Читать книгу Walking in the Dordogne. 35 walking routes in the Dordogne - Sarlat, Bergerac, Lalinde and Souillac онлайн

16 страница из 58

By the 12th century the Duchy of Aquitaine owned a vast territory stretching from the Loire to the Pyrenees, with a court at Poitiers that was renowned for sophistication and the code of courtly love. This is where the beautiful Eleanor of Aquitaine grew up, surrounded by troubadours and poets, and as her father’s only child, she inherited the Duchy on his death in 1137. After divorcing her first husband, King Louis of France, she married Henry Plantagenet, Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy, so that when he became King Henry II of England in 1154, the whole of Aquitaine was brought under English rule. Now the English king held sway over as much of France as the French king himself, which caused frequent discontent between the two countries. The Dordogne river formed the frontier between the French and English lands, and hundreds of castles were built in the run-up to the Hundred Years’ War, many on rocky heights commanding strategic positions on the river.

As the Bordeaux wine trade flourished, towns such as Périgueux, Bergerac and Sarlat grew in importance. In addition, between 1250 and 1350 dozens of new towns were built, in order to further promote trade and commerce. These were known as bastides, from the Occitan word bastida, meaning a group of buildings. Some were founded by the French, others by the English, who thus ensured control over their inhabitants, two of the most prolific bastide founders being Alphonse de Poitiers for the French crown, and King Edward I of England. Anyone from the surrounding countryside who was prepared to build and defend the town was allocated two plots of land inside the walls, one for a house and the other for cultivation, and in addition was given exemption from certain taxes. The bastides were all laid out on the same plan, in a square or rectangle, with four main streets running at right angles between the gates, crossed and paralleled by smaller ones in a grid pattern. The streets converged in the centre on an arcaded main square with a covered market hall, the centre of commerce and activity, with a church often off to the side.