Causses & Cévennes - sud Massif Central

Causses Cévennes

Vacation in the Gorges du Tarn, Causses & Cevennes

The history of the Cevennes, the Causses and the Lozère

Pope Urban V

Urbain V Guillaume de GrimoardThe remarkable Urbain V was born Guillaume de Grimoard Natif from Grisac, he will follow studies of right in Montpellier.
In the 14th century, good being in right ensured success.
Guillaume de Grimald takes the dress with the order of Saint Benoit in Saint Sauveur de Chirac, because the prior was his uncle.
He received the priesthood at Saint Victor de Marseilles. He teaches in Montpellier, Toulouse and Paris.

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The history of agriculture in the Languedoc area

The agriculture (and architecture) in the Languedoc starts about the end of the middle ages.
About the end of the XIIIth century the first farms takes features :

  • corn, rye, barley in the plains, oats, a lot of millet, rice. turnip, cabbages, leeks, broad beans
  • Tinctorial plants : Garance, Pastel, Gaude.
  • Trees : olivier, almond tree, walnut tree for oil, the chestnut in mountain and the mulberry tree of wen the silk appears. 

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The history of the chestnut tree in the Cevennes

First of all I would like to present myself ...  
I am a beautiful noble tree, with interesting fruits if you want...... the undeniable friend of men...
Our mutual respect and maintenance did create a durable harmonic bond.....
I live in France since at least miocene-period...
I’m feeling very well between 300 and 800 hundred meters altitude if is to produce beautiful fruits. Above this altitude, also some of the very varied exposures of the Central Massif and neighbourhoods please me ; At some places even for fruits, but in general at height I am rather cultivated for wood or the tanin.

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The history of Protestantism in the Cevennes

Temple Saint Germain de Calberte1230 / 1240

The Vaudois in the 13th century are christians who claim the mass in popular language, the bible for all, and refuse the confession.
Having been assimilated with the cathares they are massacred at the same time and become clandestine during two centuries.
The Vaudois valleys of Italy beyond the Quéras, between the Italian border and Turin are the twin of our Cévennes.

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The Prehistory of the Causses, the Cevennes & Gorges of the Tarn region.

 Approximately 35 000 years ago, the "modern" man arrived, He is called the man of Cro-Magnon and lived in the Causses and Cevennes region.
He crossed the highlands, valleys, forests and rivers, and installed definitively on this ground rich of splendours and of nature and left paintings and engravings.
He marked the landscape by the construction of megalithic monuments, dolmens, menhirs, tumulus etc and arranged natural caves.


    

 

 

La Pierre Plantée - St Germain de Calberte
photo Françoise Domecq

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The history of the Cevennes - year by year

The bridge of Quezac, one of the numerous constructions of Urbain 51000 year before J.C.:  the Celts occupied the region: The Ruthenians in the West, the Gabalians in the North, the Volques Arecomiques in the South, the Helvetians in the Southeast and the Vellaves in the Northeast. 

In the 2nd and 3rd century before J.C., the Romans took possession of the region.

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