagne as emperor in 814, he granted Aquitaine to his son Pippin, on whose death in 838 the Aquitanians chose his son Pippin II. (d. 865) as their king. The emperor Louis I., however, opposed this arrangement and gave the king dom to his youngest son Charles, afterwards the emperor Charles the Bald. Now followed a time of confusion and conflict, which resulted eventually in the success of Charles, although from to 852 Pippin was in possession of the kingdom. In 852 Pippin was imprisoned by Charles the Bald, who soon afterwards gave to the Aquitanians his own son Charles as their king. On the death of the younger Charles in 866, his brother Louis the Stammerer succeeded to the kingdom, and when, in 877, Louis became king of the Franks, Aquitaine was united to the Frankish crown.
A new period now begins in the history of Aquitaine. By a treaty made in 845 between Charles the Bald and Pippin II. the province had been diminished by the loss of Poitou, Saintonge and Angoumois, which had been given to Rainulf I., count of Poitiers. Somewhat earlier than this date the title of duke of the Aquitanians had been revived, and this was now borne by Rainulf, although it was also claimed by the counts of Toulouse. The new duchy of Aquitaine, comprising the three districts already mentioned, remained in the hands of Rainulf's successors until 893, when Count Rainulf II. was poisoned by order of King Charles III. Charles then bestowed the duchy upon William the Pious, count of Auvergne, the founder of the abbey of Cluny, who was succeeded in 918 by his nephew, Count William II., who died in 926. A succession of dukes followed, one of whom, Wil liam IV., fought against Hugh Capet, king of France, and an other of whom, William V., called the Great, was able consider ably to strengthen and extend his authority. William's duchy almost reached the limits of the Roman Aquitania Prima and Se cunda, but did not stretch south of the Garonne, a district which was in the possession of the Gascons. William died in 1030, and the names of William VI. (d. 1038), Odo or Eudes (d. 1039), who joined Gascony to his duchy, William VII. and William VIII. bring us down to William IX. (d. 1127), who succeeded in 1087, and became famous as a crusader and a troubadour. William X. (d. 113 7) married his daughter Eleanor to Louis VII., king of France, and Aquitaine went as her dowry. When Eleanor was divorced from Louis and was married, in 1152, to Henry II. of England, the duchy passed to her new husband, who, having suppressed a revolt there, gave it to his son Richard. When Rich ard died, in 1199, it reverted to Eleanor, and on her death five years later, was united to the English crown and henceforward followed the fortunes of the English possessions in France. Aqui taine, as it came to the English kings, stretched, as of old, from the Loire to the Pyrenees, but its extent was curtailed on the south-east by the wide lands of the counts of Toulouse. The name Guienne, a corruption of Aquitaine, seems to have come into use about the loth century, and the subsequent history of Aquitaine is merged in that of Gascony (q.v.) and Guienne (q.v.).
See E. Mabille, Le Royaume d'Aquitaine et ses marches sous les Carlovingiens (1870); A. Longnon, Geographie de la Gaule au V1e. siecle (1876) ; E. Desjardins, Geographie historique et administrative de la Gaule romaine (1876, 1893) ; A. Luchaire, Les Origines linguis tiques de l'Aquitaine (1877) ; A. Perroud, Les Origines du premier duche d' Aquitaine 0880.