ABSTRACT
A ABBEVILLE. The town of Abbeville (Somme) was an important center on the Somme River that became the seat of the county of Ponthieu. In 1184, the count recognized a commune that the townspeople had organized some years earlier. The heiress to the county married Ferdinand III of Castile in 1257, and Ponthieu became the dowry of their daughter Eleanor when she married Edward I of England. Abbeville passed back and forth between France and England during the Hundred Years’ War and was one of the strategic towns along the Somme
that were given to the duke of Burgundy in 1435 subject to repurchase by the king of France. Louis XI exercised this option in 1463, but the town was regained by Burgundy for a few more years before the French king acquired it permanently.
