History and Historic Places in Poitou-Charentes – land of Richard the Lionheart, Pilgrims and Roman sites
If there is one thing the Poitou-Charentes has in abundance it’s history. Don’t be fooled by the name - it’s true the words ‘Poitou-Charentes’ have not been mentioned much in historical dispatches but the name and regional councils are mere newcomers, products of the second half of the 20th century.
The region is actually made up of four départements – the Charente, Charente-Maritime, Deux-Sèvres and Vienne – which like the majority of French departments are named after rivers and which date from just after the French Revolution of 1789. (The Charente-Maritime was originally known as Charente-Inférieure but understandably changed its name in 1941!)
But even the département names don’t really convey the history of the region. It’s only when we start to mention names such as Poitou, Angoumois, Saintonge and Aunis – ancient provinces whose names still resonate for local inhabitants – than we get a better idea of the rich history and historics places of the area. No less a person than Eleanor of Aquitaine herself bore the title of Countess of Poitou, for example.
And Poitiers – the ancient capital of Poitou – has given its name to one of the more important though not very well known battles in European history. These names still exist and are by local organisations – especially those involved in tourism - even if they are not the main administrative areas any more. Here, then, are some of the historical highlights of Poitou-Charentes
Prehistory
This area has been inhabited by humans and our distant relatives for a very long time. Caves showing signs of primitive art and drawings can be found in, for example the Charente and the Vienne, dating from the Magdalenian period, roughly 16,000BC to 10,000BC. And in 1979 the skeleton of a young Neanderthal woman – since known as Pierrette – was found in Saint-Césaire in the Charente-Maritime.This dates from 35,000 years ago. The site is now home for a hi-tech interactive exhibition called Paléosite. The Musée D’Angoulême in Angoulême has a good collection of artefacts.
Tribes
When Julius Caesar bought his Roman troops to the area in the first century AD the people he found were the Pictavi or Pictones. (Interestingly, today the people of the region are known as the Picto-Charentais.) Their main settlement was at Lemonum, now better known as Poitiers. Caesar seems to have thought the Pictavi one of the more civilised of Gallic tribes, though that did not stop him sending men to support the great rebellion of Vercingetorix in 52BC. Another nearby tribe were the Santones, based around what is now the town of Saintes and the Saintonge, which straddles modern-day Charente and Charente-Maritime.
What did the Romans do for Poitou-Charentes?
The Romans came this way during the conquest of Gaul (i.e. France) from the middle of the first century BC and as ever they brought with them straight roads, villas, temples, theatres – and baths. One of the best examples of Roman remains in the region is at Chassenon, or Cassinomagus as it was known to the Romans. Here you can find baths, a theatre and the remains of a temple.
At Saintes are the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre and an impressive arch built in 19AD. Another good place to get an idea of life in Roman times is the Musée de Rauranum at Rom in the Deux-Sèvres. This area was part of the Roman province of Aquitania but later as the Western Roman Empire weakened and eventually died it came under Visigoth rule.
The Visigoths were in turn defeated by the Franks at the start of the 6th century AD in a decisive battle near Poitiers – by no means the last important military encounter that would occur near this historic town. The epic Battle of Vouillé – which is on an old Roman road west of Poitiers - took place in the spring of 507 and the Frankish king Clovis I, riding a white horse, himself killed the Visigoth king Alaric II. It is from the Franks – who came from what is now Germany - that France gets its name.
Battle of Poitiers
If the Battle of Vouillé near Poitiers in 507 was an important moment in the development of the Frankish nation, then the Battle of Poitiers of 732 AD was an even more crucial encounter in European history. This battle – which is sometimes known as the Battle of Tours – took place near Moussais-la-Bataille (now called Vouneuil-sur-Vienne) abut 15 miles north east of Poitiers. Pitted against each other were on the one side a joint army of Franks and Burgundians led by Charles Martel, and on the other an army led by Abdulrahman al-Ghafiqi, governor of the province of Al-Andalus (the Iberian peninsula).
The Moors had invaded the peninsula just two decades earlier and were now pushing further north into what is now France and potentially other parts of Europe. The outcome was a decisive victory for Charles Martel, and permanently checked the Moors’ advance – some historians have suggested it helped save Christian Western Europe from Islamic rule. However it was not the end of Christian/Islamic conflict in the region. At the start of the 9th century the great Frankish warrior king Charlemagne is said to have won a battle against the Moors at Tailleboug in the Charente Valley, north of Saintes.
Pilgrims’ progress
If you look at a map of France you can see that Poitou-Charentes lies across what would have been one of the major land routes from northern France down to Spain, avoiding the Massif Central to the east. This means that this region has long been visited by pilgrims making their way to Spanish town of Santiago de Compostela (Saint-Jacques de Compostelle in French) where it is believed that the bones of the apostle Saint James are buried. St James was also said to have appeared to inspire a Christian army victory against the Moors in 844AD, from which time his name was forever associated with the ‘Reconquista’ – the slow process of expelling the Moors from Spain that took until 1492.
Santiago – the name is Spain for Saint James – thus became the third most holy city in Christendom, after Rome and Jerusalem. Believers have headed on pilgrimage there for more than a thousand years by a variety of routes, some of them crossing Poitou-Charentes. There are numerous places in this region where the old routes passed and where pilgrims still tread – for example the Boutonne Valley near Tonnay-Boutonne and St-Jean-d’Angély in the Charente-Maritime, and further south in the same department in the Seugne Valley either side of Pons.
Many villages boast an old hostelry or resting place where pilgrims once stayed at the end of a day’s trek, for example the attractive village of Tusson in the Charente. Another small town on the route is Thouars in the north of the Deux-Sèvres; indeed just across the river is the appropriately-named small village of Saint-Jacques-de-Thouars.
Richard the Lionheart
Perhaps the best-known figure associated with this region is Richard the Lionheart, or Richard Coeur de Lion as he is known to the French. Though of course he was King of England (from 1189 until his death in 1199) and he was born in England, Richard spoke little English and spent much of his time away from the country of his birth – either on crusade or in France. One of Richard’s titles was Duke of Aquitaine, an area much bigger than the region of today, and one that included much of modern-day Poitou-Charentes, including Angoulême.
It also encompassed Poitou (essentially today’s Vienne and Deux-Sèvres) where the ruler was the Count of Poitou – usually held as a minor title by the Duke (or Duchess) of Aquitaine, as it was for example by Richard’s mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine.
Richard spent a turbulent time in Aquitaine, whether rebelling against his father Henry II or facing rebellion or invasion from various barons or even his own brothers. In 1179, for example, he captured the supposedly unassailable fortress at Taillebourg in the Charente Valley north of Saintes, from rebels.
A few years later, faced with another rebellion, this time over who would be the Count of Angoulême, Richard was forced once more to fight. This time his fighting took him into the Périgord and Limousin, both then part of the Duchy of Aquitaine.
The area around which he fought at this time now forms part of an interesting tourist attraction along the so-called Route Richard Coeur de Lion. Richard the Lionheart met his end just over the border from modern day Poitou-Charentes, when he was struck by a crossbow bolt as he and his men laid siege to the château at Châlus in what is now the Haute–Vienne department in the Limousin. He died a few days later.
Richard’s younger brother John – the one who signed Magna Carta – also had connections with the region as he married Isabella of Angoulême, a well-connected young woman with whom he was apparently smitten. Their son Henry III was to rule for 56 years.
Richard’s mother, the famous and remarkable Eleanor of Aquitaine, also has a very strong link with this region, notably through the court she ran at Poitiers after her marriage to Henry II of England in 1152.
Hundred Years War
This famous Anglo-French conflict actually lasted rather more than 100 years – it started in 1337 and ended in 1453 – though there were periods of relative calm and peace during this period. This was the war or series of wars that saw the Plantagenets from England vying with the House of Valois for the kingdom of France. Ultimately the House of Valois won, with the English expelled from all of France except Calais. And as so often in Anglo-French disputes, the region that is now Poitou-Charentes.
François and Marguerite of Angoulême
François I, who was king of France from 1515 to 1547 and was a close contemporary of Henry VIII in England, was born in Cognac in the Charente in 1494. François is often regarded as the first Renaissance monarch in France and was renowned as a man of matters and patron of the arts, and built up a fine collection of paintings. He also persuaded the ageing Leonardo da Vinci to come and stay in France, the great man bringing his Mona Lisa painting with him.
The young François was also Count of Angoulême – his father’s old title – until acceding to the throne.
François’s sister Marguerite (sometimes known as Margaret in English books) was every bit at interesting and remarkable character as her brother. Marguerite of Angoulême – or Marguerite of Navarre as she is also known after her second husband – was born in the fateful year of 1492 in Angoulême itself. An intelligent woman, she was well-educated and after her brother became king became very influential as a patron of the arts and of humanist thinkers.
She was also an accomplished writer in her own right, authoring the selection of short stories known as the Heptameron. In later life she had a place built in beautiful village of Tusson in the Charente where she spent most of her time. The building is still known as the ‘Logis Marguerite d'Angoulême’.
Wars of Religion and La Rochelle
The Wars of Religion were a series of conflicts in 16th century France fought between Catholics and French Protestants (known as Huguenots) over the rights of the latter to follow their own form of worship. They ended in 1598 with the Edict of Nantes, a charter that granted a degree of religious freedom to Protestants. Once again Poitou-Charentes features in this important period of French history – not least because La Rochelle had by then become a centre of French Protestantism.
Others towns in Poitou-Charentes, such as Saintes and Poitiers, also had sizeable Protestant populations. After the infamous St Bartholomew Day’s Massacre in 1572 – in which thousands of them were slaughtered across the country – many French Protestants fled to La Rochelle, which was already largely Protestant, had strong defences and had access to the relative safety of the sea. Catholic troops besieged the town, although the siege ended with a negotiated settlement in the summer of 1573. Freedom of worship was then granted to French Protestants in just three towns – Nîmes, Montauban and La Rochelle itself.
The more wide-ranging Edict of Nantes in 1598 appeared to bring the religious conflicts to an end. In truth, it was little more than a cease-fire. In the 17th century conflict again broke out between the majority Catholics and minority Protestants and in 1627 La Rochelle once again came under siege as Louis XIII’s top adviser and official Cardinal Richelieu personally led a military campaign against the Huguenots. Despite support from the English – who landed a force on nearby Île-de-Ré – the French Protestants eventually succumbed after 14 weary months.
Limited rights still gave Protestants some protection until 1685 when Louis XIV formally revoked the Edict of Nantes, effectively outlawing Protestantism in France. Many Protestants, including from La Rochelle, chose to flee the country, with some choosing England as their new home.
See also:
Phare des Baleines - lighthouse on Île-de-Ré
Phare de Chassiron - lighthouse on Île d'Oléron
Hermione replica ship construction at Rochefort
Words: Michael STREETER
Photograph: Fotolia.com