Astarac

The House of Astarac was a Gascon lineage descended from the old Gascon dukes. Around 920 Duke Garcia II divided his lands among his sons; the youngest, Arnold Nonnat, received the new county of Astarac, hills between Armagnac and Comminges.

Its counts joined the Holy Land Crusade as early as 1099 and leaned to the Cathar cause in the thirteenth century, but the county never matched neighbouring Armagnac, and the family married only within the lesser Gascon nobility. Founded as a bastide in 1280, Mirande became its capital in 1297. In 1337 the line still ruled from Mirande, styling itself count by the grace of God until 1442.

The dynasty lasted into the sixteenth century: Count John IV died in 1511 leaving only daughters, the county passing through his heiress Marthe to her husband Gaston III of Foix-Candale. Foix-Candale later carried it into the Nogaret de La Valette family, the crown selling it to Roquelaure. A younger branch, Montlezun and Pardiac lords, survived until 1677.