Labourd

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Coat of Arms of Labourd

Labourd (Lapurdi in Basque; from Latin Lapurdum, Labord in Gascon) is a former French province and part of the present-day Pyrénées Atlantiques département. It was historically one of the seven provinces of the traditional Basque Country.

Labourd extends from the Pyrenees to the river Adour, along the Atlantic Ocean. To the south is Gipuzkoa and Navarre in modern Spain, to the east is Basse-Navarre, to the north are the Landes. It has an area of almost 900 km² and a population of over 200,000, the most populous of the three French Basque provinces. Over 25% of the inhabitants speak Basque. Labourd has also long had a Gascon-speaking tradition, noticeably next to the banks of the river Adour but also more diffusedly throughout the whole viscounty.

The main town of Labourd is Bayonne, although the capital, where local Basque leaders assembled, is Ustaritz, 13 km away. Other important towns are Biarritz, Hendaye, Hasparren, Ciboure and Saint-Jean-de-Luz. The area is famous for the five-day Fêtes de Bayonne and the red peppers of Espelette. Many tourists come to the coast, especially at Biarritz, and the hills and mountains of the interior for walking and agri-tourism. La Rhune (Larrun in Basque), a 900m high hill, lies south of Saint-Jean-de-Luz on the border with Spain. The hill is a Basque symbol, with spectacular views from its peak.

Ainhoa village houses showing some aspects of traditional Basque architecture

The traditional buildings of Labourd have a low roof, half-timbered features, stone lintels and painted in red, white and green. The house of Edmond Rostand, Villa Arnaga at Cambo-les-Bains, is such a house and is now a museum dedicated to the author of Cyrano de Bergerac and to Basque traditions.

Lapurdian (Lapurtera) is a dialect of the Basque language spoken in the region.

1 History
- 1.1 Mariner activities
2 See also
3 References

[edit] History

Ancient Labourd was inhabited by the Tarbelas, an Aquitanian tribe. They had the port of Lapurdum, that eventually would become modern Bayonne, an give its name to the region.

In the Middle Ages it formed part of the Duchy of Vasconia or Wasconia, that eventually came to be called Gascony. In the year 844 Viking raiders conquered Bayonne, where they estabilished a base for their incursions. They were only expelled in 986, leaving a legacy of naval expertise in Labourd and all the coastal Basque Country.

In 1020 Duke Sancho VI ceded the jurisdiction over Labourd and what came to be known as Lower Navarre, to King Sancho III the Great of Pamplona. This monarch made it officially a Viscounty in 1023, naming as Viscount certain Lupo Sancho, a relative of the Duke of Gascony. This territory included all modern Labourd and possibly some parts of modern Navarre north of the Bidasoa river.

C. 1125, Bayonne was chartered by Duke William IX of Aquitaine. In 1130-31, King Alfonso the Battler of Aragon and Navarre attacked Bayonne over a dispute on jurisdictions with the Duke of Aquitaine, William X the Saint.

Labourd was ruled directly, between 1169 and 1199, by Richard Lionheart, who gave a second charter to Bayonne c. 1774 and, c. 1775, gave to the merchants of this city the return of the duties they paid in the tolls of Poitou, Aquitaine and Gascony. This caused an uprising of Gascons and Basques (including Labourtines from outside Bayonne) but Richard defeated all the cities that had sublevated.

Richard married Navarrese princess Berenguela in 1191, what favored the trade between Navarre and Bayonne (and England). This marriage also induced a juridisctional transaction that shaped the borders of the Northern Basque Country: Lower Navarre was definitively annexed to Navarre, while Labourd and Soule remained as parts of Angevine Aquitaine. This pact was formalized in 1193 in form of the sale of their rights by the legitimate viscounts of Labourd, who had estabilished their seat in Ustaritz. Ustaritz was since then the capital of Labourd, instead of Bayonne, until the supression of the province in 1798.

John I of England, gave to Bayonne the Municipal Law, that created the figures of mayor, 12 jurors, 12 counsilors and 75 advisors.

Labourd passed to French hands in 1451, just before the end of the Hundred Years' War. Since then and until the French Revolution, Labourd was largely self-ruled as an autonomous French province.

In 1610, Labourd suffered a major witch-hunt at the hands of judge Pierre de Lancre, that ended with some 70 supposed sorginak burnt at the stake.

In 1798, the newly born French Republic, with its centralizing Jacobin ideals, supressed the historical Basque provinces, including Labourd, incorporating them into the newly created département of Pyrenees Atlantiques, together with Bearn.

In the last decades there have been repeated petitions asking for the spearation from Bearn and the creation of a Basque département, together with the other two historical Basque provinces of Lower Navarre and Soule. Though these petitions have almost universal support inside Labourd and the rest of the Pays Basque, they have been ignored by successive French governments [1].

[edit] Mariner activities

Basque fisheries in Canada
(click to enlarge)

Labourd, like the other coastal territories of the Basque Country, played an important role in early European explotation of the Atlantic Ocean.

The earliest document (a bill) that mentions Basque whaling dates from 670, long before Viking raids. In 1059, Labourdin whalers already gave to the viscount the oil of the first captured animal. It seems that Basques disliked the taste of whales but made good business selling their meat and oil to the French, Castilian and Flemish. Basque whalers used for this activity the longboats known as traineras, that only allowed whaling near the coast or based in a larger ship.

It seems that was this industry, along with cod-fishing, what brought Basque sailors to the North Sea and eventually to Newfoundland. The date most frequently mentioned for their arrival is 1372. Other sources document Basque fishermen in Iceland in 1412.

The development of rudder in Europe seems also a Basque and specifically Labourdine developement. Three masted ships appear in a fresco of Estella (Navarre), dating to the 12th century, seals preserved in the Navarrese and Parisian historical archives also show similar ships. Rudder itself is first mentioned as steer "a la Navarraise" or "a la Bayonaise".

After Navarre lost St. Sebastian and Hondarribia to Castile in 1200, it signed a treaty with Bayonne that made it the "port of Navarre" for nearly three centuries. Role that extended also into the Early Modern Age, after Navarre had been annexed by Castile (but both provinces remained autonomous).