Comminges

The counts of Comminges ruled an ancient feudal county of Gascony, which took shape in the tenth century on the northern slope of the Pyrenees, straddling the upper Garonne. Bernard became the dynasty's favoured name: Bernard III held the county from before 1153, and Bernard IV, count from 1176 to 1225, married in turn the countess of Bigorre and Marie de Montpellier.

Bernard VI ringed his lands with bastides, founding Lestelle in 1243 and a string of similar chartered towns in the following decades. Bernard VIII, who died in 1336, also held the viscounty of Turenne, and in 1337 the county belonged to his son Jean I, later passing to the Pierre-Raymonds.

The last hereditary ruler was Marguerite, who reigned from 1376 to 1443 and married successively into the houses of Armagnac and Foix; she bequeathed Comminges to the French crown. After the death of her last husband in 1453 it was incorporated into the royal domain in 1454, definitively in 1498.