During the early Middle Ages, the count of Tours was the ruler of the old Roman pagus Turonicus: the city of Tours and its hinterland, the Touraine.
Under the Merovingians, counts at Tours were appointed local representatives of the king, such as the base-born Leudast who had made his way at the Paris court of Charibert I and was appointed count at Tours by the king in the 570s, to the disgust of Gregory of Tours.
The Capetian House of Anjou, or House of Anjou-Sicily was a royal house and cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty. It is one of three separate royal houses referred to as Angevin, meaning "from Anjou" in France. Founded by Charles I of Anjou, the youngest son of Louis VIII of France, the Capetian king first ruled the Kingdom of Sicily during the 13th century. The War of the Sicilian Vespers later forced him out of the island of Sicily, leaving him with the southern half of the Italian Peninsula, known as the Kingdom of Naples. The house and its various branches would go on to influence much of the history of Southern and Central Europe during the Middle Ages until it became extinct in 1435.
Historically, the house ruled the Counties of Anjou, Maine, Touraine, Provence and Forcalquier; the Principalities of Achaea and Taranto; and the Kingdoms of Sicily, Naples, Hungary, Croatia, Albania and Poland.