Historical region, southwestern France.
It was roughly equivalent to Aquitania, the Roman division of southwestern Gaul, which consisted of the area between the Pyrenees Mountains and the Garonne River . Conquered by Charlemagne in the 8th century. After the Carolingian decline, it became a powerful duchy, which by the 10th century controlled much of France south of the Loire . It passed to the Capetian line when {{link=Eleanor of Aquitaine">Eleanor of Aquitaine married Louis VII (1137); on her second marriage, to Henry II of England (1152), it passed to the English Plantagenets. The name Guyenne , a corruption of Aquitaine, came into use in the 10th century, and the subsequent history of Aquitaine is merged with that of Gascony and Guyenne.