County of Périgord

The County of Périgord was a medieval fief in south-western France, named after the Petrocorii, the Gaulish people who had resisted the Roman conquest. In the early Middle Ages the region was known in Latin as the pagus Petragoricus, and it became a fief of the Duchy of Aquitaine. The county comprised the three subregions of Périgueux, Bergerac and Sarlat, and its seat was at Périgueux, where the counts of Périgord ruled through a seneschal. Périgord was bounded by Poitou to the north, Limousin to the north-east and Quercy to the south-east, and it corresponded roughly to the modern Dordogne department. During the Hundred Years' War the county became one of the main battlegrounds between France and England, as local lords and rival crowns fought for control. It was eventually absorbed into the Kingdom of France in 1398, after which the title and lands passed through various royal and noble hands. The name survived in the provincial geography of the ancien régime and remains attached to the region around Périgueux.