An expression of incoherence

The peace of Amiens (3)

The third territory to be recovered by the English via the Treaty of Amiens in 1279 was the Agenais. This lay south of Périgord and in ancient Gaul was known as the country of the Nitiobriges, with Aginnum for their capital; in the fourth century AD it was part of the Roman province of Aquitaina Secunda and formed the diocese of Agen.

The city of Agen

In 1152 the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine to Henry II brought Agen into the vast family conglomerate known to later generations as the Angevin Empire. In 1212, during the Albigensian crusade, Simon de Montfort senior captured Penne-d’Agenais and burnt heretics at the stake. Via the Treaty of Paris in 1259 King Louis of France agreed to pay rent to Henry III of England for Agen, but in 1271 it should have passed to the English crown after the death of Joan of Poitiers. Instead the French hung on to it, as they did the Saintonge and other territories.

Edward I set about prising his rights from the grasp of Philip III, Louis’s successor. Philip was amenable and in August 1279 agreed to transfer Agen to the English. The transfer from one jurisdiction to another was a complex process. It began immediately after the treaty of Amiens was sealed (May 1279) and the task was entrusted to Edward’s uncle, William de Valence. The actual details were worked out by Jean de Grailly, seneschal of Gascony, and the bishop of Agen. On 9 August the proctors of the two kings met in the cloister of Agen in the presence of local clergy and lords, and representatives of the towns, the counts of Armagnac and Bigorre and other Gascon lords.

The Garonne river

Here the transfer was announced. The seneschal of the king of France formally stripped himself of his duties and handed over to the English the revenues of the Agenais accrued since the date of the treaty (23 May). There was a slight hiccup when it was announced that a Gascon, the lord of Bergerac, would be the new seneschal. He was not a popular man, so Grailly smoothed things over by taking on the post himself for the time being.

The recovery of the Agenais gave Edward control of the Garonne, on which the city of Agen lies, and of its northern tributary, the Lot. Périgord lay to the north, the combined fiefs of Armagnac and Fezenac (held of Edward as duke of Aquitaine) to the south. It was a land of interlocking jurisdictions, described by the Anglo-French historian G.P. Cuttino as ‘an expression of incoherence’.