Launch app →

Europe · High and late Middle Ages

County of Foix

11th century–1607

Comté de Foix; Occitan Comtat de Fois; capital Foix. A Pyrenean county pursuing an independent course between France, Aragon and the papacy.

Existed
11th century–1607
Shown on the map
1236–1555
Peak area
45k km²
Region
Europe

Overview

Comté de Foix; Occitan Comtat de Fois; capital Foix. A Pyrenean county pursuing an independent course between France, Aragon and the papacy. Its most celebrated ruler was Gaston III "Fébus" (1343–1391), a brilliant, ruthless prince and patron of letters (author of the hunting treatise Livre de chasse), who ruled Foix and Béarn as a virtually sovereign state. Through the Foix-Béarn union and later marriages the inheritance passed to the House of Albret and then to the kings of Navarre, reaching Henry of Navarre, who as Henry IV brought Foix (with Béarn and Navarre) to the French crown (1589; the county formally united in 1607).

Common questions

What was the County of Foix?
Comté de Foix; Occitan Comtat de Fois; capital Foix. A Pyrenean county pursuing an independent course between France, Aragon and the papacy.
When did the County of Foix exist?
The County of Foix existed 11th century–1607. On this map it is drawn 1236–1555.
How large was the County of Foix?
At its greatest extent drawn on this map, the County of Foix covered about 45,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.

Sources

This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for each territory as the primary basis, cross-checked against Encyclopædia Britannica and specialist snippets, and flags entries built on unreliable foundations — the 911 treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte known only from Dudo of Saint-Quentin, and Arnaud Amalric's alleged order at Béziers attested only decades after the fact. The article this entry is anchored on:

This entry was last updated .

This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made

Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.

Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).

See the County of Foix in its world

Open the atlas at 1396 and every neighbour, rival and successor is on screen with it — then drag the slider and watch what happens next.

Open the map at 1396 →