Europe · High and late Middle Ages
County of Savoy
1003–1416
Comté de Savoie; Italian Contea di Savoia. Capitals: Montmélian, then Chambéry (from 1295), then Turin (from 1562/1563).
- Existed
- 1003–1416
- Shown on the map
- 1260–1539
- Peak area
- 36k km²
- Region
- Europe
Overview
Comté de Savoie; Italian Contea di Savoia. Capitals: Montmélian, then Chambéry (from 1295), then Turin (from 1562/1563). Humbert I "the White-Handed" (Humbert aux blanches mains, c. 970/980–1048), of obscure origin and first documented as Count of Maurienne, was raised to comital rank around 1003 by Rudolph III of Burgundy and backed Conrad II, receiving grants (Chablais, etc.) that founded the House of Savoy. His son Otto married Adelaide, Marchioness of Turin and Susa (1046), extending Savoyard power across the Alps and its key passes (Mont-Cenis, Great St Bernard). Straddling the western Alps, the counts accumulated territory (Nice 1388, Geneva 1401). Amadeus VIII was raised to Duke of Savoy by Emperor Sigismund on 19 February 1416 (he later, remarkably, became antipope Felix V). The dynasty moved its centre of gravity to Turin and Piedmont, and through Sicily (1713), exchanged for the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720), became a royal house — the future engine of Italian unification (Kingdom of Italy, 1861).
Common questions
- What was the County of Savoy?
- Comté de Savoie; Italian Contea di Savoia. Capitals: Montmélian, then Chambéry (from 1295), then Turin (from 1562/1563).
- When did the County of Savoy exist?
- The County of Savoy existed 1003–1416. On this map it is drawn 1260–1539.
- How large was the County of Savoy?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, the County of Savoy covered about 36,000 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:
- Wikipedia — County of Savoy en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_of_Savoy
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).
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