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the year 40 B.C., Octavius
took possession of Gaul. He spent some time there and returned
again in 35 and 34 B.C. In 27 B.C., when he was proclaimed Augustus
and head of the Senate, his first thought was to give Gaul a stable
organization that would make it easier to control. He carried
out a census of the population and established a tax register.
From that time on, Celtic names began to disappear and be replaced
by Roman names.
However,
perhaps out of respect for the courage and misfortune of the vanquished,
Autricum and Cenabum were allowed to keep their names for some
time afterwards. The Carnutes also kept their religion, rites
and legal system longer than the others did; they thus remained
outside the "civilizing movement" that Rome had brought them at
the cost of so many dead.
For
administrative purposes, Gaul was
divided into four parts: Narbonnaise, Aquitaine plus the Pyrenees
near the source of the Loire, Belgium, and Lyonnaise, which was
stretched out between the Loire and Seine as far as the tip of
Brittany. The regions of the Loire valley were included in the
province of Lyonnaise, and the city of Caesarodunum, in the area
of modern Tours, became its capital.
In
conjunction with the development of cities, Octavius-Augustus
and his son-in-law Agrippa
started a vast road-building project intended to speed the movement
of Roman legions and commerce. True, Gaul already had an extensive
network of well-maintained roads equipped with the relay stations
necessary for commercial traffic and with toll stations at frontiers
and on waterways. However, the Roman engineers worked to widen
and pave about twenty pre-existing roads. The main roads radiated
from Lyon and reached Saintes, the Rhine, Marseilles and the Atlantic
coast.
The
first of the roads that interest us went from Lyon into Carnute
country, near Gien. Along this road we find Cenabum (Orleans)
and Caesarodunum (Tours). From Tours, large roads led to
Suindunum (Le Mans) and towards Cenabum on the right bank
of the Loire. From Cenabum, the next road would lead to Lutetium
(Paris).
Saumur
already occupied an interesting position on the Loire, where the
Thouet valley ended at the foot of a steep hill. It had been a
north-south thoroughfare since prehistoric times and linked the
Lot and Dordogne valleys to the Parisian basin. Traces of Gallic "oppidum," weapons and pottery, have been found on the hill where
a castle would later be built.
Such
little forts were often found in Gaul. They were located on natural
hilltops as well as on artificial embankments whenever it was
felt necessary to protect a bridge or ford. For example, there
was one at Magdunum (Meung-sur-Loire).
*****
Two
generations had passed on since the fall of Alesia. The Gallic
nation was slowly regaining its population while the Roman administration
settled in with its retinue of legislators, its lifestyle, its
pagan cults, its colonists, its technology... and its taxes!
The
disasters of war were almost exceeded by the insatiable avidity
of Roman governors and tax collectors, particularly under Tiberius.
He made the situation so intolerable that a new uprising took
place. It was quickly put down, and in the reign of the succeeding
emperor, Claudius,
many Gallic cities were "magnanimously" granted the privileges
enjoyed by Roman cities. True, this favor came with a big string
attached: the Celts would have to give up the cult of the Druids.
That is, they would have to abandon the whole system of Celtic
culture and the important role in society played by the Druids,
whom Rome considered subversive.
The
Carnutes refused, obviously, and their resistance led Claudius
to expel the Druids from all Celtic territory by force of arms.
They took refuge in Armorica, in Germanic lands, and in Ireland...
*****
In
the 1st century A.D., the Turones (in Tours) obtained the advantageous
status of "free city." Other cities depended directly on imperial
authority and were subject to taxation. The wealth of Gaul came
from its agricultural production, mainly in grains, which accounts
for the prosperity of Cenabum (Orleans), the great marketplace
of the Carnutian farmers of Beauce. Without the reserves of grain
and horse fodder that Caesar found there, he would not have been
able to conquer the country and impose Latin culture. However,
the Romans brought us cultivation of another sort: vineyards.
The Gauls took to it readily and invented a tool that was to revolutionize
the making and transportation of wine: the iron-girded oak barrel.
The wines of Burgundy, Anjou and Touraine date from this time
(the 2nd century A.D.).
River
traffic was heavy on the Loire. Barges sailing upriver brought
many things to the region: men, merchandise, lumber, marble, millstones,
pottery, amphorae of Italian wine or Iberian olive oil, lead and
tin from Brittany, seafood, salt, fish, shells, etc. On their
return trips, they took barrels of wine, leather goods, and grain.
It was a regular import-export operation. Located as it was at
the northernmost point of the Loire and at the starting point
of the shortest cartage roads to the north, Orleans became an
important port city.
Beginning
in A.D. 258, FRANKISH
and Saxon pirates sailed in from the North Sea. Six centuries
before the Vikings, they sailed up the Loire and its tributaries.
In A.D. 260-262, the Franks appeared in Jublains, Le Mans, and
Tours. Buried treasure (which has been found since then) increased
after A.D. 270, thus indicating a serious increase in the perils
that hastened the fall of the Gallo-Roman empire.
By
A.D. 275, the barbarians were everywhere. Franks and Alamans,
Alamans came in by land and rejoined the Frankish and Saxon bands
that had come in by boat. They met near Orleans, which had been
renamed Aurelia in honor of Marcus Aurelius. Rich cities
were the targets of choice, and easy access made the cities of
the Loire the most exposed to attack.
The
ensuing poverty and the flight of much of the population caused
the cities to shrink in area as they retired within their fortifications:
25 hectares in Orleans (Aurelia), 9 hectares in Angers, and 6
hectares in Tours (Caesarodunum).
*
Meanwhile,
Emperor Constantine
found it wise to allow the practice of Christianity throughout
the empire and did so in his edict of Milan in A.D. 312. The new
faith, which he had adopted during a battle and which his wife
also adopted, served his political ambitions admirably. There
were now numerous Christian communities in the empire, and so
many people could lend considerable support to a smart politician.
Since
the first century, missionaries had flocked into Provence and
Languedoc from Palestine and Greece even as Nero was blaming Christians
for his putting Rome to the torch. The missionaries readily spread
the "Good News" among the Celtic peoples, whose religious ideas
were close to monotheism. And their Druids had been banned by
Rome. Although illegal, Christian meetings were already quite
widespread by the time of Constantine. They had places of worship,
usually in crypts or catacombs. These were quiet places of reflection
and appropriate to an "underground" religion.
Following
Constantine's official establishment of the new religion, a few
bishops were sent by the Holy See; they probably
had the status of imperial ambassadors . They shared the task of forming dioceses of the early churches
scattered across the various parts of Gaul. The boundaries of
these dioceses followed those of Roman administrative districts
and are still in effect today. It would appear that the bishops
performed their mission quite well; in a few decades, a large
part of the native population had openly converted to the new
religion. Did they really have a choice, though, since Christianity
had become a state religion while the Druids had been banned in
Gaul? The fact remains that during the barbarian invasions ("barbarian" meaning 'foreigner') and the ensuing disturbances (revolts among
the impoverished Gallic peoples), a number of Christians joined
the rebels.
Evortius,
was elected bishop of Orleans in A.D. 330. Such elections were
held by a vote of church members at the time. He would later be
known as Saint Euverte. In Tours, Martinius,
who would come to be known as Saint Martin, participated actively
with Evortius in demolishing Roman buildings and pagan temples,
which were symbols of the Pax Romana. Evortius build the church
Sainte-Croix
in Orleans, while Martinius started the construction of the
Marmoutier
abbey.
*
According to legend, Saint Martin
was  considered
the greatest bishop in Gaul. One day, during the time he was serving
in the Roman legions, he met upon the road a beggar dying of cold.
Martinius cut his cloak in two with his sword and gave half
to the poor man. That night, he dreamt he saw Christ himself dressed
in the part of the cloak that he had given to the suffering man.
Touched by divine grace, he received baptism and began his ministry.
In Ligugé,
in Poitou, he founded the first monastery
in Gaul, and his faith and charity became known far and
wide. In A.D. 372, the people of Tours asked him to be their bishop.
He covered Touraine with churches and chapels. Upon his death,
in November of A.D. 397, the monks of Marmoutier and Ligugé were
arguing over who would have his body as a relic when people from
Tours came and spirited his body away under cover of night. On
the way back to Tours, a miracle occurred: as the boat carrying
the holy remains passed by, trees and flowers blossomed anew,
and the birds began to sing. The warm spell of late fall has been
called "Saint Martin's summer" ever since.
***
Such
was the spiritual power, dedication and energy that such leaders
brought to their respective cities. While they lived and spread
the new religion, the temporal power of Rome was fading as the
empire grew increasingly decadent. Thus, in the Western Roman
Empire, even as the emperor was abandoning the capital, the bishop
of Rome asserted his primacy over his colleagues throughout the
empire, his pretext being that he was the successor to Saint Peter,
who was thought to have been martyred in Rome in the 1st century.
Among the supporting evidence was, of course, the well-known scriptural
passage: "Thou are Peter, and upon this rock I shall build
my church..."
Upon
his deathbed, in A.D. 390, Saint Euverte designated Anianus,
the future Saint Aignan, as his successor. In the cities, the
bishops were so much more important than the official representatives
of Rome that they held de facto the title "defender of the city."
*
The
onrushing invaders -- Vandals, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Burgundians,
among others -- spread out over the remains of the empire beginning
with the end of the 4th century. They eventually devoured and
annihilated it in the west. The Visigoths
had taken control of all the area south of the Loire as far as
the Pyrenees, while the Burgundians
under the leadership of Théodoric ruled from the Jura and the Rhone valley into Italy itself. These
peoples were supposedly "federated with the empire" by negotiations
with Rome, but the barbarian kings actually governed more and
more on their own the tattered remains of an empire in which each
had carved out his own realm. A number of these new masters in
the Roman provinces had adopted the new religion in the form of
Arianism, which was quite widespread in the south before they
came. As the frontiers of influence were redrawn, our Loire country
was, thankfully, left alone and not submerged until it was integrated
into the Frankish kingdom.
*
The
great invasion that occurred in May 451 was that of Attila
and his Huns. They were preceded by their reputation as "the scourge of God."
Saint
Aignan appealed to the Roman Aetius for help and "miraculously" unleashed a three-day storm. Saint-Aignan
was a noble and proud old man who, alone, stood up to Attila and
so impressed the leader of the Huns that he put off the invasion
and pillage of Orleans for a whole day.
Aetius was a Roman patrician
and a capable man who had succeeded in gaining the alliance of
previous invading armies to oppose Attila's Huns. He arrived a
little late but still in time, thanks to Saint Aignan's courage,
to surprise the army of Huns as they were dividing up the booty.
Attila's army was caught off guard and, unable to mount a defense,
fled. Aetius, supported by Mérovée and Théodoric, soon caught up with them on the Catalaunian
fields near Chalons, where they defeated the Huns decisively.
Attila returned eastward to his native land, where he ended his
days. Woe to the vanquished!
However,
it is an ill wind that blows no one any good. The "savage" conquerors
left two things behind them that were to change life in the west
enormously. The first was the horse collar, which had been hitherto
unknown and which was to greatly increase agricultural yields
in centuries to come. The second was printing. The rough horsemen
who rode out of the steppes of Asia had discovered a Chinese invention
that would forever more bring joy to army camps: playing cards.
The early cards were thin wooden blades on which symbols had been
lithographed in inks of various colors. The cards were liable
to wear out, and Attila's warriors had brought with them a way
of replacing them.
The western clergy quickly seized upon the process to reproduce
religious and other symbols, but it would be a few centuries yet
before the inventor Gutenberg would have the idea of using this
technology to print text by using movable type.
***
After
Attila's retreat, Saint Aignan, who was nearly a hundred years
old, completed his work by "converting the pagans," the last Carnutians
who still observed the religion of the Druids. He went to Chartres
and there converted the former Druid site into a church (he was
also to found two others) and endowed it with magnificent property.
In gratitude for his beneficence, the clergy of Chartres for centuries
made a yearly pilgrimage barefoot from Chartres to Orleans.
Saint-Aignan
died in 453 and was buried in consecrated ground in the cemetery
of the church of Saint-Laurent des Orgerils at Orleans. A small
oratorium was constructed on his tomb. A few decades later, a
monastery with the basilica of Saint-Aignan
was built in his memory.
*
Meanwhile,
Rome was going through its last death throes. The Empire of the
Gauls split off. Several of its provinces had long since fallen
under the sway of various invaders. The Visigoths had come from
the east to rule over Aquitaine
(all of southern Gaul); the Burgundians dominated the land from
Germany to
the Jura in what would become Burgundy,
while Armorica
became an independent republic with the invasion of the Bretons.
In 453, Rome itself was struck by savage hordes. The Franks established
their kingdom from Belgium
to the Loire. It was not yet known as France; they called it Neustria.
*
Since
about the year 450, Frankish mercenaries had made up most of the "Roman" army between the Seine and the Loire. The soldiers of
Meroveus had taken part in routing Attila, and those of his son
Childeric mopped up in the Loire valley by driving the Saxons
out of Angers and the Alans
from the region of Orleans. Between the 3rd and 5th centuries,
the Franks thus went from being pillagers to defenders of the
country. Hence the authority of the dying Roman empire quite naturally
fell upon the only ones who could take it up: the bishops in the
cities and the Franks in the countryside.
Obviously,
the two groups would get along quite well with each other...
*
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