Poitou
a former province of S. W.
France, coincident with the present departments of Deux Sèvres, Vendée, and Vienne. It was divided into Upper and Lower Poitou, and had for its capital Poitiers. Its early history is the same POLA as that of AQUITANIA (q. v.). Poitou became a possession of the English crown when Eleanor, Countess of Poitou and Duchess of Aquitaine, after her divorce from Louis VII. VII. of France, married (1152) Henry of Anjou, afterward Henry I. of England. Philip Augustus reconquered the province in 1205. By the peace of Bretigny, in 1360, it again reverted to England, but nine years later was retaken by Charles V.