Burgundy

 Medieval and early modern France was divided into counties and duchies, held by powerful lords.  These divisions were all done away with in the aftermath of the French Revolution of 1789, replaced by the départements, administrative units (originally there were 89, but more have been added around Paris).

But the old regional divisions persisted in people's minds, even if there were no more dukes or counts.  In recent years, there has been a new interest in regions, so it isn't only the Michelin guides anymore but also the local administrators who will tell you proudly that you have entered Anjou or Normandy or Alsace or whatever.

One of the most important medieval duchies was Burgundy.  Interestingly, the name Burgundy has been applied over the years to a great variety of different geographic locations, a lot of which don't even overlap.  Originally the Burgundians were centered in the Jura, the region where modern France and Switzerland meet.  They had their own kingdom in the early Middle Ages, and the end of their line of kings was preserved in legends that became attached to the story of Siegfried.

In the ninth century, the kingdom of Burgundy extended from there down the Rhône valley to the Mediterranean, with its capital at Vienne (near Lyon).  It included Provence and was part of what had been the Lotharingian "middle kingdom" between France and Germany (another part of this middle kingdom lingered on further north, in the region that became known as Lorraine, from "Lotharingia").  This kingdom did not however last more than a generation or two.

From the tenth century on, Burgundy became defined as the duchy centered on Dijon, stretching from the Loire on the west to Lorraine on the east, from the region of Sens in the north to the Mâconnais in the south.  Borders varied over time, and in the early modern period part of the northwest section of Burgundy, the regions of Nevers and Auxerre, were no longer under the dukes, but they are considered Burgundian by medievalists.

Medieval Burgundy was a great center of monasticism.  The great medieval monasteries of Cluny and Cîteaux, both soon heads of orders, were both founded in Burgundy (in 910 and 1098 respectively).  The region is still dotted with medieval churches, both Cluniac and Cistercian.  (That's part of the ruins of the abbey church of Cluny, below.)  Burgundian Romanesque architecture from the eleventh and especially twelfth centuries may be found throughout the region.

 Burgundy was in the Middle Ages, as it is now, also a great wine growing region.  It was conveniently located on rivers that ran downstream to Paris, making it easy to move wine to market.  One tends to think of Burgundy as red wine, but the region has plenty of white wine too, including Chablis; the valley of Chablis is entirely lined with vineyards.  The standard local white wine is called Bourgogne aligoté.

© C. Dale Brittain 2022

For more on medieval politics and religion, see my ebook Positively Medieval, available on Amazon and other ebook platforms.  Also available in paperback.

Life in a Medieval City

Medieval cities, as I've discussed earlier, grew rapidly in the twelfth century (a little earlier in Italy).  They might go within a generation or less from a small religious and political center--home both of a bishop and a count, but with maybe one or two thousand people at most--to a metropolis of ten thousand people (or more!).

This was not because urban women were especially fertile.  Indeed, women were definitely in the minority in a medieval city.  Rather, most of the growth of the city was due to immigration from the countryside.  A city was an excellent place for a younger son to find work and try to make his fortune, for a young man fed up with the narrowness of village life to find opportunities, and for runaway serfs to pass as free.

Cities quickly became divided into several major sections.  The bishop's cité surrounded the cathedral and in France was often enclosed by the old Gallo-Roman walls.  Both the count's castle and any major monasteries outside the bishop's enclosure would have their own walls.  The merchants and artisans had their own area, called the burg (from which we get burger and bourgeois).

Not surprisingly, these different areas did not always see eye to eye.  Disputes often grew up, for example, over who had judicial authority over someone who had committed a crime--and hence who got to fine him.  Nonetheless, all the groups realized they needed to work together, and by the end of the twelfth century they often had mutually paid for walls to encircle the entire city, churches, burg, castle, and all.  The area within these walls (now often replaced by a ring road) is the "old city" section of a modern European city.

The burg wanted self-governance, and if the bishop and count would not grant a charter of liberties (as it was called), citizens of a French city would often petition (and pay) the king.  With their own city council and elected mayor, they would regulate building, paving, and sanitation, the same things a modern city government does, as well as regulate trade.  The guilds, with their own regulations (as discussed in the previous post), were very well represented on the city council.

Most city houses were wattle and daub (a less sturdy version of what we call half-timber), two or at most three stories tall, opening directly onto the street, with a little yard out back.  Here there would be the latrine, the kitchen, a small vegetable garden, and perhaps a few chickens or even a pig.  The heir to the French throne was killed in Paris in the 1120s while riding through the city, when a pig got loose and got tangled in his horse's legs, and the horse threw the youth.  (This was reported as a porcus diabolicus.)

Although modern movies show medieval people dumping slops into the streets, in fact city councils levied stiff fines against anyone throwing anything into the street.  Of course, given that most streets were dirt, and there were plenty of horses about, you would still not call the streets sanitary.  City councils were especially concerned about keeping the wells unpolluted.  Contaminated water, as they knew as well as we do, rapidly spread disease.

Fire was the other major threat, and medieval cities, full of wooden houses and thatched roofs, burned every generation or two.  Water barrels stood on every corner, and draining these fire barrels was almost as serious a crime as polluting a well.

Exciting as the city seemed, it was also considered unhealthy.  Children were generally sent to wet nurses in the countryside until at least a few years old.

© C. Dale Brittain 2015