Perche

Bellême,one of Perche's capitals

Location of Perche in France

17th-century map of Grand Perche and Perche Gouet

Perche(French pronunciation:[pɛʁʃ]) (French:le Perche) is a formerprovinceof France, known historically for its forests and, for the past two centuries, for thePercherondraft horse breed.Until theFrench Revolution,Perche was bounded by four ancient territories of northwestern France: the provinces ofMaine,Normandy,andOrléanais,and the region ofBeauce.Afterwards it was absorbed into the present-daydepartmentsofOrneandEure-et-Loir,with small parts in the neighboring departments ofEure,Loir-et-Cher,andSarthe.

Toponymy

Percheis known by the following ancient Latin and French toponymic designations:saltus Particus,silva Perticusbefore the 6th century,pagus quem Pert[ic]ensem vocantandpagus pertensisin the 6th century,pagus Perticusno date andc. 815,Particus saltusin the 11th century,silva Perticusin 1045,[le] Perchein 1160–1174 and in 1308,Perchein1238,foresta de Perticoin1246,where the names starting byPertorPartdenotePerche,the termssilvaandforestamean forest,Saltusdesignates a wooded mountainous region, frontier, wildlife refuge,pagusmeans country, andsilva perticarefers to a tall-treed forest.

An hypothesis put forth by the linguist Guy Villette based on the namePerchehaving initially designated the forest region, and not the province, would havePercherepresent the pre-Celtic name of indo-european origin *perkʷ-ik-ā« (forest) with long trees », dissimilated into *pertika, and transmitted as such in the Gallic language, even though the initialp-was foreign to this language.The indo-european radical *perkʷu-,"large tree: oak, pine, fir, beech..." is also the origin of the Latin wordquercus« oak » and the common Germanic word *furhu-,source of the English and German wordsfirandFöhre« pine ».

Until about the 11th or 12th century, such terms aspagus Perticusorpagus Pertecensisused in connection with Perche's ancient forest are accordingly understood to refer to a frontier region without precise geographical limits and thus not to a clearly defined political or administrative territory.

Geography

Limits of pre-Revolutionary Perche province with overlay of current arrondissements & départements.

Before theFrench Revolution,Perche was bounded by the following ancient provinces:Normandyto the north and west, Maine to the west,Beauceto the east andOrléanaisto the south.

Perche is dominated by four topographical-featured arcs:

• An outer arc marked by the high edge of a flat high plateau to the west and south of the Perche's eastern and northern limits
• An inner arc, concentric to the high plateau edge arc, defined by theHuisne River,a tributary of theSarthe River,situated in Perche's irregular lowlands.
• Forest arcs inles collines du Perche(the Perche hills) on either side of the Huisne, consisting of a main forest arc off the Huisne's left bank stretching fromMoulins-la-MarchetoMontmirailand a secondary forest arc off the Huisne's right bank fromPervenchèrestoLe Thiel.

Within the Huisne watershed lie the three unofficial Perche capitals:Nogent-le-Rotrou(economic capital),Mortagne-au-Perche(administrative capital) andBellême(historical capital).

The Perche hillsare the source of numerous small tributaries of theSeine Riverwatershed via theEure,Avre,Iton andRislerivers and theLoire Riverwatershed via theHuisne,LoirandSartherivers.

Perche's principal towns

Town Hall inMortagne-au-Perche(2016)

The following table lists the principal towns in Perche province along with the distance of any given town to Condé-sur-Huisne, situated near Perche's geographic center:

	km		km		km		km		km
Arrou	48	Ceton	23	La Ferté-Vidame	29	Luigny	31	Senonches	29
Authon-du-Perche	29	Chateauneuf-en-Thymerais	40	La Loupe	18	Montmirail	41	Thiron-Gardais	15
Bellême	27	Condé-sur-Huisne	~0	Le Gault-du-Perche	43	Mortagne-au-Perche	31	Tourouvre	44
Brezolles	45	Digny	32	Longny-au-Perche	22	Nogent-le-Rotrou	8	Verneuil-sur-Avre

Peripheral towns

Church of Notre-Dame des Marais inLa Ferté-Bernard.

Nearby towns in the four ancient provinces along the periphery of Perche province include (starting from the north, clockwise):L'Aigle,Dreux,Chartres,Châteaudun,Le Mans,Mamers,AlençonandSées.

Economy

Four-in-hand team ofPercheron(2007)

Agriculture and tourism constitute the economic focus of Perche's natural region, the largest parts of which are located within the departments ofOrneandEure-et-Loir,in the regions of Normandy andCentre-Val de Loire,respectively.

ThePercheronbreed ofdraft horsesoriginated in Perche'sHuisneriver valley and is identified throughout the world as the Perche's most well known symbol. Apples (forhard cider) and pears are grown throughout the Perche territory.

Calvadosapples

History

Château Saint-Jean,Nogent-le-Rotrou.

Prehistory

Perche's prehistory is manifested bymegaliths(dolmens,menhirs) and prehistoric tools of flint, bronze, and iron.

Middle Ages

See also:Lords, counts and dukes of Perche

Perche was essentially a region between other regions:

"...the Perche was not based on an existing administratative unit, such as its neighbors, the counties of Maine andChartres,nor was it coterminous with an ecclesiastical jurisdiction. It grew up at the margins of several larger units, and there was no major population focus nor great religious centre such as a cathedral or ancient abbey within it. It owed its existence to the ambition and energy of successive members of a lineage of warrior elite. "

The Romans found possession of the Perche forests was necessary for the conquest of the vastArmoriqueand Normandy territories extending from theLoireestuary off the Atlantic coast toDieppeoff theEnglish Channel.

Until the Viking or Norman invasions in the 9th century, Perche was a relatively remote area bounded on all sides by the followingGaul-Romanterritories andCelticpeoples: to the east and south theCarnutespeople in Chartrain territory based inChartres;to the northeast theAulerques Eburoviquespeople in Évreux territory based inÉvreux;to the southwest theAulerques Cénomanspeople in Maine territory based inLe Mans;and to the northwest the Hyesmois (Essuins) people in Exmes territory based inSéez.These territories eventually became first Romancivitates,to then become the dioceses ofChartres,Evreux,Le MansandSéez.that did not change significantly in terms of geographical limits until the Revolution.Thus Perche has traditionally been shared between three of these four dioceses as follows:

• Parishes in northwest Perche such as in the town of Mortagne have been part of Séez diocese;
• Parishes in eastern Perche such as in the towns of Tourouvre and Nogent-le-Rotrou have been part of Chartres diocese;
• Parishes in southwest Perche such as in the town of Bellême have been part of Le Mans diocese.
• The Commune of Thiron-Gardais was occupied by the mother abbey of theTironensian Orderof monks who founded the order in 1106.

In theMiddle Ages,the County of Perche was controlled by an independent line of counts. By the 12th century, two large families contended for control of the Perche region: the Talvas ofBellême familyand theRotrou familyof Nogent-le-Rotrou. In 1114, Rotrou III annexed Bellême. In 1226,Count Geoffroy Vwould have been a leader of theFourth Crusadehad he not died before its departure to the Near East. This end of the Rotrou dynasty led to the region's annexation to theCrown of France(by inheritance). At this time, the crown divided part of the region to create the county ofAlençon.After 1325, both counties were generally held by a member or members of acadet branchof theHouse of Valois.During theHundred Years War,partisans of England plundered Perche, destroyed its nobility, and burned many castles and abbeys. In 1449, free from English domination, Perche began reconstruction. Upon the death of Alençon's last duke (1525), rule returned to and remained under the French crown, and was granted only sporadically thereafter.

Modern times

New France(blue) circa 1750

In the three decades starting in 1632, a large proportion of immigrants toNew Francecame from Perche, in what has been called the Percheron immigration movement.Many Percherons were thus recruited to work inseigneuriesbeing establishing along theSaint Lawrencevalley. TheBeauportseigneurie, New France's first agricultural-oriented seigneurie, was granted in 1634 toRobert Giffard de Moncelby theCompany of Hundred Associates.While the total number of emigrants was small, Perche had a much higher rate of emigration to New France than most other regions of France. Nearly allFrench Canadianshave some ancestors from the villages of Perche.Prominent last names from Perche who came to Canada starting just before the end ofSamuel de Champlain's tenure include: Côté, Boucher,Cloutier,Guyon (Dion),Tremblay andParadis.

After the French Revolution, Perche was divided into four departments: Orne, Eure-et-Loir, Sarthe, and Loir-et-Cher. At this time, national law replacedFR:coûtume du Percheor local, customary law.

In 1998, the government of France created the Perche Regional Nature Park (Parc naturel régional du Perche– seeFR:Perche (région naturelle)).The park is forested mostly by beech, birch, chestnut, oak (especially sessile and pedunculate species), as well as conifers (especially Douglas fir and pine species)populated by wildlife including boar, buzzard, deer, squirrel, woodcock and woodpecker species.

See also

• Communes of the Eure department
• FR:Perche (région naturelle)
• Zacharie Cloutier
• Tironensian Order

External links

• Association Perche-Canada
• Centre Généalogique de l'Orne et du Perche
• Parc naturel régional du Perche
• perche-quebec.com
• Rossant, Colette(25 March 2007)."France's Le Perche Is the Last Terroir".New York Times.Retrieved21 March2018.</ref>
• Vermont French-Canadian Genealogical Society:Le Perche