. Nomadic animal husbandry involving seasonal migration of flocks and herds. Transhumance maximized pastoral resources by moving animals to where the grass was most abundant. In the Middle Ages, it was used especially in the Midi, where changes in elevation and season of grass growth occur over short distances, to support larger flocks and herds. Animals were pastured during the winter in lowlands having their rainy season then, as along the Languedoc coast; in spring and early summer, they were moved to the high mountain pastures (estives, montagnes, or alpes) of the Pyrénées, the Massif Central, and the Alps and were brought down again to the lowlands in the fall. Because of the many passage, feeding, and watering concessions involved, medieval transhumance was practiced most extensively on a large scale by the great monastic houses; those of Bonneval and Bonnecombe in Rouergue, for instance, were well known for bringing sheep and cattle from Quercy up into the high elevations of Rouergue; the animals, numbering in the thousands, included not only those belonging to the monks but many others tended under contract. The transhumance practiced by the great religious corporations is well documented in the many surviving charters recording controversy and agreement about dates of coming and going to the estives; amounts of time to rest, feed, and water animals en route; numbers of animals; the building of shepherds’ huts; and the division of pasture and water in the estives. There is evidence from coastal Provence of transhumance practiced by peasant villages since Roman times; only by such seasonal migration could these villagers survive in that hostile environment.
Most transhumance in France was conducted by specialized shepherds and cowherds who migrated from the lowlands up into the high summer pas-tures to tend their animals and make butter and cheese from their milk during the summer. Standard routes, dates, and ceremonies for the movements of cattle and sheep developed; walled sheep roads called drailles (or drayas) can still be seen in the higher elevations of the Massif Central, like the Aubrac plateau, still famous for its transhumance. Although friction always existed between stock raisers and cereal cultivators, there is little indication for medieval France of the widespread disruption that accompanied transhumance in medieval Spain and Italy.
Berman, Constance H. Medieval Agriculture, the Southern French Countryside, and the Early Cistercians. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1986.
Bousquet, Jacques. “Les origines de la transhumance en Rouergue.” In L’Aubrac: étude ethnologique, linguistique, agronomique, et économique d’un établissement humain. Paris: CNRS, 1971, Vol. 2, pp. 217–55.
Sclafert, Thérèse. Cultures en Haute-Provence: déboisements et pâturages au moyen âge. Paris: SEVPEN, 1959.
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