Limouzin-Lamothe, Roger. Le diocèse de Limoges des origines a la fin du moyen âge. Strasbourg:
Le Roux, 1951.
Verynaud, Georges. Histoire de Limoges. Limoges: Centre Régional de Recherche et de
Documentation Pédagagogiques, 1973.
LIMOUSIN
. The Limousin, a large, thinly populated county in northern Aquitaine, was of minor
importance in the history of medieval France. Bounded by the counties of Berry and La
Marche in the north, Poitou and the Angoumois in the west, Auvergne in the east, and
Périgord and Quercy in the south, it corresponded approximately to the modern
departments of Haute-Vienne, Corrèze, and Creuse. A hilly region of generally poor
soils, the Limousin could sustain only a scattered population; its capital, Limoges, was its
only town of any size. Inadequate roads and its location left the region relatively isolated
from the main currents of medieval French life, and its principal rulers, the viscounts of
Limoges, never became politically powerful, being subject to the authority first of the
dukes of Aquitaine and then of the kings of France.
The medieval county descended from the tribal territory of the Celtic Lemovices
conquered by Caesar in the 1st century B.C., with Limoges as its capital. Christianization
began in the 3rd century, though in the 11th the monks of Saint-Martial of Limoges
launched a spectacular campaign claiming that their patron saint was the apostle to the
Aquitanians, having been sent there by St. Peter himself. In early times, Limoges became
an episcopal see in the archdiocese of Bourges. After the era of the Germanic invasions,
the Limousin formed part of the first duchy of Aquitaine; then, after the century of
Carolingian rule from the late 8th century to the late 9th, the newly created vis-counts of
Limoges came under the authority of the counts of Poitou/dukes of Aquitaine until the
early 12th century. The Angevins controlled the Limousin in the later 12th century
through the marriage of Eleanor, duchess of Aquitaine, with King Henry II of England. In
the 13th century, the Capetians conquered it and absorbed it into their royal domain. The
Limousin was the site of several famous monastic houses, including Solignac, Beaulieu,
Uzerches, Vigeois, Tulle, Grandmont, and Saint-Martial of Limoges. Grandmont,
founded by Étienne de Muret in the early 12th century, became the mother house of a
new monastic order that spread widely in France and gained the favor of the Angevin
kings in particular. Saint-Martial, a Cluniac dependency after the mid-11th century, is
well known through the survival of a large part of its magnificent manuscript library of
the 10th-12th centuries, the richest of its kind in southwestern France. A number of these
manuscripts are of incomparable value for the study of illumination and liturgical drama.
Troubadour poetry also flourished in the Limousin, which boasted an unusual number of
poets among its native sons, the most famous perhaps being Bernart de Ventadorn. The
renown of Limoges enamels, however, overshadowed all other arts during the 12th and
13th centuries, when the industry reached its greatest heights and made the town the most
important production center in Europe.
George T.Beech
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1042