Bastide

Bastides are fortified new towns built in medieval Languedoc, Gascony and Aquitaine during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, although some authorities count Mont-de-Marsan and Montauban, which was founded in 1144, as the first bastides.

Some of the first bastides were built under Raymond VII of Toulouse to replace villages destroyed in the Albigensian Crusade. He encouraged the construction of others to colonize the wilderness, especially of southwest France. Almost 700 bastides were built between 1222 (Cordes-sur-Ciel, Tarn) and 1372 (La Bastide d'Anjou, Tarn).

The Bastide were so successful against their opponents in the Hundred Years War, the English adopted them for themselves, First in France, but latter in Wales. Bastides were also latter adopted in Holland and Friesland.

History

Bastide (Provençal manor)

"Bastide" is a local term for a manor house in Provence, in the south of France, located in the countryside or in a village, and originally occupied by a wealthy farmer. A bastide is larger and more elegant than the farmhouse called a mas, and is square or rectangular, with a tile roof, walls of fine ashlar-stone sometimes covered with stucco or whitewashed, and often built in a square around a courtyard. In the 19th and 20th centuries, many bastides were used as summer houses by wealthy citizens of Marseille. More recently, most bastides in Provence have been transformed into expensive country homes.

One well-known bastide in Provence is the Bastide Neuve, located in the village of La Treille near Marseille, which was a summer house for the family of French writer and filmmaker Marcel Pagnol. César Soubeyan, the wealthy farmer in his novels Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources, lived in a bastide.

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References

Bastide (disambiguation)

A bastide is a fortified new town built in medieval Languedoc, Gascony and Aquitaine in Southwest France during the Middle Ages.

A bastide (Provençal manor) can also be a large farmhouse or manor in Provence, in the south of France.

Bastide became used as a surname, and may also refer to:

See also