sides. But then the Black Prince assumed command of the English forces in 1355 and
won an astounding victory, capturing the French king at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356.
The Treaty of Brétigny in 1360 restored the earlier English losses and made the Black
Prince, named prince of Aquitaine in 1362, the ruler of an immense principality covering
nearly one-third of France. For a decade, Prince Edward ruled in high style over a
virtually independent state, but his severe tax levies aroused indigenous resistance and
the French once again intervened. Between 1368 and 1374, they regained most of their
losses from the Treaty of Brétigny and reduced the English holdings to mere fragments of
their once extensive duchy. The last phase of the Hundred Years’ War, beginning in
1429, saw the French wear down English defenses, and with their loss of Bordeaux in
1453 the English were definitively expelled from Aquitaine. As was true for most parts of
France, the period of the Hundred Years’ War was a time of misery and hardship in
Aquitaine quite apart from losses suffered in the wars. Plague, periodic famine,
widespread brigandage, and economic decline made the later Middle Ages a dark period
in Aquitanian history.
George T.Beech
[See also: AUVERGNE; BASTIDE; EDWARD, THE BLACK PRINCE; ELEANOR
OF AQUITAINE; GASCONY; GUILHEM IX; HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR; LOUIS I
THE PIOUS; LOUIS VII; LUSIGNAN; RICHARD I THE LION HEARTED; SAINT-
SARDOS]
Auzias, Léonce. L’Aquitaine carolingienne 778–987. Toulouse: Privat, 1937.
Dhondt, Jan. Études sur la naissance des principautés territoriales en France IXe-Xe siècles.
Bruges: De Tempel, 1948.
Histoire de l’Aquitaine. Publiée sous la direction de Charles Higounet. Toulouse: Privat, 1971.
Renouard, Yves. Études d’histoire médiévale. 2 vols. Paris: SEVPEN, 1968.
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 106