BERRY or BERRI, a former province of France, absorbed in 1790 in the departments of Cher, corresponding roughly with Haut-Berry, and Indre, representing Bas-Berry. Berry is the civitas or pagus Bituricensis of Gregory of Tours. It had been amalgamated with Aquitaine under Augustus with Bourges, as the capital of Aquitania Prima. In 475 Berry came into posses sion of the west Goths, from whom it was taken (c. 5o7) by Clovis. The first count of Berry, Chunibert (d. 763), was created by Waifer, duke of Aquitaine, from whom the county was wrested by Pippin the Short, who made it his residence and left it to his son Carloman, on whose death it fell to his brother Charlemagne. The chief authority within the province eventually passed to the viscounts of Bourges, who, while owning the royal suzerainty, preserved a certain independence until II °I, when the viscount Odo Arpin de Dun sold his fief to the Crown. Berry was part of the dowry of Eleanor, wife of Louis VII., and on her divorce and remarriage with Henry II. of England it passed to the English king. Its possession remained, however, a matter of dispute until 1200, when Berry reverted by treaty with John of England to Philip Augustus, and the various fiefs of Berry were given as a dowry to John's niece, Blanche of Castile, on her marriage with Philip's son Louis (afterwards Louis VIII.) . Philip Augustus established an effective control over the administration of the province by the appointment of a royal bailli. In 136o Berry was created into a duchy for John, son of John II. of France. Thence forward it was held as an appanage of the French crown, usually by a member of the royal family closely related to the king. In I 6o I it was finally reabsorbed in the royal domain.