Local History

Deux-Sèvres

Saint Porchaire – Bressuire

A rare but distinctive pottery was made in Saint Porchaire during the 16th century. Today there are only 70 known examples of this beautiful pottery, mostly in museums or with collectors. There is an example at the chateau d’Oiron. 

The pottery was made from basic clay shapes, either thrown on a wheel and then refined on a lathe or shaped from clay slabs. The body of the piece was then imprinted with metal dies to create a base pattern.

The pattern in the piece was then filled with brown, red or yellow ochre ‘slip’ (liquid clay) the raised part of the piece was then rubbed off just leaving the colour in the indents. Masks, festoons and figures were made by hand to be added to the piece for decoration. Once assembled the piece was covered in a lead glaze and then fired. The result gave a beautiful golden sheen to the article.

The pieces were extremely fragile and totally impractical (lead glaze is toxic). It appears that the pieces were commissioned and some had King Henry II’s Coat of Arms on them. It is thought that Bernard Palissy may have used some of the techniques of the Saint Porchaire potters at his workshop in Paris during the late 16th century.

Today various pottery is still made at Saint Porchaire including the beautiful traditional roof tiles.

Eleanor of Aquitaine

The Poitou Charente and England have had a relationship that stretches back to the XXII century when Eleanor of Aquitaine married Henry II.

Eleanor was one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in Europe during the middle ages. She was born in 1122; the eldest daughter of William X, Duke of Aquitaine, and at the age of 15 became the most eligible heiress after the death of her father. William had stated in his will that King Louis VI be guardian to the young Duchess of Aquitaine. Louis decided that he would marry young Eleanor off to his son Louis and they wed on 11th July in the Cathedral of Saint-Andre in Bordeaux.

Eleanor’s marriage to Louis was an unhappy one and she asked for an annulment of the marriage. The annulment was granted in 1153 and on May 18th of that year she married Henry (Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy). Henry was the first Plantagenet king and became King Henry II of England in 1154.

Their marriage lasted until Henry’s death in 1189. Eleanor and Henry had eight children, their first child, William, died in infancy. Apparently Henry was father to many illegitimate children as well, some of whom created problems later on for the royal households.

For further reading on Eleanor, see Eleanor of Aquitaine – a Life, by Alison Weir

The Art of Medieval Urbanism: Parthenay in Romanesque Aquitaine

"The Art of Medieval Urbanism" examines the role of monumental sculpture and architecture in the medieval cityscape, offering a pathbreaking interpretation of the relationships among art, architecture, and the history of urbanism.

In the first study of its kind, Robert Maxwell shifts attention away from the great Gothic cities of the later Middle Ages to focus on the urban context of art making in the earlier Romanesque era. Maxwell concentrates on Parthenay, a flourishing town in eleventh- and twelfth-century Aquitaine. Exploring Parthenay's exceptionally well-preserved structures, the author charts two centuries of urban development in southwestern France.

Drawing on the methods of historical anthropology, Maxwell brings the monumental arts into dialogue with courtly romance literature, the iconography of seals and coins, history writing, and contemporary mythologies of place to show how the urban experience inflected the invention of history, aristocratic self-fashioning, and urban identity.