(Lat. vicecomitissa, OFr. viscontesse) was sometimes empioyed by the wives, widows,
and heiresses of hereditary viscounts, but it seems to have been rare before 1150.
The collapse of the traditional administration in most counties between ca. 980 and
1050 deprived the viscount of most of his original duties, but the dignity and title were at
first retained by the heirs of most of the viscounts, and in the 11th century they were
gradually attached to the principal dominion or dominions that each vicecomital lineage
(or in some counties each branch of that lineage) succeeded in creating. Thus, for
example, the viscount of (the county of) Poitou at Thouars became the viscount of
Thouars, and his barony came to be known as the “viscounty” (Lat. vicecomitarus, OFr.
visconté) of Thouars. In northern France, the new viscounties were generally minor,
castellanial baronies, so small that when the last remaining functions of the vicecomital
office disappeared in the 12th century their lords often abandoned the title “viscount.” In
the lands south of the Loire, by contrast, and especially in Gascony and Gothia, many of
the new viscounties were relatively large principalities, representing either entire counties
whose government had been taken over by the viscount (like Narbonne), or major
partitions of such counties (like Turenne). The vicecomital dignity was thus more
honorable as well as more common in the south (where the corresponding titles were
written vescomte, vescomtesa, and vescomtat).
In 1200, about ninety viscounties were left in the kingdom, and a similar number of
viscounts, and between that date and 1500 the number of both viscounties and viscounts
seems to have declined slowly as a result of consolidation and annexation to the royal
domain.
D’A.Jonathan D.Boulton
[See also: COUNT/COUNTY; NOBILITY]
Boulton, D’A.J.D. Grants of Honour: The Origins of the System of Nobiliary Dignities of
Traditional France. Forthcoming.
Sickel, Wilhelm. Die fränkische Vicecomitat. N.p. [Strasbourg?], 1907.
VISIGOTHS
. A group of Germanic peoples, composed primarily of Goths and known as the Visigoths
(“Noble Goths”), entered Gaul after their sack of Rome in 410 and settled in Aquitaine.
With the decline of the Roman Empire in the second half of the 5th century, the Visigoths
expanded their control over all Gaul south of the Loire and across the Pyrénées over most
of Spain. The rise of the Franks challenged Visigothic power, however, and the victory of
Clovis I in 507 was followed by the Frankish conquest of most of the Visigothic
territories in Gaul, establishing the dominance of Gaul by the Merovingians and
Carolingians. In Gaul, the Visigoths retained Septimania, which preserved a distinct
Gothic character even after its incorporation into the kingdom of the Franks by the
Carolingians, when it became known as Gothia. Thus, a Visigothic legacy was preserved
in Gaul into the 10th and 11th centuries.
After their initial entry into Gaul in 412, the Visigoths were defeated by the Roman
general Constantius, who settled them in the province of Aquitania Secunda, between the
The Encyclopedia 1823