Albon

The House of Albon, also called the Guigonides after the many counts named Guigues, was a great feudal family of the county of Vienne in the Dauphiné, first recorded at Albon in the tenth century and raised to comital rank in the eleventh. From their castle of Albon they built a compact principality between the Rhône and the Alps, and Count Guigues IV, who died in 1142, bore the nickname Dauphin, the Dolphin, which became the title Dauphin of Viennois for his successors and gave the region its later name.

The senior line ended in 1228 with Béatrice of Albon, whose marriage carried the dauphinate to the Capetian dukes of Burgundy. A younger branch ruled the county of Forez and survived until 1372.

The last Burgundian dauphin, Humbert II, under financial pressure sold the Dauphiné to Philip VI of Valois by the treaty of Romans in 1349, after which the title passed to the eldest sons of France's kings.