The location of two hemipelagic sequences, at the northern and southern edges of the Aquitaine shelf offers the possibility of obtaining a synoptic view of the southern Bay of Biscay oceanography, but also provides access to key contextual elements related to local and global forcing. These sequences were retrieved off the two main fluvial tributaries along the Aquitaine margin (southern Bay of Biscay) from the West Gironde mud patch and from the Capbreton canyon meanders. We focus on the interpretation of the sedimentological signal based on key X-ray fluorescence (XRF) elemental profiles along the cores for the last millennium. The robust and coherent new age models obtained for the two sequences allow us to tentatively relate the XRF signals to the hydroclimatological regime of the Bay of Biscay, and to compile and discuss a chronicle of the environmental changes at a regional scale, including the proximal continent, and in the larger synoptic view of the well-known European and North Atlantic historical frameworks. As expected, our results discriminate specific climatic trends, highlighting in particular the Medieval Warm Period, the Little Ice Age and the Current Warm Period. The climatic patterns identified during these specific phases are discussed in the light of recent advances in our knowledge of their modes of variability, and raise the question of teleconnections between the North Atlantic Oscillation, Atlantic sea-surface conditions and dynamics, together with atmospheric ones and especially storminess over Europe.