Initially, no fewer than 17 authors, most of them historians by training and research and many attached to the University of Pau and Adour, who undertook the adventure of following in the prestigious footsteps of Pierre de Marca, who made a first History of Béarn in 1640, that is to say 20 years after the annexation of the viscounty which became kingdom of Navarre, to the kingdom of France, like Pierre Tucoo-Chala, author of numerous works on the Béarn.
From the first pages, the work, under the direction of academics Laurent Jalabert, Véronique Lamazou-Duplan and Laurent Callegrin, places itself under this heritage while detaching itself from it: more than a history of Béarn, the sum also aims to be a history written from Béarn. This is because the region, on the outskirts of the great medieval entities and which minted currency for twenty centuries, saw its own development sometimes hesitant between France and Spain, between Toulouse and Aquitaine, knew its own destiny until the Revolution, and even beyond.
A country apart
Through writing as precise as it is illustrated with numerous photos and documents, we revisit the history of this “small country” which has long felt independent if not separate. We discover, for example, the importance of the “Gaston VII Moment” known as Moncade (1229-1290), a great administrator who saw the birth of the coat of arms with two cows whose origins are still unknown, even if it would have meanings more biblical than pastoral, we rediscover also the “society of neighbors” which has long persisted on both sides of the Pyrenees and which make the Aragonese or Navarrese more than just neighbors.
Over the course of nearly 500 pages, many moments are thus described and revisited, even if it means denying certain stubborn myths, in the light of current scientific research.
“New history of Béarn”, Edition Cairn, 495 pages, 49 euros.
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