From 1487 to 1491, France attacked and defeated Brittany, an independent duchy.

The duchy of Brittany was given to Arthur rather than John, but Geoffrey's death brought John slightly closer to the throne of England.

The death of Henry's fourth son, Geoffrey II, Duke of Brittany in 1186 began a new round of disputes, as Henry insisted that he retain the guardianship of the duchy for his unborn grandson Arthur I, Duke of Brittany.

The terms the three brothers accepted were less generous than those they had been offered earlier in the conflict ( when Richard was offered four castles in Aquitaine and half of the income from the duchy ) and Richard was given control of two castles in Poitou and half the income of Aquitaine ; Henry the Young King was given two castles in Normandy ; and Geoffrey was permitted half of Brittany.

Conditions in Normandy were unsettled, as noble families despoiled the Church and Alan III of Brittany waged war against the duchy, possibly in an attempt to take control.

* Odo, Viscount of Porhoet, co-ruler of the duchy of Brittany

Before the French revolution, prior to the integration of the Duchy of Brittany into the Kingdom of France, Rennes was the capital of the duchy, with the other historical capitals of Brittany's Ducal period being Nantes and Vannes.

Rennes would later become the capital of the duchy of Brittany.

Anne jealously guarded Brittany's autonomy, but the duchy was eventually fully merged with the French crown through the marriage of her daughter Claude of France to the French King and the so-called Union of Brittany and France under Claude's son.

The expulsion, which was not reversed until 1656, followed a precedent set by other European territorial princes: Philip II of France had expelled all Jews from his own lands in 1182 ; John I, Duke of Brittany, drove them out of his duchy in 1239 ; and in the late 1240s Louis IX of France had expelled the Jews from the royal demesne before his first passage to the East.

With the marriage of Francis I of France to Claude, the daughter of Anne of Brittany, the definitive overlordship of Brest – together with the rest of the duchy – passed to the French crown.

A leader of the Catholic League, he invoked the hereditary rights of his wife, Marie de Luxembourg, who was a descendant of the dukes of Brittany and heiress of the Blois-Brosse claim to the duchy as well as Duchess of Penthièvre in Brittany, and organized a government at Nantes.

Having devoted her life to the independence of her duchy, she bequeathed Brittany to her younger daughter Renée when her elder daughter was betrothed to the future Francis I of France.

On his side, the King of England gave up the duchy of Touraine, the countships of Anjou and Maine, and the suzerainty of Brittany and of Flanders.

The Duchy of Brittany that emerged in the early 10th century had been preceded by several earlier polities that influenced the shape of the later duchy.

By the end of the 9th century, Brittany had its own languages: Breton and the old form of Gallo, a Romance language, that tended already at that time to eliminate Breton from the last areas in the eastern part of duchy, where it was still spoken.

Alan II returned to Brittany in 938 and after a number of campaigns against the Vikings, gained control of the duchy.

In 1065, Before his invasion of Anglo-Saxon England, William of Normandy warned his rivals in Brittany and Anjou to abstain from any attacks on his duchy, on the grounds that his mission bore the papal banner.

The French king established royal courts in various parts of eastern Brittany, but the western most regions of the duchy remained fiercely independent.

The Britons in Dumnonia were cut off from their allies in Wales by Ceawlin of Wessex's victory at Dyrham in 577, but as sea travel was easier than travel by land, the blow may not have been severe ; principal trade routes were apparently maintained via the sea ports of neighbouring Brittany, a small semi-autonomous duchy until 1532.

Pierre Mauclerc ( c. 1190 – 6 July 1250 ), also known as Peter of Dreux or Pierre de Dreux, was duke of Brittany jure uxoris from 1213 to 1221, then regent of the duchy ( for his minor son ) from 1221 to 1237 as well as Earl of Richmond from 1219 to 1235.

He then joined in an expedition to Brittany, but died on his way back to Penrose in that duchy.

However, it also meant that she was under Angevin custody, and thus even her mother, Constance, never considered her a potential heir to Brittany, which weakened her later claim to the duchy.

By the 6th century AD there is evidence of the foundation of a Bavarian stem duchy whose leadership was related to the ruling Frankish ( and possibly Alemannic / Swabian ) houses.

Croatia first appeared as a duchy in the 7th century and then as a kingdom in the 10th century.

The Franconian lands include the present-day South Thuringian districts Schmalkalden-Meiningen, Hildburghausen and Sonneberg, the historic Gau of Grabfeld held by the House of Henneberg from the 11th century and later part of the Wettin duchy of Saxe-Meiningen.

During John's reign, England lost the duchy of Normandy to King Philip II of France, which resulted in the collapse of most of the Angevin Empire and contributed to the subsequent growth in power of the Capetian dynasty during the 13th century.

In the 10th century Maastricht briefly became the capital of the duchy of Lower Lorraine.

Though the Jews in the Austrian duchy had been subject to local persecutions during the 13th and 14th century, their position remained relatively safe.

Originally the duchy was called Sønderjylland ( Southern Jutland ) but in the late 14th century the name of the city Slesvig ( now Schleswig ) started to be used for the whole territory.

In early 12th century the island as part of the Pomeranian duchy was captured by the Polish king Boleslaw III Wrymouth.

Guelders was a county in the late 11th century and then a duchy in the Holy Roman Empire, including parts of the present-day Dutch province of Limburg and the German district of Kleve ( Cleves ).

The duchy was given to enhance Louis Stanislas ' prestige ; however, his appanage turned over only 300, 000 livres per annum, an amount much lower than it had been at its peak in the fourteenth century.

Situated at this river and nearby the stronghold of the Dukes of Brabant, Leuven became the most important centre of trade in the duchy between the 11th and the 14th century.

The Carolingian kings also created a March of Neustria which was a frontier duchy against the Bretons and Vikings that lasted until the Capetian monarchy in the late tenth century.

Arnod ( an official of the duchy of Aosta ) in 1689 to " re-open " the Col du Ceant may be counted as made by a non-native, historical records do not show any further such activities until the last quarter of the 18th century.

In the twelfth century, the diocese of Noyon was raised to an ecclesiastical duchy in the peerage of France.

As early as the 13th century ( southern ) Halland was given as duchy to a branch of the Danish royal family.

In the 17th century Strelitz was a part of the duchy of Mecklenburg-Güstrow, which ceased to exist after the death of the last duke in 1695.

Expanded use of the term lapsed until the early nineteenth century, when Napoleon used the title " grand duchy " for several territories given to his allies.

As a result, the 19th century saw a new group of monarchies titled grand duchy around Central Europe, such as the Grand Duchy of Hesse.

The history of Bavaria stretches from its earliest settlement and its formation as a stem duchy in the 6th century through its inclusion in the Holy Roman Empires to its status as an independent kingdom and, finally, as a large and significant Bundesland ( state ) of the modern Federal Republic of Germany.

At the beginning of the 16th century there was great pressure from the powerful duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg, which tried to annex the smaller states.

Thereafter, the only surviving male branch of the House of Lorraine was the seniormost branch, which had exhcanged the sovereign duchy of Lorraine for that of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, holding sovereignty as the Habsburg-Lorraine Emperors of Austria-Hungary into the 20th century.

In 1740 Hoogstraten was elevated to a Duchy by Emperor Charles VI, but barely half a century later, during French rule, it lost its titles of ‘ town ’ and ‘ duchy .’ The status of a town often depended on whether the townspeople were considered supporters or not, so one might infer that the area was seen to have anti-French feeling.

The city of Montmorency, at the heart of the duchy, continued to be known as " Montmorency ", despite the official name change, but the name " Enghien " stuck to the nearby lake and marshland that developed later as a spa resort and was incorporated as the commune of Enghien-les-Bains in the 19th century.

Until the end of the 18th century the city belonged to the department of Grevenbroich within the duchy of Jülich.