Talk:Duchy of Gascony

message: The map is well sourced and there doesn't seem to be any practical difference between Vasconia and the Duchy of Vasconia. Excepting brief periods (early Merovingian creation and Chralemagne's and successors' largely failed campaigns) the Duchy was a de facto indepdendent state. There is archaeological evidence that the southern Basque country was under Frankish cultural influence (will search for the sources if needed) and there is no evidence that Pamplona was any sort of independent state before Eneko Aritza. If Pamplona arose as independent in the 9th century it was precisely because the Duchy had fallen under Frankish control (Carolingian epysode) and these Franks attempted to control the south as well. That was thwarted in the third Battle of Roncevaux, when that got the Duke of Auvergne sent to Cordoba to be beheaded, what prompted that Duke Sans could ragain all the Duchy north of the Pyrenees some years later, defeating (once again) the Frankish appointed lord (the Count of Bourdeaux). 
It was in this interim period (between Charlemagne and Roncevaux III) when there were two Vasconias:
*The Frankish controlled Duchy (under the Count of Boudeaux), probably the area near the Garonne.
*The County of Vasconia, also vassal of the Franks under Aznar (but not under his son), controlling the  Pyrenees both north (Northern Basque Country, probably larger areas as well, such as modern Béarn and Dax) and south (Aragon or Jaca).
*The Banu Qasi, around Tudela.
When the attempts of the Franks to control all the historical Duchy, including Pamplona, failed, the Kingdom of Pamplona was born and the Duchy, again unified an independent under Sans Sancion, became an nord-Pyrenean only entity that would become Gascony. 
Before the Pyrenees were no border. There's absolutely no reason whatsoever to assume that the Pyrenees were any sort of border before Pamplona was created (or even later). The Carolingians, naturally, did not consider it any border, nor did the Basques (of course). --Sugaar (talk) 21:24, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "There's absolutely no reason whatsoever to assume that the Pyrenees were any sort of border before Pamplona was created" -> I agree with this sentence, but I can reply with "There's absolutely no reason whatsoever to assume that the Pyrenees were NOT any sort of border before Pamplona was created". As far as I have tried to understand all of this, we have nearly no information at all about the political situation in the Basque lands south of the Pyrénées before Charlemagne (and very few for the territories further north, but there at least some town names happen to appear casually in lists of bishops, or in treaties). I have spent a few hours yesterday in a library browsing throught Rouche's treaty about Merovingian Aquitaine - which is very detailed but cannot really help us, since it is definitely centered on the area north of the Pyrénées with very few informations about places now in Spain. In this library, I can find access to two other very useful sources in French, that is Manex Goyhenetche, Histoire générale du Pays basque, Elkarlanean Donostia, 1998,  tome I and Juan-José Larrea, La Navarre du IVème au XIIème siècle, peuplement et société, De Boek Université, Bibliothèque du Moyen Âge, 14, Bruxelles, 1998. With all these three sources in hand, our articles about Vascons and Duchy of Vasconia seem quite flawed to me, but I shall not intervene in the short run ; I think I should read first, speak later - I shall come back (perhaps) in a few weeks (indeed, since I am not fluent in English, I shall probably try to write an article in the French Wikipedia first, then to use back excerpts of what I shall have written in French). In the short run, and only to get your opinion, what would you think of a merging between Vascons and Duchy of Vasconia ? The present article entitled "Duchy" contains lots of information about various political structures and battles concerning Vascons which are quite loosely related - if these informations were structured by gluing together in a same article everything which is about "Vasconia", I would feel it as a progress. French Tourist (talk) 10:23, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops, there is not a discussion here on the map as I posted it somewhere some 6 months ago, not sure where I posted it. I let Sugaar know about the objections to the map besides all the discussed grounds. Basically the map doesn´t belong in any specific period, since Pamplona was in Umayyad hands by 714, and the map extends the duchy almost to the Ebro. Asturias at any rate can´t be there up to at least 718 or 722. Please put any comment you may have here. Thanks Iñaki LL (talk) 20:56, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  The map 

message: A basque map including Briviesca, La Bureba and the Castille lands... you must be joking!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.7.18.241 (talk) 19:09, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The map again