Normandy

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For other uses, see Normandy (disambiguation).

Image:Mont-Saint-Michel-2004.jpg Image:Flag of Normandy.jpgNormandy is a geographical region in northern France. Upper Normandy (Haute-Normandie) consists of the French départements of Seine-Maritime and Eure, and Lower Normandy (Basse-Normandie) of the départements of Orne, Calvados, and Manche.

The Duchy of Normandy is a formerly independent duchy situated in northern France occupying the lower Seine area, the Pays de Caux and the region to the west through the Pays d'Auge as far as the Cotentin Peninsula. Normandy was historically a province of France. It comprised present-day Upper and Lower Normandy, as well as small areas now part of the départements of Eure-et-Loir, Mayenne, and Sarthe.

The Channel Islands, although British, are culturally and historically a part of Normandy that never reverted to the crown of France.

Contents 1 Population 2 Geography 2.1 Regions 2.2 Rivers 3 History 3.1 Channel Islands 4 Culture 4.1 Languages 4.2 Arts 4.2.1 Architecture 4.2.2 Philosophy 4.2.3 Literature 4.2.4 Painting 4.2.5 Music 4.2.6 Design 4.3 Religion 4.4 Food and drink 4.5 Symbols 5 See also 6 External links

Population

Image:Normandy map.png Image:AbbayeValasse.jpg Normandy has 3.2 million inhabitants, with an average population density of 107 per square kilometre, just under the French national average, but rising to 145 for upper Normandy. The principal cities are Rouen (population 385,000, including suburbs), the capital of upper Normandy and formerly of the whole province; Le Havre (247,000); Caen (200,000), the capital of lower Normandy; and Cherbourg (89,000).

Other towns include: Alençon; Arromanches; Avranches; Bayeux; Coutances; Dieppe; Doudeville; Évreux; Falaise; Honfleur; Houlgate; Lisieux; Mortain; Saint-Lô; Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte; Sainte-Mère-Église; and Villers-Bocage.

Geography

The region is bordered along the northern coasts by the English Channel. There are granite cliffs in the west and limestone cliffs in the east. There are also long stretches of beach in the center of the region. The bocage, patchwork of small fields with high hedges, typical of the western areas caused problems for the invading forces in the Battle of Normandy. There are meanders of the Seine as it approaches its estuary which form a notable feature of the landscape.

Regions

• The Suisse normande (Norman Switzerland), in the south, presents hillier terrain.
• The Pays d'Auge is considered typical of the rich agricultural landscape of central Normandy.
• The Roumois
• The Lieuvin
• The Cotentin Peninsula
  • La Hague
• The Pays de Caux
• The Bessin
• The Pays d'Ouche
• The Norman Vexin
• The Pays de Bray

Rivers

Image:Pont normandie depuis aire repos nord.jpg Rivers in Normandy include:

• the Seine
• the Orne
• the Vire
• the Eure
• the Risle
• the Robec
• the Touques
• the Couesnon, which traditionally marks the boundary between the Duchy of Brittany and the Duchy of Normandy.

The Pont de Normandie crossing the estuary of the Seine is regarded as a feat of modern engineering.

History

Normandy was the home of the Normans in the early Middle Ages, the last people to successfully invade England. The Normans were a mixture of the indigenous Gauls and of the Viking invaders under the leadership of Rollo (Gange Rolf), who besieged Paris and was given the area of Normandy (Treaty of St.-Claire-sur-Epte, 911) in return for defending it against future pirate attacks.

Rollo's descendant William, Duke of Normandy, invaded England in 1066 and became king William I of England. Normandy remained associated with England until 1087, in 1106-1144 and in 1154-1204. Also see the Battle of Bouvines in 1214. Normandy was occupied by English forces during the Hundred Years' War in 1346-1360 and again in 1415-1450.

Norman families, such as that of Tancred of Hauteville played important parts in the Crusades and established a kingdom in Sicily and the south of Italy.

Both Wace and Orderic Vitalis are important Norman writers for the history of the province.

Jean de Béthencourt conquered and ruled the Canary Islands in the 15th century.

Prosperity returned to Normandy after the Hundred Years' War until the Wars of Religion when many Norman town (Alençon, Rouen, Caen, Coutances, Bayeux) joined the Reformation and battles ensued throughout the province. During the French Revolution, Normandy generally supported the idea of a Federal republic against the highly centralised conception championed by the Jacobins in Paris. Image:NormandyCourcelles2JM.jpg During World War II, the town of Dieppe was the site of the ill-fated Dieppe Raid by Canadian and British units in 1942. Later, Normandy was also the site of the Normandy Invasion or Operation Overlord that began on June 6 1944, which today is also known as D-Day. This was the successful invasion of German-occupied France by Allied troops. Caen, Cherbourg, Carentan, and other Norman towns endured many casualties in the fight for the province, which continued until the liberation of Le Havre on September 12.

Channel Islands

Since the Channel Islands have remained loyal to the English Crown since the division of Normandy in 1204, yet are not part of the UK but rather the Duchy of Normandy, the British monarch (currently Queen Elizabeth II) is toasted as Duke of Normandy. However, she is not regarded as Duke of Normandy outside her realms since claims by English monarchs to the title were given up by the Treaty of Paris of 1259. Additionally, the rights of succession to that title are subject to Salic Law, which does not allow for female inheritance of the ducal title.

Culture

Languages

The Norman language, a regional language, is spoken by a minority of the population, especially in the Cotentin peninsula in the far West and in the Pays de Caux in the East. Many place names show the influence of this Norse-influenced oïl language; for example -bec (stream), -fleur (river), -hou (island), -tot (homestead). Image:NefStGeorges1.jpg

Arts

Architecture

Main article is Architecture of Normandy.

Architecturally, Norman cathedrals, abbeys (such as the Abbey of Bec) and castles characterise the former Duchy in a way that mirrors the similar pattern of Norman architecture in England following the Norman Conquest of 1066.

Domestic architecture in upper Normandy is typified by half-timbered buildings that also recall vernacular English architecture, although the farm enclosures of the more harshly landscaped Pays de Caux are a more idiosyncratic response to socio-economic and climatic imperatives. Much urban architectural heritage was destroyed during the Battle of Normandy in 1944 - post-war urban reconstruction, such as in Le Havre and Saint-Lô, could be said to demonstrate both the virtues and vices of modernist and brutalist trends of the 1950s and 1960s. Le Havre, the city rebuilt by Auguste Perret, was added to Unesco’s World Heritage List in 2005.

Vernacular architecture in lower Normandy takes its form from granite, the predominant local building material. The Channel Islands also share this influence - Chausey was for many years a source of quarried granite, including that used for the construction of Mont Saint Michel.

Philosophy

Philosophers Norman by birth include:

Alain

Michel Onfray

Clément Rosset

Literature

Writers in the French language connected with Normandy include:

Turold Boulainvilliers Alphonse Allais Jacques-François Ancelot Roland Barthes Olivier Basselin Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont Rémi Belleau Isaac de Benserade Jean Bertaut Jean-Jacques Boisard François le Metel de Boisrobert Louis Bouilhet André Breton Alain Chartier Pierre Corneille Thomas Corneille Jean de Crèvecoeur

Madame d'Aulnoy Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly Casimir Delavigne Philippe Delerm Jean Dubuffet Annie Ernaux Octave Feuillet Gustave Flaubert Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Jean Vauquelin de la Fresnaye Arthur de Gobineau Remy de Gourmont Pierre Gringore Maurice Leblanc François de Malherbe Hector Malot Jean Marot Guy de Maupassant André Maurois

François-Eudes de Mézeray Octave Mirbeau Antoine de Montchrestien Françoise Bertaut de Motteville Nicolas Oresme Raymond Queneau Pascal Quignard Henri de Régnier Jean Rotrou Antoine Gérard de Saint-Amant Charles de Saint-Évremond Abbé de Saint-Pierre Bernardin de Saint-Pierre Armand Salacrou Georges de Scudéry Madeleine de Scudéry Jean Renaud de Segrais Alexis de Tocqueville

Image:GDMaupassant.jpg

Writers in the English language connected with Normandy include:

Peter Motteux

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur

Writers in the Latin language connected with Normandy include:

• Orderic Vitalis

Writers in the Norman language include:

Béroul Marie de France Wace

Thomas of Britain Robert Pipon Marett

See also Anglo-Norman literature, Gesta Normannorum Ducum

Image:RouenCathedral Monet 1894.jpeg

Painting

From the 1860s, plein-air painters, who worked outside the studio, were attracted to Normandy by the ease of railway access from Paris. Claude Monet's waterlily garden at Giverny is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the region. Eugène Boudin's paintings of fashionable seaside scenes are also typical.

Artists Norman by birth include:

Eugène Boudin André Breton Pierre Toutain Dorbec Jean Dubuffet Marcel Duchamp

Suzanne Duchamp Raoul Dufy Othon Friesz Théodore Géricault Jean Jouvenet

Fernand Léger Jean-François Millet Nicolas Poussin Jean Restout Jacques Villon

Music

Composers and musicians Norman by birth include:

Erik Satie Daniel Auber Arthur Honegger Marcel Dupré François-Adrien Boïeldieu

André Caplet François d'Agincourt Françoiz Breut Daniel Balavoine Guillaume Costeley

Vincent Delerm Jacques Duphly Maurice Duruflé Jean-Luc Ponty

Design

Christian Dior, fashion designer, was born in Granville. Laetitia Casta, supermodel, was born in Pont-Audemer.

Religion

Image:Jumièges.jpg The cathedrals of Normandy have exerted influence down the centuries in matters of both faith and politics. Mont Saint Michel is a historic pilgrimage site. The influence of Celtic Christianity can still be found in the Cotentin.

Many saints have been revered in Normandy down the centuries, including:

• St. Aubert who is remembered as the founder of Mont Saint Michel
• Saint Marcouf and Saint Lô who are important saints in Lower Normandy
• Helier and Samson of Dol who are evangelizers of the Channel Islands
• Thomas Becket, an Anglo-Norman whose parents were from Rouen, who was the object of a considerable cult in mainland Normandy following his martyrdom
• St. Joan of Arc who was martyred in Rouen, and who is especially remembered in that city
• Thérèse de Lisieux whose cult in Lisieux is a focus for religious devotion

Normandy does not have one generally-agreed patron saint, although this title has been ascribed to Saint Michael, and to Saint Ouen.

Prominent Protestants ministers include Pierre Allix, Jacques Basnages, and Samuel Bochart.

Food and drink

Image:Camembert.jpg

Normandy is famous for its rich, rolling countryside, which provides plentiful pasture for dairy cattle and orchards for apples. The dairy produce of the region is renowned: its cheeses are world famous and include Camembert, Livarot, Pont l'Evêque, Brillat-Savarin, Neufchâtel, and Boursin. Normandy butter is highly prized, as is Normandy cream, both of which are lavishly used in local gastronomic specialties. Fish and seafood are of superior quality in Normandy. Turbot and oysters from the Cotentin Peninsula are major delicacies throughout France. Normandy is the chief oyster-cultivating, as well the biggest scallop-exporting, region in France.

Normandy is a major cider-producing region (very little wine is produced). Perry is also produced, but in less significant quantities. The apple brandy, of which the most famous variety is calvados, is also popular. The mealtime trou normand, or Norman break, is a pause between meal courses in which diners partake of a glassful of calvados, is still observed in many homes and restaurants. Pommeau is an aperitif produced by blending unfermented cider and apple brandy. Another aperitif is the kir normand, a measure of cassis topped up with cider. Benedictine is produced in Fécamp.

Apples are also used in cooking: for example, moules à la normande are mussels cooked with apples and cream, bourdelots are apples baked in pastry, partridges are flamed with reinette apples, and localities all over the province have their own variation of apple tart. A classic pastry dish from the region is flan Normand a flaky pastry-based variant of the apple tart.

Other regional specialities include tripes à la mode de Caen, andouilles and andouillettes, salt meadow (pré salé) lamb, seafood (mussels, scallops, lobsters, mackerel…), and teurgoule (spiced rice pudding).

Normandy dishes include duckling à la rouennaise, sautéed chicken yvetois, and goose en daube. Rabbit is cooked with morels, or à la havraise (stuffed with truffled pigs' trotters). Other dishes are sheep's trotters à la rouennaise, casseroled veal, larded calf's liver braised with carrots, and veal (or turkey) in cream and mushrooms. Image:Norman flags on parade.jpg Normandy is also noted for its pastries. It is the birthplace of brioches (especially those from Évreux and Gisors) and also turns out douillons (pears baked in pastry), craquelins, roulettes in Rouen, fouaces in Caen, fallues in Lisieux, sablés in Lisieux. Confectionery of the region includes Rouen apple sugar, Isigny caramels, Bayeux mint chews, Falaise berlingots, Le Havre marzipans, Argentan croquettes, and Rouen macaroons.

Normandy is the native land of Taillevent, cook of the kings of France Charles V and Charles VI. He wrote the earliest French cookery book named Le Viandier.

Symbols

The traditional provincial flag of Normandy, gules, two leopards passant or, is used in both modern regions. The historic three-leopard version (known in the Norman language as les treis cats, "the three cats") is used by some associations and individuals, especially those who support reunification of the regions and cultural links with the Channel Islands and England.

Nordic Cross flag	"Two-leopard" provincial flag	"Three-leopard" version	"Two-leopard" flag of Sark
Modern logo of Lower Normandy	Modern logo of Upper Normandy

The unofficial anthem of the region is the song "Ma Normandie".

See also

Template:Commons

• Battle of Normandy
• Duchy of Normandy
• Duke of Normandy
• List of postal codes in Normandy
• British military history
• COGEMA La Hague site

External links

• The Normans, a European People. The Norman heritage, 10th-12th century
• Gallery of photos of Normandy
• Normandie Web - A community Web site about Normandy (in French)
• Normandy Tourist Board
• Le Havre on the World Heritage Siteaf:Normandië

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