n Pippin II. (d. 865) as their king. The
emperor Louis I., however, opposed this arrangement and gave the kingdom
to his youngest son Charles, afterwards the emperor Charles the Bald.
Now followed a time of confusion and conflict which resulted eventually
in the success of Charles, although from 845 to 852 Pippin was in
possession of the kingdom. In 852 Pippin was imprisoned by Charles the
Bald, who soon afterwards gave to the Aquitanians his own son Charles as
their king. On the death of the younger Charles in 866, his brother
Louis the Stammerer succeeded to the kingdom, and when, in 877, Louis
became king of the Franks, Aquitaine was united to the Frankish crown.

A new period now begins in the history of Aquitaine. By a treaty made in
845 between Charles the Bald and Pippin II. the kingdom had been
diminished by the loss of Poitou, Saintonge and Angoumois, which had
been given to Rainulf I., count of Poitiers. Somewhat earlier than this
date the title of duke of the Aquitanians had been revived, and this was
now borne by Rainulf, although it was also claimed by the counts of
Toulouse. The new duchy of Aquitaine, comprising the three districts
already mentioned, remained in the hands of Rainulf's successors, in
spite of some trouble with their Frankish overlords, until 893 when
Count Rainulf II. was poisoned by order of King Charles III. the Simple.
Charles then bestowed the duchy upon William the Pious, count of
Auvergne, the founder of the abbey of Cluny, who was succeeded in 918 by
his nephew, Count William II., who died in 926. A succession of dukes
followed, one of whom, William IV., fought against Hugh Capet, king of
France, and another of whom, William V., called the Great, was able
considerably to strengthen and extend his authority, although he failed
in his attempt to secure the Lombard crown. William's duchy almost
reached the limits of the Roman Aquitania Prima and Secunda, but did not
stretch south of the Garonne, a district which was in the possession of
the Gascons. William died in 1030, and the names of William VI. (d.
1038), Odo or Eudes (d. 1039), who joined Gascony to his duchy, William
VII. and William VIII. bring us down to William IX. (d. 1127), who
succeeded in 1087, and made himself famous as a crusader and a
troubadour. William X. (d. 1137) married his daughter Eleanor to Louis
VII., king of France, and Aquitaine went as her dowry. When Eleanor was
divorced from Louis and was married in 1152 t