Bastide
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Bastides are fortified new towns built in
medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
Languedoc The Province of Languedoc (; , ; oc, Lengadòc ) is a former province of France. Most of its territory is now contained in the modern-day region of Occitanie in Southern France. Its capital city was Toulouse. It had an area of approximately ...
, Gascony,
Aquitaine Aquitaine ( , , ; oc, Aquitània ; eu, Akitania; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Aguiéne''), archaic Guyenne or Guienne ( oc, Guiana), is a historical region of southwestern France and a former administrative region of the country. Since 1 Janu ...
,
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
and
Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...
during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, although some authorities count
Mont-de-Marsan Mont-de-Marsan (; Occitan: ''Lo Mont de Marçan'') is a commune and capital of the Landes department, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, southwestern France. Population Military installations The French Air and Space Force operates the '' Constantin Roza ...
and
Montauban Montauban (, ; oc, Montalban ) is a commune in the Tarn-et-Garonne department, region of Occitania, Southern France. It is the capital of the department and lies north of Toulouse. Montauban is the most populated town in Tarn-et-Garonne, ...
, which was founded in 1144, as the first bastides.
Bastide Bastides are fortified new towns built in medieval Languedoc, Gascony, Aquitaine, England and Wales during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, although some authorities count Mont-de-Marsan and Montauban, which was founded in 1144, as the fir ...
in the French Wikipedia, retrieved March 8, 2007.
Some of the first bastides were built under
Raymond VII of Toulouse Raymond VII (July 1197 – 27 September 1249) was Count of Toulouse, Duke of Narbonne and Marquis of Provence from 1222 until his death. Family and marriages Raymond was born at the Château de Beaucaire, the son of Raymond VI of Toulouse ...
to replace villages destroyed in the Albigensian Crusade. He encouraged the construction of others to colonize the wilderness, especially of southwest France. Almost 700 bastides were built between 1222 (
Cordes-sur-Ciel Cordes-sur-Ciel (; , ) is a commune in the Tarn department, region of Occitania, Southern France. The fortified town was built in 1222 by Raimond VII, the Count of Toulouse, who, though not a Cathar, tolerated what other Catholics considered he ...
, Tarn) and 1372 (La Bastide d'Anjou, Tarn).


History

were developed in number under the terms of the
Treaty of Paris (1229) The Treaty of Paris, also known as Treaty of Meaux, was signed on 12 April 1229 between Raymond VII of Toulouse and Louis IX of France in Meaux near Paris. Louis was still a minor, and it was his mother Blanche of Castile, as regent, who was inst ...
, which permitted
Raymond VII of Toulouse Raymond VII (July 1197 – 27 September 1249) was Count of Toulouse, Duke of Narbonne and Marquis of Provence from 1222 until his death. Family and marriages Raymond was born at the Château de Beaucaire, the son of Raymond VI of Toulouse ...
to build new towns in his shattered domains but not to fortify them. When the Capetian
Alphonse of Poitiers Alphonse or Alfonso (11 November 122021 August 1271) was the count of Poitou from 1225 and count of Toulouse (as such called Alphonse II) from 1249. As count of Toulouse, he also governed the Marquisate of Provence. Birth and early life Born at P ...
inherited, under a marriage stipulated by the treaty, this " founder of unparalleled energy" consolidated his regional control in part through the founding of . Landowners supported development of to generate revenues from
tax A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or n ...
es on trade rather than
tithes A tithe (; from Old English: ''teogoþa'' "tenth") is a one-tenth part of something, paid as a contribution to a religious organization or compulsory tax to government. Today, tithes are normally voluntary and paid in cash or cheques or more ...
(taxes on production). Farmers who elected to move their families to were no longer
vassal A vassal or liege subject is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. While the subordinate party is called a vassal, the dominant party is called a suzerain ...
s of the local lord and became free men and the development of contributed to the waning of
feudalism Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structur ...
. The new inhabitants were encouraged to cultivate the land around the bastide, which, in turn, attracted trade in the form of merchants and markets. The lord taxed dwellings in the bastides and all trade in the market. The legal footing on which the bastides were set was that of '' paréage'' with the local ruling power, based on a formal written contractual agreement between the landholder and a
count of Toulouse The count of Toulouse ( oc, comte de Tolosa, french: comte de Toulouse) was the ruler of Toulouse during the 8th to 13th centuries. Originating as vassals of the Frankish kings, the hereditary counts ruled the city of Toulouse and its surroundin ...
, a king of France, or a king of England. The landholder might be a cartel of local lords or the abbot of a local monastery. Responsibilities and benefits were carefully framed in a charter, which delineated the ''franchises'' ("liberties") and ''coutumes'' ("customs") of the bastide. Feudal rights were invested in the sovereign, with the local lord retaining some duties as enforcer of local justice and intermediary between the new inhabitants— required to build houses within a specified time, often a year, and the representatives of the sovereign. Residents were granted a houselot, a kitchen garden lot (''casale''), and a cultivable lot (''arpent'') on the periphery of the bastide's lands. The bastide hall and the church were often first constructed of wood. After the bastide was established, they were replaced by structures of stone.


Structural elements

Scholarly debate has taken place over the definition of a bastide. They are now generally described as any town planned and built as a unit, by one founder. Most bastides were developed with a grid layout of intersecting streets, with wide thoroughfares that divide the town plan into ''insulae'', or blocks, through which a narrow lane often runs. They included a central market square surrounded by arcades (''couverts'') through which the axes of thoroughfares passed, with a covered weighing and measuring area. The market square often provided the module into which the bastide is subdivided. The Roman model, the ''
castrum In the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a po ...
'' with its grid plan and central forum, was inescapable in a region since Roman planning precedents survived in medieval cities such as Béziers,
Narbonne Narbonne (, also , ; oc, Narbona ; la, Narbo ; Late Latin:) is a commune in Southern France in the Occitanie region. It lies from Paris in the Aude department, of which it is a sub-prefecture. It is located about from the shores of the ...
,
Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Pa ...
,
Orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower *Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum * ...
and
Arles Arles (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Arle ; Classical la, Arelate) is a coastal city and commune in the South of France, a subprefecture in the Bouches-du-Rhône department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, in the former province of ...
. The region of the bastides had been one of the last outposts of
Late Antiquity Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English ha ...
in the West.


Central square

The main feature of all bastides is a central, open place, or square. It was used for markets, but also used for political and social gatherings. A typical square, (which was probably a model for other bastides), can be found in Montauban. Generally, there is just one square. Saint-Lys and Albias are different because they have two squares, one for the market and one square for the church. The square is also used to divide the city into quarters. Generally, it lies outside the main street (the axis) which carried the traffic. There are three possible layouts: Completely closed: The square does not touch any street. These are very rare; there is one example at Tournay with a size of 70 metres (230 ft) by 72 m (236 ft)). Single-axis: The single-axis design of the bastide makes all roads run in one direction and are parallel. Here and there, there are alleys cut between the roads. The square is placed between two roads. These squares are usually 50 m (164 ft) to 55 m (180 ft) on each side. Grid-layout; usually based on the square in Montauban. Generally the flattest place in the bastide was used for the square.


Church

The church was almost never on the central square but usually at an angle, facing the square diagonally. One of the rare exceptions is Villefranche-de-Rouergue but this one was built two centuries after the square.


Houses

There were clear rules how houses could be built inside the bastide. The front of the houses, the façades, had to line up. Also, there had to be a small space between the houses. The different housing lots were all alike, 8 m (26 ft) by 24 m (79 ft) being a common size. There were only a limited number of lots. This varied between ten and several thousand (3,000 in Grenade-sur-Garonne)


Streets

The streets were usually wide, so a chariot could pass through. They ran alongside the façades of the houses. Alleys run between streets, these are usually only wide. Sometimes, they are only wide. In a bastide there were usually between one and eight streets.


City walls

When bastides were founded, most had no city walls or fortifications because it was a peaceful time in history, and walls were prohibited by the
Treaty of Paris (1229) The Treaty of Paris, also known as Treaty of Meaux, was signed on 12 April 1229 between Raymond VII of Toulouse and Louis IX of France in Meaux near Paris. Louis was still a minor, and it was his mother Blanche of Castile, as regent, who was inst ...
. Fortifications were added later and were paid for through a special tax or carried out through a law that required the people of the city to help build the walls. A good example is Libourne. Ten years after the city was founded, the people asked for money to build city walls. Once they had received the money, they spent it on making their city prettier, rather than building walls. At the beginning of the Hundred Years' War, many bastides that had no city walls were destroyed. Some of the others quickly built stone walls to protect the city.


Structure and location

Ease of tax collection was another reason for the grid layout, as the village was taxable module by module, and the organized central area. The bastides' forms resulted from "the friction engendered by interaction, expedience, pragmatism, legal compromise, and profit," Adrian Randolph observed in 1995. More rarely, such planned cities were developed according to a circular plan. Some bastides were not so geometrically planned: "The block geometry of the bastides was not a rigid framework into which a town was squeezed; it resembles more closely a net, thrown upon the site and adapting to its nuances," Randolph remarks.Randolph 1995:301. Most bastides were built in the
Lot-et-Garonne Lot-et-Garonne (, oc, Òlt e Garona) is a department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of Southwestern France. Named after the rivers Lot and Garonne, it had a population of 331,271 in 2019.Dordogne Dordogne ( , or ; ; oc, Dordonha ) is a large rural department in Southwestern France, with its prefecture in Périgueux. Located in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region roughly half-way between the Loire Valley and the Pyrenees, it is name ...
, Gers and
Haute-Garonne Haute-Garonne (; oc, Nauta Garona, ; en, Upper Garonne) is a department in the Occitanie region of Southwestern France. Named after the river Garonne, which flows through the department. Its prefecture and main city is Toulouse, the country' ...
''départements'' of France, because of the altitude and quality of the soil. Some were constructed in important defensive positions. The best-known today are probably
Andorra la Vella Andorra la Vella french: Andorre-la-Vieille is the capital of the Principality of Andorra. It is located high in the east Pyrenees, between France and Spain. It is also the name of the parish that surrounds the capital. , the city has a popu ...
and
Carcassonne Carcassonne (, also , , ; ; la, Carcaso) is a French fortified city in the department of Aude, in the region of Occitanie. It is the prefecture of the department. Inhabited since the Neolithic, Carcassonne is located in the plain of the Au ...
, but the most populated is
Villeneuve-sur-Lot Villeneuve-sur-Lot (; in the Languedocien dialect of Occitan language: ''Vilanuèva d'Òlt'' ) is a town and commune in the southwestern French department of Lot-et-Garonne. The commune was formerly named ''Villeneuve-d'Agen''. Villeneuve-sur-L ...
, the "new town on the River Lot".


See also

* This heritage has been emphasized in the tourism in the southern regions. *
Ring of Iron The Ring of Iron or Iron Ring of Castles was a chain of fortifications and castles built across Wales at Edward I's command after the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in 1282 and the subsequent Conquest of Wales by Edward I of England. Edward spe ...
, a system of fortified settlements implemented in thirteenth century
Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...
.


Notes


References

*Randolph, Adrian, "The Bastides of southwest France" ''The Art Bulletin'' 77.2 (June 1995), pp. 290–307.


Further reading

* *
Beresford, Maurice Maurice Warwick Beresford, (6 February 1920 – 15 December 2005) was an English economic historian and archaeologist specialising in the medieval period. He was Professor of Economic History at the University of Leeds. Early life and educat ...
. (1967) ''New Towns of the Middle Ages. Town Plantation in England, Wales and Gascony''. London. * Boerefijn, Wim (2010) ''The foundation, planning and building of new towns in the 13th and 14th centuries in Europe. An architectural-historical research into urban form and its creation''. PhD. thesis Universiteit van Amsterdam. Esp. chapter 2.

. * Lauret, Alain, Raymond Malebranche & Gilles Séraphin (1988) ''Bastides, villes nouvelles du moyen-age''. Toulouse.


External links


History of the Bastide Towns


Where, when and why they were built. *
Musée des bastides, in Monflanquin, France
*
Site du Centre d'études des bastides

What is a bastide? - Short history in English centered around Cordes sur Ciel.
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120717014535/http://cordessurciel.eu/history/bastides/ , date=2012-07-17
''About the bastides'', John Reps Bastides Collection, Cornell University Library
Medieval French architecture