Following Charlemagne’s army in Agen

We’ve looked before at some of the bastide towns (medieval ‘new towns’) in the north of the Lot-et-Garonne department of southern France.  This time we head to the south of the same department, and across the border into the Tarn et Garonne department.

The ‘Pays Agenais’ as it is known is the region around the town of Agen and features numerous villages and small towns, many of them bastide towns, of historical interest.

The central open squares are intact, often with arcaded buildings around the edges that provided shelter to market traders 500 years ago.

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Piled up houses

In centuries gone by, like across much of Europe, France had large areas that were covered with dense woods and forests.

Although France still has a great deal of forest (increasing each year, as agricultural land in inhospitable regions gets abandoned), there are also many areas that we now see as open farmland that were once forested.

About 500-700 years ago, the Lot-et-Garonne region of southern France was well covered in trees, including oak and mixed woodlands. So the first building material that came to mind when building somewhere to live was, naturally, wood.

For a short period of time towards the end of the ‘dark ages’ – perhaps lasting as little as 10 years  – a new ‘architectural style’ came into being in the region.

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Bastide towns of Lot et Garonne

Less well known than the Dordogne to the north, the Lot et Garonne department contains some hidden treasures in the form of the medieval bastide towns that dot the region.

Head south from Lalinde or south-east from Bergerac and you will enter the quiet countryside that typifies the region. Agriculture and small scale farming are the main business here with fruit, sunflowers and maize being among the main crops grown. The fruit includes many plum orchards that produce the fruit for the very popular (and very tasty) ‘pruneaux d’Agen’ – the prunes are only half dried, so much more most than the prunes you might be familiar with.

The bastide towns were founded in the 13th century, half by the English and half by the French, partly for administrative reasons and partly for defensive reasons. Some of them have disappeared into the history books, and others have been swallowed by larger more modern towns, but there remain plenty of these small medieval towns for you to discover in this part of France. Read more