Rome, Bologna and other centers of learning; exercised great influence on the theological teachings of the Western church, his doctrines remaining authoritative to this day in the Roman Catholic church; in philosophy a follower of Aristotle; endorsed by various popes as a sound leader in religious doctrine and scholastic philosophy.-See also AVERROISM; ASTRONOMY: 130-1609; CAPITALISM: In antiquity; UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES: 1348-1826. AQUITAINE, or Aquitania: Ancient tribes.The Roman conquest of Aquitania was achieved, 56 B. C., by one of Cæsar's lieutenants, the Younger Crassus, who first brought the people I called the Sotiates to submission and then defeated their combined neighbors in a murderous battle, where three-fourths of them are said to have been slain. The tribes which then submitted "were the Tarbelli, Bigerriones, Preciani, Vocates, Tarusates, Elusates, Garites, Ausci, Garumni, Sibuzates and Cocosates. The Tarbelli were in the lower basin of the Adour. Their chief place was on the site of the hot springs of Dax. The Bigerriones appear, in the name Bigorre. The chief place of the Elusates was Elusa, Eause; and the town of Auch on the river Gers preserves the name of the Ausci. The names Garites, if the name is genuine, and Garumni contain the same element, Gar, as the river Garumna [Garonne] and the Gers. It is stated by Walckenaer that the inhabitants of the southern part of Les Landes are still called Cousiots. Cocosa, Caussèque, is twenty-four miles from Dax on the road from Dax to Bordeaux."-G. Long, Decline of the Roman republic, v. 4, ch. 6. -"Before the arrival of the brachycephalic Ligurian race, the Iberians ranged over the greatest part of France. . . . If, as seems probable, we may identify them with the Aquitani, one of the three races which occupied Gaul in the time of Caesar, they must have retreated to the neighbourhood of the Pyrenees before the beginning of the historic period."-I. Taylor, Origin of the Aryans, ch. 2, sect. 5.-See also GAUL: Cæsar's description. 681-768.-Independent dukes and their subjugation. "The old Roman Aquitania, in the first division of the spoils of the Empire, had fallen to the Visigoths, who conquered it without much trouble. In the struggle between them and the Merovingians, it of course passed to the victorious party. But the quarrels, so fiercely contested between the different members of the Frank monarchy, prevented them from retaining a distant possession within their grasp; and at this period [681-718, when the mayors of the Palace, Pepin and Carl, were gathering the reins of government over the three kingdoms-Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy-into their hands], Eudo, the duke of Aquitaine, was really an independent prince. The population had never lost its Roman character; it was, in fact, by far the most Romanized in the whole of Gaul. But it had also received a new element in the Vascones or Gascons a tribe of Pyrenean mountaineers, who descending from their mountains, advanced towards the north until their progress was checked by the broad waters of the Garonne. At this time, however, they obeyed Eudo." This duke of Aquitaine, Eudo, allied himself with the Neustrians against the ambitious Austrasian Mayor, Carl Martel, and shared with them the crushing defeat at Soissons, 718, which established the Hammerer's power. Eudo acknowledged allegiance and was allowed to retain his dukedom. But, half-a-century afterwards, Carl's son, Pepin, who had pushed the "fainéant" Merovingians from the Frank throne and seated himself upon it, fought a nine years' war with the then duke of Aquitaine, to establish his sovereignty. "The war, which lasted nine years [760-768], was signalized by frightful ravages and destruction of life upon both sides, until, at last, the Franks became masters of Berri, Auvergne, and the Limousin, with their principal cities. The able and gallant Guaifer [or Waifer] was assassinated by his own subjects, and Pepin had the satisfaction of finally uniting the grand-duchy of Aquitaine to the monarchy of the Franks."-J. G. Sheppard, Fall of Rome, lect. 8.-See also GERMANY: 687-800. ALSO IN: P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, ch. 14-15.-W. H. Perry, Franks, ch. 5-6. 732.-Ravaged by the Moslems. See CALI PHATE: 715-732. 781.-Erected into a separate kingdom by Charlemagne.-In the year 781 Charlemagne erected Italy and Aquitaine into separate kingdoms, placing his two infant sons, Pepin and Lud wig or Louis on their respective thrones. "The kingdom of Aquitaine embraced Vasconia [Gascony], Septimania, Aquitaine proper (that is, the country between the Garonne and the Loire) and the county, subsequently the duchy, of Toulouse. Nominally a kingdom, Aquitaine was in reality a province, entirely dependent on the central or personal government of Charles. . . . The nominal designations of king and kingdom might gratify the feelings of the Aquitanians, but it was a scheme contrived for holding them in a state of absolute dependence and subordination."—J. I. Mombert, History of Charles the Great, bk. 2, ck. II. 884-1151.-End of the nominal kingdom.Disputed ducal title.-"Carloman [who died 884], son of Louis the Stammerer, was the last of the Carlovingians who bore the title of king of Aquitaine. This vast state ceased from this time to constitute a kingdom. It had for a lengthened period been divided between powerful families, the most illustrious of which are those of the Counts of Toulouse, founded in the ninth century by Fredelon, the Counts of Poitiers, the Counts of Auvergne, the Marquises of Septimania or Gothia, and the Dukes of Gascony. King Eudes had given William the Pius, Count of Auvergne, the investiture of the duchy of Aquitaine. On the extinction of that family in 928, the Counts of Toulouse and those of Poitou disputed the prerogatives and their quarrel stained the south with blood for a long time. At length the Counts of Poitou acquired the title of Dukes of Aquitaine or Guyenne [or Guienne,-supposed to be a corruption of the name, of Aquitaine, which came into use during the Middle Ages], which remained in their house up to the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine with Henry Plantagenet I. [Henry II), King of England (1151)."-E. De Bonnechose, History of France, bk. 2, ch. 3, foot-note.-"The duchy Aquitaine, or Guyenne, as held by Eleanor's predecessors, consisted, roughly speaking, of the territory between the Loire and the Garonne. More exactly, it was bounded on the north by Anjou and Touraine, on the east by Berry and Auvergne. on the south-east by the Quercy or County of Cahors, and on the south-west by Gascony, which had been united with it for the last hundred years. The old Karolingian kingdom of Aquitania had been of far greater extent; it had, in fact. included the whole country between the Loire the Pyrenees, the Rhone and the ocean. Over all this vast territory the Counts of Poitou asserted a theoretical claim of overlordship by virtue of their ducal title; they had, however, a formidable rival in the house of the Counts of Toulouse " |