User:Touriste/Workspace

I did a small number of modifications today, which could be a bit contentious. I carefully (though more or less diagonally) read all the discussions above (and in the archived Talk Page). I think I should be more specific about my editorial choices :

Map removal
Reasons : I see two problems with this map, both too serious to keep it included in an article about the Duchy of Vasconia proper.

1) The northern borders of the Duchy, especially near Bordeaux seem astoundingly precise, too precise ;

2) Reading all the discussions above, nothing has convinced me that any document gives any precise hint of the southern border of Duchy of Vasconia. Not one quoted source proves that at any moment the Duchy included any portion of territory presently Spanish.

Comments :


 * source of the map : . No doubt that our map is faithful to this source. Auñamendi Encyclopedia is certainly a valid source, of a secondary/tertiary nature. We should however use secondary sources rather than secondary/tertiary (I mean history books rather than encyclopediae), and preferentially secondary sources giving a glimpse of the primary sources they have used.


 * Some observations on this source, though : there is no mention of the word "Duchy" on the map proper. However on the this page of the Auñamendi Encyclopedia (linking the article Ducado de Vasconia and the picture proper), the legend is the following : "El estado vascón-aquitano en tiempo de Eudón "El Grande" (Años 710-740) Mapa Garikoitz Estornés Zubizarreta"


 * About my first criticism. This is quite secondary, and I have not made sufficient research up to date to sustain it seriously. However, I can point that some details (especially the bit of Vasconia on the right bank of the Garonne) seem oddly precise for a period where sources are sparse, and generally don't give more than a few names of cities to locate an area. They could be explained by the use of borders of dioceses, of course better known after year 1000.


 * The second criticism is much more relevant. Another serious source (already pointed in previous debates) is this map from a rough (amateur) history of Aquitaine which seems to be extracted from Michel Rouche's dissertation about medieval Aquitaine. There is no hint of Spanish territories in Odon's possessions (except perhaps the places which were in Bayonne's diocese before 1000, say Pasajes and Baztan).


 * Other sources at my disposal go in the same direction, generally by omission : Duchy of Vasconia is mentioned at several places in Stéphane Lebecq - Les origines francques ISBN 2020115522 (a book about French history), nowhere with any connection to placenames south of the Pyrénées ; Pierre Riché's Les carolingiens ISBN 2010196384 describes (p. 39) Loup's principalty as "south of the Garonne", and again (two mentions of Eudes in the index) no placename will send us south of the Pyrénées. On the other hand in Histoire médiévale de la Péninsule ibérique (Adeline Rucquoi) ISBN 2020129353 every mention of Vascones in the index before Charlemagne refers to border conflicts with other Spanish populations, but there the Duke of Vasconia is nowhere mentioned.


 * On the other hand, these same books are precise enough to give information about Carolingian control in Pallars or Ribagorza. I don't think that these books, written for a French audience, would have omitted to give at least a sketchy account of any control of Loup or Eudes south of the Pyrénées if such control was known to today's historians.


 * There are though other sources used in previous discussions to sustain a ducal control of southern Basque lands. Let's have a look at them. A number of websites have been quoted, but some (e.g. Encarta) are clearly not admissible as sources ; others (e.g. This "Short History of the Basque Country") send back to Ildefonso Gurrutxaga directly quoted in this website :En la época de las invasiones bárbaras, posterior a Roma, se formó el ducado de Vasconia, que se extendía desde los tradicionales confines vascos en el valle del Ebro hasta el río Loire, confinando al sur con los visigodos, y al norte y este con los francos. This source is certainly crystal clear and would confirm the map. Sadly this is only an excerpt of a book, whose author I don't figure (professional historian ? polemist ? just questions, I don't know him), and there are no hints of the "primary sources" which could have been used to build such a territory for the Duchy. The other is of course the Auñamendi entry, but when it clearly refers to an pan-basque territory ("1° Vasconia es un entidad que se extiende desde el mediodia de la actual Alava hasta el norte de la actual Zuberoa ya que en 58l la atacan en esos dos puntos para penetrar en su interior. Ambos reyes dicen entrar militarmente en Vasconia. 2° Entre los pueblos del norte, Geta, Dano, Estio, Saxo y Britano, se cita al wasco, lo que deja ver, que, contra lo que algunos historiadores creen, existían de siempre vascos en la antigua tierra aquitana. 3 º La acción Militar simultánea desde las orillas del Adur y las del Ebro, dejan ver que Vasconia constituía un peligro para ambos dominadores, el franco y el godo.(...)", I see no reason to think Vasconia is synonymous to "Duchy of Vasconia" : the first means "areas populated by Vascons" and the second a military-political entity (as nowadays may be "Ireland" vs. "Republic of Ireland", say). I really think this second source is irrelevant when used to try to understand where Duchy of Vasconia ends in its southern parts.

Written mention of southernmost expansion modification
Here we have to settle about what happened in the area around Charlemagne's reign. Here, according to Adeline Rucquoi's book (p. 136) : "Dans les Pyrénées occidentales, la région de Pampelune ne fut que brièvement conquise par les Francs en 806 et 812; et une expédition comanditée par Louis le Pieux en 824 ne parvient pas non plus à s'implanter en Navarre". Now let's have a look at Pierre Riché (pp. 122) : "En 781, Charles décida de satisfaire le particularisme aquitain en créant un royaume et en le confiant à son fils Louis. (...) En 801, Barcelone est prise par le prince Louis, tandis qu'à l'ouest Pampelune et la Navarre tombent sous contrôle franc, malgré l'hostilité persistante des Basques. Charles aurait voulu poursuivre sa conquête jusqu'à l'Èbre, mais il ne le put." There is therefore absolutely no doubt that there has been carolingian control on the southern side of the Pyrénées, and specifically in what is now Navarre.