Rouergue

Map of the Rouergue

Coat of arms of the Rouergue

Rouergue ( Occitan : Roergue ) is a former French county and province of which the county of Rodez was an integral part . It roughly corresponds to today's Aveyron department in the Occitania region . The province of Rouergue was about 9007 km². At the 1999 census there were 269,774 people living in this area, which corresponds to a population density of just 30 people per square kilometer. The largest cities in the Rouergue are Rodez (approx. 24,000 inhabitants), Millau (approx. 22,000 inhabitants), Villefranche-de-Rouergue (12,000 inhabitants) and Decazeville (approx. 6,000 inhabitants).

geography

location

The Rouergue is bounded to the north by the Auvergne , to the south and southwest by Languedoc , to the east by Gévaudan and to the west by the Quercy . Their capital was Rodez .

Landscape with megaliths in the Rouergue

landscape

The landscape is hilly with an average elevation of about 400 to 600 meters; in the north and south-east (near Millau) heights of over 1000 meters are also reached. While large areas in the north and west are forested, the eastern parts of the Rouergue are rather poorly forested and steppe-like due to their karst soils. The most important river is the Aveyron , which in its lower reaches forms the border between the Rouergue and the Quercy to the west. The south of the Rouergue is shaped by the upper reaches of the Tarn and its tributaries.

climate

Due to its proximity to the Massif Central, the summer temperatures in the Rouergue rarely exceed 30 ° C. Night frosts are common in winter, even though daytime temperatures are around 10 ° C.

economy

The Rouergue has always been characterized by agriculture, with fields and forestry dominating in the west, while sheep were kept on the karst soils of the Causses in the east.

history

Statue menhir La Dame de Saint-Sernin

Some evidence from prehistoric times has come down to us: These include, above all, the extraordinary statue menhirs , most of which date from around 2000 to 2500 BC. Is settled. A collection of these stones is in the Musée Fenaille in Rodez. Some dolmens have been preserved in the west of the Rouergue (near Villefranche), but most have been largely destroyed due to the limestone material used .

Before the Romans conquered Gaul , the Rouergue was inhabited by the Rodgers . After the fall of the Roman Empire , the Rouergue frequently changed rulers: in 472 it fell to the Visigoths , some of whom were Arianist , 507 to the Franks , 512 again to the Visigoths and 533 to Austrasia . In 588 the land came to the Duchy of Aquitaine , from which Pippin the Short took it back in 768. Charlemagne added it to the Kingdom of Aquitaine in 778 and installed counts who subsequently enforced the hereditary nature of the title. In the middle of the 9th century, Charles the Bald confirmed the Counts of Rouergue in their possession and added the county of Toulouse to him, which he detached from the Duchy of Aquitaine. In 918, Raimund II († 923) and Armengol I , the sons of Count Odo , owned Toulouse and the Rouergue, respectively. Armengol's son Raimund I († 961/961) even became Duke of Aquitaine in 936 .

When Count Hugo , grandson of Raymond I, died in 1053, his daughter Bertha had to fight over her inheritance with Count Wilhelm IV of Toulouse and his brother Raimund von Saint-Gilles . When Bertha died in 1065, the brothers turned against each other and only agreed after 15 years of fighting that Wilhelm Toulouse and his surroundings and Raimund should get the Rouergue. After Wilhelm's death (1094), Raimund followed in Toulouse and the Rouergue became the appanage of the sons of the Tolosan lords. Raimund died in Palestine in 1105, leaving behind Alfons-Jordan, a minor son. Raimund Berengar III. , Count of Barcelona and Vice-Count of Millau , and William VII , Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou , invaded Toulouse and the Rouergue armed. Alfons withdrew to Provence and did not regain his two counties until 1120. They remained in the possession of the Counts of Toulouse until they fell to the Crown in 1271 with the death of Joan , wife of Alfonso von Poitiers , Count of Poitou .

While the region was hardly affected by Cathar ideas, Protestantism played an important role in the 16th and 17th centuries , but this came to an end with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1598) by the Edict of Fontainebleau (1685). Many Huguenots subsequently left the country.

In 1779 the Rouergue was annexed to the Quercy or the newly formed province of Haute-Guyenne . During the French Revolution (1790) the area was transformed into the Aveyron department , which was named after the largest river in the region, the Aveyron . When the Tarn-et-Garonne department was formed in 1808 , the extreme western part of the Rouergue was separated and added to the new department.