The French could afford to pass over Henry's neglect to do homage, for
Gascony seemed likely to emancipate itself from the yoke of its English
dukes without any prompting from Paris. After the failure of 1243, a
limited amount of territory between the Dordogne and the Pyrenees alone
acknowledged Henry. This narrower Gascony was a thoroughly feudalised
land: the absentee dukes had little authority, domain, or revenue: and
the chief lordships were held by magnates, whose relations to their
overlord were almost formal, and by municipalities almost as free as
the cities of Flanders or the empire. The disastrous campaign of
Taiilebourg lessened the prestige of the duke, and Henry quitted
Gascony without so much as attempting to settle its affairs. In the
following years weak seneschals, with insufficient powers and quickly
succeeding each other, were unable to grapple with ever-increasing
troubles. The feudal lords dominated the countryside, pillaged traders,
waged internal war and defied the authority of the duke. In the
autonomous towns factions had arisen as fierce as those of the cities
of Italy.
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