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A mountain kingdom
Jun. 12th, 2005 12:28 pmWe walked, in the end, from Aire sur l'Adour, in the Landes (40), to the chapel at Olhaïby in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques (64). But these names and numbers represent the modern map of France, the departmental system codified after the Revolution; we walked from Gascony, through Béarn into the Basque country. And of these three, it was Béarn that was the surprise.
Wikipedia sums it up: Béarn is a small territory, tucked into the Pyrenees and their nothern foothills, wedged between France and Spain "comme un pou que se disputaient deux singes (like a louse between two monkeys)" according to its king Henri d'Albret.
Through the middle ages, it preserved its independence, despite falling by inheritance into the hands of one lord after another: Gaston Phoebus paid homage to the French king for his county of Foix, but refused to do so for Béarn; later it became the property of the kings of Navarre, across the Pyrenees in Spain; even when Henri of Navarre became Henri IV of France, Béarn remained a separate kingdom which shared the same king as France. One result of this delayed unification with France is that Béarn was not bound by the edict that laws should be passed in French (i.e., not in Latin; but also, not in the local language) and continued to legislate in Occitan until the Revolution.
It's farming country; in late May, the wheat was high in the fields, but maize was still being planted (we had the impression that, day by day, we could see it growing). It was hay-making season, and tractors roared precariously across small fields at odd angles on hillsides. There are cattle (the coat of arms of Béarn is two red cows on a golden background) and vines. The farms are large, stone-built houses with slate or tile roofs, facing the farm outbuildings across a shady courtyard. And I'll let Elizabeth David tell you what they eat in those farms: ( but behind a cut, because this is long enough already )
Not to mention the towns with their medieval churches or sixteenth century fortifications, perched high above fast-flowing rivers of blue-green water from the snow of the Pyrenees.
Wikipedia sums it up: Béarn is a small territory, tucked into the Pyrenees and their nothern foothills, wedged between France and Spain "comme un pou que se disputaient deux singes (like a louse between two monkeys)" according to its king Henri d'Albret.
Through the middle ages, it preserved its independence, despite falling by inheritance into the hands of one lord after another: Gaston Phoebus paid homage to the French king for his county of Foix, but refused to do so for Béarn; later it became the property of the kings of Navarre, across the Pyrenees in Spain; even when Henri of Navarre became Henri IV of France, Béarn remained a separate kingdom which shared the same king as France. One result of this delayed unification with France is that Béarn was not bound by the edict that laws should be passed in French (i.e., not in Latin; but also, not in the local language) and continued to legislate in Occitan until the Revolution.
It's farming country; in late May, the wheat was high in the fields, but maize was still being planted (we had the impression that, day by day, we could see it growing). It was hay-making season, and tractors roared precariously across small fields at odd angles on hillsides. There are cattle (the coat of arms of Béarn is two red cows on a golden background) and vines. The farms are large, stone-built houses with slate or tile roofs, facing the farm outbuildings across a shady courtyard. And I'll let Elizabeth David tell you what they eat in those farms: ( but behind a cut, because this is long enough already )
Not to mention the towns with their medieval churches or sixteenth century fortifications, perched high above fast-flowing rivers of blue-green water from the snow of the Pyrenees.
