Ventadour

The lords of Ventadour took their name from the castle of Ventadour in the Limousin. The viscounty was formed around 1060 when Comborn was divided in favour of Ebles I, son of its viscount. Ebles II, called the Singer, was a troubadour, and the poet Bernart de Ventadorn learned his art at the castle under Eble III before following Eleanor of Aquitaine to the Plantagenet court.

In 1350 the viscounty was raised to a county. Count Jacques de Ventadour was killed fighting the English at Verneuil in 1424.

The original line ended with Blanche de Ventadour, whose marriage to Louis de Lévis in 1472 carried the county into the Lévis family, henceforth called de Lévis-Ventadour. Their descendants had the county raised to a duchy and peerage, and in the eighteenth century the title passed by marriage to the House of Rohan-Soubise.