Provence, formerly a maritime province of France, was bounded on the S. by the Mediterranean, and comprised the modern departments of Bouches du Rhône, Var, Basses-Alpes, and parts of Alpes Maritimes and Vacluse. It included a portion of the Roman province of Gaul generally called simply Provincia ('the Province'), whence it derived its name. The Provençal (q.v.) tongue, however, was spoken over a much larger area (see also the section on the language and literature of FRANCE). Provence was overrun in the 5th century by the Visigoths and Burgundians, for a time was under the Saracens, and in 879 was mostly incorporated with Cisjuran Burgundy (q.v.) and with it was attached to Germany. The main part of the region remained, however, under the Counts of Arles, also known as Counts of Provence, and was practically independent. Early in the 12th century the countship passed by inheritance to Raymond Berengar, Count of Barcelona, and under the protection of his successors Provençal poetry attained its zenith. In 1245 the last count died, and the inheritance passed, through his daughter, to her husband Charles of Anjou, who united Provence with Naples. Under the Angevin princes the constitution of Provence, with its three estates holding the power of the purse, was well balanced and free; and it is possible that through Simon de Montfort (q.v.) the English parliamentary constitution may be indebted to it. The last of the counts, Charles, grandson of René the Good (q.v.), bequeathed his county to the dauphin of France; and it was united to that county in 1486 by Charles VIII.
Several of Daudet's works give vivid pictures of Provençal scenery, life, and character; and there are histories of Provence by Papon (1777–86) and Mercy (1830), and descriptive works by Garcin (1833) and Lenthérin (1879). Descriptive sketches of some of the antiquities and architecture are given in Baring-Gould's In Troubadour Land (1891). See also ANJOU, FRANCE, AVIGNON.