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Rh else the tendency is to the minutest subdivision, the Dukes of Aquitaine, by a policy almost miraculously skilful, succeed not only in maintaining effective control over the unhomogeneous lands between the Loire and the Garonne (with the exception of Berry and the Bourbonnais) but in making good their hold on Gascony which they never again lose, and even for a time in occupying the county of Toulouse and exacting obedience from it. Direct rulers of Poitou, of which district they continue to style themselves counts at the same time that they are known as Dukes of Aquitaine, rulers also of Saintonge (which was for a short time a fief of the Count of Anjou) the dynasty of the Williams who succeed one another in the eleventh century on the Poitevin throne, successfully retained the Counts of Angoulême and la Marche and the Viscount of Limoges in the strictest vassalage, while they compelled obedience from the other counts and viscounts in their dominions. Everywhere or almost everywhere, thanks to perpetual expeditions from one end of his state to the other, the duke presents himself as the real suzerain, ever ready for action or intervention in case of need. In episcopal elections he has contrived to preserve his rights, at Limoges, for instance, as at Poitiers and Saintes, or at Bordeaux after he has taken possession of that town; in the greater part of the episcopal cities he plays an active, sometimes decisive part, often having the last word in the election of bishops.

Few of the rulers of the feudal chiefs at this time knew as they did how to act as the real heads of the state or could manoeuvre more cleverly to extend and maintain their authority. Although praised by a contemporary chronicler, Adémar of Chabannes, for having succeeded in reducing all his vassals to complete obedience, William V (995 or 996-1030) appears to have been above all things a peaceful prince, a lover of learning and belles lettres, for which indeed Adémar eulogises him in a hyperbolical strain, comparing him to Augustus and Theodosius, and at the same time to Charlemagne and Louis the Pious. But among his successors, Guy-Geoffrey, called also William VIII (1058-1086), and William IX (1086-1126) were born politicians, unburdened with scruples, moreover, and ready to use all means to attain their ends. By naked usurpation, helped out by a sudden stroke of arms and by astute diplomacy, Guy-Geoffrey succeeded in obtaining possession of the duchy of Gascony, which had fallen vacant in 1039 by the death of his half-brother, Odo, and so ably was his undertaking carried out that Gascony was subdued almost on the spot. His son William IX nearly succeeded in doing as much with regard to the county of Toulouse, some sixty years later, in 1097 or 1098. Profiting by the absence of the Count, Raymond of St-Gilles, on Crusade, he claimed the county in the name of his wife Philippa, the daughter of a former Count of Toulouse, William IV; and notwithstanding that the possessions of Crusaders were placed under the guardianship of the Church and accounted sacred, he invaded his