Forez

The Forez is a former province of France , which roughly corresponds to the central area of the Loire department and part of the Haute-Loire department . The Forez is so equated with the setting for the work L'Astrée by Honoré d'Urfé that the region is sometimes called the Pays d'Astrée .

pronunciation

The z in Forez is generally silent, it is only occasionally spoken out on the western slopes of the Monts du Forez. As a result, the Forez has the same pronunciation as the French word for forest (Forêt).

Geography and language

The province got its name after the place Feurs in the plain and passed it on to the mountain range of the Monts du Forez , the highest point of which is the Pierre-sur-Haute with 1631 meters. The mountain range represents a natural boundary between the two parts of the landscape:

the eastern slope and the plain ( Plaine du Forez ) formed a county of Forez from the 10th century , roughly corresponding to today's Arrondissement Montbrison . A Franco-Provencal dialect was spoken here well into the 20th century .
the western slope to the river Dore , today part of the Puy-de-Dôme department , soon came under the rule of the Auvergne nobility ; Here people spoke auvergnatic , a dialect of Occitan, well into the 20th century . This part of the Forez never belonged to the Forez Province.

The name Forez was also used in the name of the Regional Nature Park Livradois-Forez ( French Parc naturel régional Livradois-Forez ), founded in 1986 , which is located on the western slopes and also has nothing to do with the old county of Forez. The nature park belongs to the department of Puy-de-Dôme, especially to the arrondissements of Ambert and Thiers , but also to the north of the department of Haute-Loire.

The Loire is then also the most important river in the area, another is the 59 kilometers long Lignon du Forez .

history

Politically, the Forez was part of the Lyonnais region in the Middle Ages , was west of the actual Lyonnais, south of Charolais and Beaujolais , north of Velay and Vivarais and east of Auvergne ; its capital was Feurs . Other important cities are Montbrison , which became the capital in 1441 , Saint-Étienne , Roanne and Saint-Just-Saint-Rambert . The inhabitants of the area were the Segusiavers , whose main town was Forum Segusiavorum , today's Feurs. As early as the Carolingian times , the area was named Pagus forensis after this place . There is no connection with the word Forêt (forest): this word appears for the first time in the 12th century.

During the French Revolution , the eastern part of the Forez belonged to a Département Rhône-et-Loire , which was divided into the Départements Rhône and Loire as early as 1793 .

literature

Jean Antoine de La Tour de Varan: Études sur le Forez , 1860ff
Forez et Vivarais, itinéraire de l'homme de goût , Comité de la région XVI bis, exposition internationale de Paris de 1937, Éditions du Pigeonnier, Saint-Félicien (Ardèche), 1937

Web links

45.741667 4.226667Coordinates: 45 ° 45 ' N , 4 ° 14' E