Duchy of Aquitaine

A large duchy in southwestern France whose rulers held it as a fief of the French crown. English kings inherited Aquitaine through Eleanor of Aquitaine and remained vassals of the French king for the duchy.

Eleanor of Aquitaine: A duchess of Aquitaine who became queen of France and then queen of England. Her marriage to Henry II brought Aquitaine under the control of England’s Angevin rulers.
Feudalism: A system of political and landholding relationships based on reciprocal obligations between lords and vassals. It explains how the English king could rule Aquitaine while owing homage to the French king.
Capetian–Plantagenet rivalry: The prolonged competition between the French Capetian dynasty and England’s Plantagenet rulers. Disputes over Aquitaine intensified the rivalry between the two dynasties.
Duchy of Normandy: A medieval principality in northern France, ruled by dukes who became kings of England after 1066. Like Aquitaine, Normandy linked English kingship to French fiefs, but it was lost earlier to the French crown.
Henry II of England: King of England from 1154 to 1189 and ruler of an extensive collection of lands in France. He inherited Aquitaine through his marriage to Eleanor and held it as a French fief.
Homage (feudal): A ceremony in which a vassal acknowledged a lord and pledged loyalty and service. English kings performed homage to the French crown for their Aquitanian lands.
John of England: King of England from 1199 to 1216, whose continental defeats weakened Plantagenet power. French confiscation of his fiefs, including much of Aquitaine, reshaped the duchy’s territorial extent.
County of Flanders: A medieval principality spanning parts of present-day Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. Flanders shows how another powerful French vassal could pursue interests independent of its nominal overlord.
House of Plantagenet: The royal dynasty that ruled England from the twelfth through the fifteenth centuries. Plantagenet kings ruled Aquitaine while owing feudal allegiance to the French crown.
Fief: Land or rights granted by a lord to a vassal in return for obligations. Aquitaine’s status as a fief exposed its English rulers to French claims of authority.

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