Aighyna, Aeghyna, Aegyna, Aigino, or Aichina, probably a Saxon, was the

duke of Gascony The Duchy of Gascony or Duchy of Vasconia ( eu, Baskoniako dukerria; oc, ducat de Gasconha; french: duché de Gascogne, duché de Vasconie) was a duchy located in present-day southwestern France and northeastern Spain, an area encompassing the m ...

(''

Vasconia The Duchy of Gascony or Duchy of Vasconia ( eu, Baskoniako dukerria; oc, ducat de Gasconha; french: duché de Gascogne, duché de Vasconie) was a duchy located in present-day southwestern France and northeastern Spain, an area encompassing the m ...

'') from 626 or 627 to his death in 638. He succeeded

Genial Genial (Latin ''Genialis'' or ''Genealis'') was the Duke of Gascony ('' Vasconia'') in the early seventh century. He is mentioned in the ''Chronicle of Fredegar''. Genial was probably a Frank or a Gallo-Roman when Theuderic II and Theudebert II a ...

. The chief source for his reign is

Fredegar The ''Chronicle of Fredegar'' is the conventional title used for a 7th-century Frankish chronicle that was probably written in Burgundy. The author is unknown and the attribution to Fredegar dates only from the 16th century. The chronicle begin ...

. He probably hailed from the Bessin, which contained many Saxon colonies at the time. He was mentioned as a Saxon ''

dux ''Dux'' (; plural: ''ducēs'') is Latin for "leader" (from the noun ''dux, ducis'', "leader, general") and later for duke and its variant forms (doge, duce, etc.). During the Roman Republic and for the first centuries of the Roman Empire, '' ...

'' in 626. He repressed the intrigues of the bishops Palladius and Sidocus of

Eauze Eauze (; Gascon: ''Eusa'') is a commune in the Gers department in southwestern France. History Located in the heart of south-west France, 130 kilometers from the Spanish border, Eauze is originally a proto-Basque city that became Roman. It wa ...

, exiling them for inciting Basque revolts, and even ordered the assassination of one of

Charibert II Charibert II (607/617–8 April 632), a son of Clotaire II and his junior wife Sichilde, was briefly King of Aquitaine from 629 to his death, with his capital at Toulouse. There are no direct statements about when Charibert was born exactly, ...

's councillors in the palace at Clichy. In 635, he took part in the great Frankish expedition against the Basques, which involved ten Burgundian ''duces'' and ten columns. Aeghyna was reinstated after this. He was certainly the duke of the Basques (''

Vascones The Vascones were a pre-Roman tribe who, on the arrival of the Romans in the 1st century, inhabited a territory that spanned between the upper course of the Ebro river and the southern basin of the western Pyrenees, a region that coincides wi ...

'') in 636, when he is recorded as conducting the Basque chiefs (''seniores'') who submitted to

Dagobert I Dagobert I ( la, Dagobertus; 605/603 – 19 January 639 AD) was the king of Austrasia (623–634), king of all the Franks (629–634), and king of Neustria and Burgundy (629–639). He has been described as the last king of the Merovingian dyna ...

at Clichy.Fredegar, 4.78, p 67. Though he is certainly not of Basque stock, whether he acted as a tribal leader with only tenuous ties to the Frankish monarchy or as the Frankish client duke of a vassal people is unknown.

Notes

Sources

* Collins, Roger. ''The Basques''. Blackwell Publishing: London, 1990. * Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., translator.
The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar with its Continuations
'. Greenwood Press: Connecticut, 1960. *Lewis, Archibald R.
The Dukes in the Regnum Francorum, A.D. 550-751.
''Speculum'', Vol. 51, No. 3. (Jul., 1976), pp. 381–410.
Auñamendi Encyclopedia: Ducado de Vasconia

Monlezun, Jean Justin. ''Histoire de la Gascogne''. 1846.
*Higounet, Charles. ''Bordeaux pendant le haut moyen age''. Bordeaux, 1963. {{DEFAULTSORT:Aeghyna 638 deaths Dukes of Gascony 7th-century Saxon people Year of birth unknown