Chapter 21one: A Magic Brittany Forest

A Magic Brittany Forest

I am not an historian, just a curious man. Two nights here at La Grande Sauvagère had me asking myself, who was here before us, what were they thinking and doing?

rusty manual fuel pump at ruins of old garage, lost in the woods, date unknown

READER CAUTION: To some, the following text may be irrelevant and boring. To others, it may be thin, unsubstantiated armchair history. But if you are a keen reader, it might just keep you on my shoulder for a while longer, where you will get another glimpse of where my thoughts and my camera were during these travels. If you are the latter, then read on.

Frederique, proprietor and our host during our stay, noticed my interest in her property and she pulled out some old documents of La Grande Sauvagère. They were written in French, of course, but I was able to muddle through them. Much of what I've posted in this blog comes from that primary source material. The earliest records for the property go back to 1513 (when Henry VIII invaded France).

flour mill and bakery

Changes in seigneurial ownership have been well documented. For centuries this property was owned and farmed by the landed gentry, not nobility, rather, Lords and Ladies of the manor.

These bigwigs had special property ownership rights with taxes and fees paid to them by the commoners. After the French Revolution (1789) this feudal system was abolished. 

mill screw and ear

There is mention of a chapel on the ancient Sauvagère property. 
The chapel is long since gone, but was reckoned to date back to the Carolingian Period, you know, the two centuries which ended in 814 AD with the death of Charlemagne, first Christian king.

Pope Leo lll gave him that job.

note the holes in the barn wall just below the roof
the barn also served as a pigeonier—a dovecoat

Why the odd name, Sauvagère?  What is its etymology? Well, one can imagine a wilderness forest here, in what is now called Brittany, more than a millennium ago. Surely, with savage beasts too … 

hayloft?

Frederique’s legacy document lists the property owners from the Middle Ages, almost up to the present. It mentions Lord Rolland Geffroy in 1542 (death of James V), during the time of the Protestant Reformation. France was not a friend of England in those days, but Scotland and France were friendly allies. 






One will find that the surname “Geffroy”, and its numerous variations, appear in both French and Scottish archives.

sheds connecting barn and part of exterior manor wall

So, globally—and remember, the globe was small in those days—what was the nature of the known world ...


at La Petite and La Grande Sauvagère, about 500 years ago when there was no wifi in front of the giant hearth, and no internal combustion engine to power the four wheels outside these stone walls.

Here is a timeline I dug up from 
https://www.timeshighereducation.com

EVENTS

1504 Leonardo paints Mona Lisa

1506 St Peter's basilica begun in Rome

1509 Michelangelo takes 3 years to paint ceiling of Sistine Chapel

1513 first records of La Grande & La Petite Sauvagère

1517 Martin Luther defies the pope with Wittenberg theses

1522 Ferdinand Magellan sails around the world

1531 Henry VIII breaks with Rome

1540 Jesuits are founded

1542 Sir Rolland Geffroy acquires Sauvagère property

1545 RC Council of Trent opposes Protestant Reformation

1553 Mary Tudor becomes Queen of England

1555 Peace of Augsburg settles Protestant-Catholic conflicts

1558 Elizabeth I becomes Queen

1588 Defeat of the Spanish Armada

1599 First known production at Globe Theatre is Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

IDEAS

1516 Erasmus edits Greek New Testament

1522 Luther translates Bible into German

1532 Italian political theorist Machiavelli writes The Prince

1543 Copernicus founds modern astronomy

1564 William Shakespeare is born

1571 Galileo Galilei is born

One thing we do know for sure. 

The sun still rises and falls on the forest here. 

It is by no means savage.

It is magical.

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