My Burgundy Your Burgundy History, culture and nature

April 3, 2011

Ecouter le Monde… Sculptor Bernard Dejonghe at the Bibracte Museum

Filed under: Culture,History,Nature — admin @ 3:46 pm

When I read that Bibracte Museum was not going to have an archaeological exhibition this year I was disappointed. I much enjoyed last year’s Gallic heads exhibition, and the previous year’s La Tene display, and was looking forward to something similar. (The Museum also traditionally has an annual small modern art exhibition, but I’ll confess none have stuck in my memory.)

But after seeing Ecouter le Monde (Listening to the World), by sculptor Bernard Dejonghe, I am disappointed no longer. To start with it is not just modern art, but it starts, temporally if not physically, in the far distant past, with astonishing curiosities from North African deserts.

Among these are pieces what is known as Libyan desert glass, thought (although this is still a subject of much controversy) to have been formed by meteorite impact some 26 million years ago.

There are also fulgerites, formed by lightning strikes on sand, millions of joules of energy trapped in fragile equilibrium.

fulgerites

And then there’s the grand daddy of geological moment, 77 fragments of the meteorite gathered from Tafassasset in Niger, gathered by the artist over three expeditions and arranged here from largest to smallest like the tail of a comet. The massive heat of the force of the passage through the atmosphere is visible on some of the pieces.
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February 20, 2011

Some snippets of local Burgundian medieval history

Filed under: History — admin @ 5:43 pm

I’ve been reading Chris Wickham’s The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000 and was pleased to find that Burgundy features quite prominently.

We have Theodoric the Ostrogoth giving the Burgundian monarch Gundobad a water-clock in about 506, which Wickham says, was designed to show the superiority of Italian/Roman technology. (p. 218)

Wickham talks about the centrality of kings in the Merovingian political system, the place of aristocrats and bishops defined by court politics. That he says that local politics could have place, the bishops in particular who threw themselves too heartily into central government politics could be unpopular. “When Leudegar of Autun was finally destroyed by Ebroin in 676-8 it is clear he got little support Autun itself.” (p. 127)

Autun also features earlier, in the late 460s, as Sidonius Apollinarus tells a friend, the bishops of Lyon and Autun had to choose a new compatriot in Chalon-sur-Saone. “there were three candidates, unnamed, one claiming office because his family was old, one who had built up support in the city by feeding the people, and one who promised church land to supporters. The bishops instead chose the holy cleric John, who had slowly moved up the church heirarchy, thus confounding the local factions.” (p. 50)

Getting into Carolingian times, Autun was in the early 860s held by Count Bernard “Hairy-paws” (i.e. foxy, d. 886) of the Guilhelmid family, which had got tangled up in civil wars in earlier decades, not to its benefit. In 864 “for unclear reasons, he tried to assassinate either Robert the Strong or Charles the Bald himself; he lost most of his honores at once, and Autun two years later.” But he was able to recover, return to court, and start accumulating lands again – his son called himself duke of Aquitaine. (p. 511)

After the Carolingian empire broke up (887-8) into five kingdoms, the first Burgundian king was Rudolph. from Queen Judith’s family. “What destroyed Carolingian power was simply genealogy. There had always been too many Carolingians…. as late as 870 there were eight legitimate adult male Carolingians, all kings or ambitious to become kings. In 885, however, there was only one… Charles ‘the Fat’ … reunited the whole empire in 884 for the first time since 840…Charles was ill, and had only an illegitimate son.” (p. 402)

And we have the Macon famous as “one of the nest-documented areas of tenth- and eleventh-century Europe, thanks to the thousands of charters of the monastery of Cluny, and thanks also to Georges Duby’s epoch-making regional study of 1953”. What Wickham sees is “the pulverization of the structures of the county, and the takeover of all the public traditions of the state by private landholding families”. (p. 515) So he follows one family the Uxelles lords, who by the second quarter of the eleventh century had descended to having rights of over only around 100 square kilometres, “by no means all of it directly controlled by the family.”

Those are mere fragments, but one of the things I find fascinating about this area is that you can often be walking on the ground where these events happened, or even between the walls that held them…

October 2, 2010

Was this what a Druid looked like? The Gaullish head exhibition at Bibracte (“Les Gaulois font la tête”)

Filed under: Culture,History — admin @ 4:01 pm

It’s a tenet of archaeological faith that the Celts had a primarily non-figurative art, but the current exhibition at Bibracte, the museum at the Eduen capital that was later replaced by nearby Roman Autun, focuses on what can be found from across the continent.

Its basic thesis is that the most dominant objects, sculpted heads, occasionally in wood (but how many might have survived?) but more commonly in stone, probably represent a cult of ancestor worship, the subsequent understanding being hopelessly warped by the Greco-Roman religious perspective on which most of our written knowledge of the Celtic civilisation is based. It says we can’t know if they had a funerary function, or votive, but were certainly meant to provide magical protection, security and prestige to their community.

In smaller items, handles for metal vessels, swords, jewelery and the like, there’s figures in which the vegetable is transforming into human forms. The catalogue suggests these represent a form of metamorphosis, a suggestion that the metaphysical is present always in the everyday.

(I learnt,which I hadn’t previously known, that the Celts often believed in reincarnation.)

The other thing about Celts and heads is that they seem to have been rather fascinated with skulls, not just, perhaps the taking of heads in battle, but beyond that. There’s quite a number here, including a particularly gory one with a nail driven through it, whether pre or post mortem isn’t clear – perhaps for display on a wall? The exhibition reports that fragments of craniums were carried in amulets. In one case a buried body was left whole after the face was carefully cut out.
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July 30, 2010

Morvan, then and now…

Filed under: History — admin @ 9:29 am

Extracts from Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches by Henri de Crignelle (1851).

Pictures from the 21st century.

“In the woods … the storms there are sometimes terrible, and, like those of the tropics, arise and terminate with wonderful rapidity. These tempests, which purify the atmosphere, leave behind them a delicious coolness, the trees and shrubs, as they shake from their trembling leaves their sparkling tears, appear so bright—the flowers which raise again their drooping heads, load the air with such delightful odours—the whole forest, in short, seems so refreshed and full of life, that every one hails their approach, the toil-worn peasant breathes without complaint the sultry air, and observes with pleasure the dark and lowering clouds gathering in the far horizon.”

rainbow

“No; there scarcely breathes the human being who could be so insensible to the charms of scenery like that of Le Morvan…”

butterfly

“If the woods and forests of Le Morvan, which, by the clouds they attract, the thunder-storms that continually fall over them, and the moisture that generally prevails, feed a great many streams, the district is not the less deprived, by its elevated position, of large rivers and extensive sheets of water; for the rains, falling down the sides of the trees, and penetrating the thick mossy grass at their roots, do not remain for any length of time on the surface of the earth. The whole forest may, in fact, be described as a large sponge, through which the water filters, descending to the inferior strata, where it finds the secret drains of Nature, and is by them conducted into the plains.”

Morvan forest

“Le Morvan is certainly not a country for a petit-mâitre or a delicate lady to live in; to enjoy yourself there you must have the fire and energy of youth in your veins, a stout heart, the lungs of a mountaineer, and a sinewy frame. You must love a forester’s life, the hound and the rifle… to him who in the full sense of the term is a sporting man, or a lover of nature, I would say: Go—explore Le Morvan!”

Morvan hills

July 22, 2010

The ‘Fete du crapiaux’ at St Prix

Filed under: Culture,History — admin @ 8:39 am

Despite the fact that I can’t eat crepes (gluten), the thought of a pleasant ride (10km or so from La Grande-Verriere) through glorious countryside on Sunday, with a country fair at the end of it, was irresistible.

And I didn’t regret those hills – it was a lovely local, social occasion, just like country things you read about from decades ago in England.

The flashest, most “modern” thing was two bouncy castles, whose operators were looking pretty glum and unoccupied.

What was really going down well with the under 10s were these wonderful old pedalcarts … lots of fun was being had.

horse pedal carts

But for those too big for those, the band was the thing – three accordians, two bagpipes, and a wind-up thing that looked kind of like a mandolin (no idea what it is called in French or English). I was very impressed at how many people seemed to know the traditional dances!

And the other main grown-up entertainment (well other than drinking and chatting) were two simple, but very challenging, games.
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July 17, 2010

A visit to Nevers

Filed under: History — admin @ 12:46 pm

What happens to a town when its heyday was the 16th century? When everything’s been downhill since then.

Nevers, in Nievre, is a place you can find out. The ducal palace, a piece of Renaissance perfection, was finished in 1595, and that was pretty well the final high point of the town’s architectural (and I suspect economic) life. It’s so heavily restored now that there’s little historic sense, although there’s a nice view from the top, and regular exhibitions.

Before that Never must have been a buzzing kind of place – at the forefront of miliitary technology…

And in 1097 what is regarded as one of the most perfect examples of the Romanesque (it hasn’t been mucked around with since), the Church of St Etienne was completed.

St Etienne Nevers

The inside is beautifully proportioned, and it has that weighty solidity that makes me fall for the era’s buildings, but its perfect proportions (which the pic below hints at – very hard to photograph) did leave me feeling like this is the end of the era (which it was) – everything was worked out and it was time for something new, unlike the cathedral in nearby Tournus, which is much more knockabout and uncertain, but therefore exciting.

St Etienne Nevers
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July 14, 2010

A visit to Chalon-sur-Saone

Filed under: Culture,History — admin @ 9:49 am

Chalon-sur-Saone is Burgundy’s second-biggest city. Its primary claim to tourist fame is its old centre, with its half-timbered and sometimes highly decorated shop houses. It’s a pity though that what’s on street level now is a rather prosaic collection of the usual chain stores, with their identikit fronts, which take away any sense of atmosphere.

Chalon-sur-Saone cathedral square

This is on the main square facing the cathedral (much hacked about and really quite dull – a lovely piece of stained glass in the sacristry window being one of its few claims to fame. This detail shows one of the beasts of the Apocalypse).

Chalon-sur-Saone cathedral stained glass

Museum-wise, the central place to go is the Denon, in the home of one of the town’s most famous sons, which boasts a fine (if rather crowded) archaeological collection in its basement. There’s a particular focus on the river, key to life her for millennium, and the source of many of the finds.

There’s an almost complete 14th-century boat, seriously evocative, and Roman wharf timbers, but the item that really grabbed me was the slave’s padlock and chain – from the Gallo-Roman period, so more than 2,000 years ago this was holding, with a chain around his or her arm, one no-doubt miserable member of a line of slaves to the next. (Or possibly one slave to a captor?) It’s the sort of thing that you could build a whole novel from.

slave padlock

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October 4, 2009

The history of Chateau de la Perriere

Filed under: History — admin @ 4:19 am

This came from a talk on “Nettoyage des Fosses” (Cleaning the Foundations) in Etang-sur Arroux, by Jean-Loup Flouest last month. It comes with a health warning – I was stretching my French to the limits. I’m pretty confident everything I’ve written here is accurate, but I’d suggest checking if you’re going to base an essay on it!

The chateau can be visited at any time, although it isn’t yet signposted. Coming from Le Creusot, at the entrance to Etang follow the signs for “La Grotte”, an uninteresting collection of religious statues that is, however, handily marking the chateau site, on the opposite side of the road. It is on an outcrop overlooking the modern village, and there is an information board setting out the main facts.

Here is what it looks like now…
chateaudelaperriere
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September 29, 2009

Augustodunum: the glory days of Autun

Filed under: History — admin @ 2:26 pm

To begin with Roman Autun (Augustodunum), you might best start outside it, at the mammoth, hugely impressive “temple of Janus”. The scare quotes are there because the name arose from the 17th-century misunderstanding – the name of the plant dominating in the field around it sounding a bit like the two-faced deity. One guess suggests Mars (since his temples were often outside the entrances to towns), but it doesn’t get any more informed than that.

templeofjanus

What is certain is its impressiveness – standing to its original 24m on one side – even though the structure itself was a ruin from 269 and the attack of Victorinus. By the start of the 17th-century it looked like it does today – although night lighting has recently been added for a romantic touch.

templeofjanus

The original form, a central temple surrounded by a wooden arcade, is Gaulish – possibly this was an early structure as Augustodonum took over from Bibracte as the local capital. A major religious ceremony would have seen the main statue of the god, housed usually in the inner cella, carried in procession around the arcade.

Now’s a good time to imagine the beginnings of this planned town. Augustus decided to move the capital of Gaul from nearby Bibracte, and choose this site for its convenient location at the natural confluence of the Seine, Saone and Rhone trade routes. There was probably also already a road, predating the Romans. For all of this trade the site of Autun, on a small hill beside the river, was far more convenient than the hill fort, with its steep location.

Around the temple of Janus, a guide suggested on the Days of Patrimony this month, may have been the site of the original Gaulish town, but it is still regularly flooded, burying remains, and since no new structures are being built here, so the rescue archaeology that results in most new discoveries is not being conducted.

Augustus began the town – and planned it carefully. The slopes of the hill were terraced (those very terraces still being the foundations of many still-standing buildings, then the ramparts constructed. These were not really, our guide suggested, for defense, but rather to impress and awe.

Nearby – follow the signs for walking to Porte d’Arroux – you could have entered the town, through a large extant gateway. The story has it that its form helped to inspire the 12th-century cathedral architect, with fake triple arches over his gallery.
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July 5, 2009

The Summer Medieval Fair in Autun High Town

Filed under: History — admin @ 4:24 pm

I had my doubts when I saw the signs – would this be a commercial extravaganza? Well I shouldn’t have worried. It wasn’t widely publicised – I only found out about it by seeing advance no-parking signs while trying to navigate the further reaches of the one-way system – and mostly it seemed to be the locals having a good time.

medieval dance

…even if they weren’t always too sure of the steps.
medieval dance
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