Category Archives: Morvan

Books History Morvan

A deprived area, a peasant life, a poor life and rich life: Liguria and Burgundy

June 3, 2012 – 9:50 am

A shorter version of this post was first published on Blogcritics

If I’d been asked when feudalism ended in Europe I’d probably have said around the 17th century or so, at least that was until I read Thin Paths by Julia Blackburn, which tells the story of her first years living in an Italian mountain village in Liguria, near the French border in the 1990s.

It contains a compelling, shocking story of the messadri (“half-people”), who until after the Second World War “belonged to a padrone who was their master and they had to give him half of everything they produced, down to the last kilo of chestnuts, the last egg or cabbage”.

Thin Paths might at first glance look like it belongs in the Year in Provence category – foreigner goes to live in culturally different place and writes an account of the odd doings of the “natives”, but it’s a long way from that – deeply sensitive to the lives of the community she’s moved into, compelling in its detailed account of the natural landscape, and emotionally gripping in its tales of tragedy and loss. Blackburn is at the centre of the story, but she doesn’t dominate – this is the story of the place, and her relationship with it, in that order.

A lot of the tales she gradually hears from the locals are about the war, the violence, the pain, and she allows them to hint at, without probing deeply, the still unspoken events that resonate today. But it was Adriana’s story of being a messadri, and her story of her father’s life, that really got to me:

“Adriana says that she can’t have been more than five years old when her father explained what it meant to be half-people. She had asked him why he always gave their food away, even though they had so little for themselves. ‘We are nothing and we own nothing,’ he told her. ‘We don’t own the walls of the houses we have built, or the land that we work on.’ She remembered that he was upset by his own words and she tried to argue with him, saying she was not half a person and he must have made a mistake – and that made him angry – even though he was a man who rarely showed anger.” (p.71)

It’s interesting when you think back to my broadly feudal times to transpose that scene. I’m reading now David Rollinson’s A Commonwealth of the People: Popular Politics and England’s Long Social Revolution, 1066-1649, which makes the case for a long history of resistance from the “common people” to the feudal system, and it’s not hard to imagine Adriana’s scene transferred back through the centuries.
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Feminism Morvan Politics

Why has Saone et Loire never sent a woman to the French parliament?

June 1, 2012 – 1:05 pm

I keep an amateur interest in French politics, particularly in the region that I visit regularly. A story in my local paper, however, made me pay closer attention than usual – the department, I read, has never sent a female representative to parliament.

And while there are supposed to be statutory rules about gender balance of candidates, the conservative UMP is standing no women as main candidates in this month’s elections and only one alternate. (Although they do seem to have one “shared” female lead candidate.) The story above says that they explained they “rely on the experience of the outgoing members to ensure our chances of having elected officials” (these are all my translations, with machine help – I’m not an expert!).

I’m pleased to see that the Greens, when alternates are counted (each post has a main candidate and an alternate standing), have gender balance. Two of the five main candidates are women.

Jérôme Durain, quoted for the Socialists, and identified as a “reformer”, says women “still have difficulties in discussions where the codes are very male”. National Socialist Party policy is for them to have parity – the story doesn’t spell it out, but I’m guessing they haven’t achieved that in this department from the tone.

Oddly the National Front has women as three of its five candidates, despite the fact a rep said it “proposes a traditional vision of the position of women in society”.

The journalist concludes: “if parity is to improve women’s representation in public space, it is not necessarily a guarantee of social progress”.

The paper also ran another story quoting some of the female candidates on their views on the situation.

Isabelle Dechaume (who if I’ve read it right is a joint UMP and Parti radical candidate) says she is always asked how she can hold down a job, look after her children and do politics – but no one asks the men that.

A Socialist candidate, Cécile Untermaier, says women are never allowed to make mistakes, while men are.

A Green, Nicole Eschmann, says that the men stick together and women have to constantly defend their right to equal treatment.

Edith Gueugneau, a Left candidate, says: “Men feel still legitimate while for women more questions arise.”

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Morvan

The houses of the Morvan (Burgundy)

October 15, 2008 – 12:37 pm

Notes from Living in the Morvan: Our Region’s Heritage: Guide to Renovation and Construction

Recommends for serious reading Marcel Vigreux’s Paysans et notables en Morvan au XiXth siecle jusqu’en 1914 “that gives us the keys to understand the men and the architecture of the Morvan at its zenith, the period when many of its homes were built”.

Suggests a typical farm of mid to late 1800s – couple, four children, who raise a cow, a pig, two goats, some rabbits, chicken and guinea fowl and on three acres grows rye, oats, buckwheat, potatoes and help, depending on the year. Has apple trees and beside them keeps bees. Man also works odd jobs, including floating logs on the river (which no doubt left the wife doing the bulk of the farm work. On the “ouche” (common garden?) everyone grows potatoes, and vegetable garden is women’s preserve.

Since them has been a “closure” of the landscape – with the abandonment of arable land and the integration of conifers into hardwood forest.

Houses are “often turned away from the North wing and the hard rain of the West”.

Arene is decomposed granite that is almost like sand. It is used mixed with clay soil or lime to make mortar.

A day labourer’s cottage would be just one room, originally houses had a thatched roof (chaume), so they came to be known as chaumiere.

A small farmer would have a block type house, with the cottage attached to a barn and cowshed.
Usually there would be 2 to 10 hectares of land with it.

The six-pane window is typical of most historic Morvan architecture, with a short lintel for economy. The model is of a man standing up to look out, but even seated the one meter high breast wall allows a view. Ideally the surround is dressed stone, or otherwise roughened concrete imitating this. (Village houses or mansions demonstrate they are showier with eight-pain windows.)
Normally there are very few openings in the gables – if inserting should be approached in the spirit of hayloft doors or aeration gaps “trous de chouan” – nesting spots for the barred owl.)
Shutters should have two crossbars and a top rail. Not – it is stressed diagonal “Z” braces in a colour that contrasts with the wood. They must be painted.

Inserting wall dormers – mistakes to avoid include one that is wider than high, making a shed dormer (imported from eastern France) and a skylight (Velux) larger than 78x98cm or in a horizontal format.

Traditional low bushy hedges – fly honeysuckle, common dogwood, raspberry bush, whortleberry, “toujours vert” rose tree, round-ear willow, common privet, wayfaring tree.
Traditional trimmed hedges – hawthorn, box, common oak, pedunculate oak, hornbeam, barberry, hedge maple, gooseberry bush, holly, yew, common privet, beech.

“White is not typically Morvan.” The tones of limes and local sands go well with a range of colours from green-grey to blue-grey. Also can use golden beige and greige “warm beige”.

Declaration de travaux (Declaration of building alterations) for small projects that do not create floor space, or that create a space less than 20m square. Need three copies with a map of the area, scale 1:5000 to 1:25,000, a dimensional site map on scale 1:200 to 1:500. Drawings, sections and facade drawings, scale 1:100 to 1:50. Photographs.

Expect a response in one month, or two months if there is a need for external consultations.
(When this book was printed anyway, free consultations with architects at the Parc du Morvan, Saint-Brisson, www.parcdumorvan.org.)

Why you wonder, the interest, well this is now my new “maison de vacance”…

… one room, literally, at the moment, but the good news is the 50s woodfired cooker and chimney seems to work fine, its pretty cosy. The bad – well there’s a fine crop of stinging nettles in the garden, and I haven’t tackled the attic yet, likely to be filled with some unpleasant items, judging on what was in the house…

And the Morvan looks lovely now – stand by for an “autumn colours” picture post.

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