On a Medieval Norman Map
Type de matériel :
94
South of Caen, the marsh of Allemagne (today known as Fleury-sur-Orne) was, in the 15th century, the subject of a detailed survey map, preserved in the archival fund of the Saint-Étienne de Caen abbey, in the Archives départementales of Calvados. Over one yard in length, the microtoponymy and the surface areas of the plots of land, as well as the names of their tenant holders for 145 hectars of land hemmed in a meander of the Orne, are listed. By confronting it with other maps, as well as archeological and textual sources, one may venture that the local map of Allemagne fitted within the scheme of “marchements” planned by the Caen abbey, and that it came as an annex to a land book drawn up in 1477 and now lost. Just as elsewhere in France or England in the aftermath of the Hundred Years’ War, resorting to a survey map meant using new principles of feudal management in a region generating large profits, and which was a subject of litigation between the abbeys of Caen and Fontenay.
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