Everything about Picardy totally explained
» This article is about the historical French province and cultural area of Picardy. For the modern French région of Picardie, see Picardie. For use in music, see Picardy third. For the hymn tune see Picardy (hymn).
Picardy (
French:
Picardie) is an historical
province of France, in the north of
France. The historical capital and largest city is
Amiens.
Whimsical enough is the origin of the name of Picards, and from thence of Picardie, which doesn't date earlier than AD 1200. It was an academical joke, an epithet first applied to the quarrelsome humour of those students, in the University of Paris, who came from the frontier of France and Flanders. (Chapter LVIII - Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire)
During the
Middle Ages, Picardy referred to that part of France north of
Paris, and it even included the
Dutch speaking
Flanders. Thus, the name applied to an area much larger than what we now think of as Picardy. This area corresponds to all the territories from Paris to the
Netherlands. In the
Latin Quarter of Paris, people identified a "Picardy Nation" (
Nation Picarde) of students, most of whom actually came from Flanders, who studied in the prestigious
Sorbonne University.
In a narrower sense, Picardy refers to the area covered by the
gouvernement (military region) of Picardy as created in the 16th century. This area is the
Somme département, the northern half of the
Aisne département, and a small fringe in the north of the
Oise département. This is what most people think of as Picardy today. The older definition survives in the name of the
Picard language, which applies not only to the dialects of Picardy proper, but also to the
Romance dialects spoken in the
Nord-Pas de Calais région, north of Picardy proper.
Picardy proper now lies inside the
Picardie région, making up half of this
région. Before the
French Revolution, the coastal areas of
Boulogne-sur-Mer and
Calais were considered part of Picardy, but are now part of the Nord-Pas de Calais
région. However, anciently these areas belonged to the province of
Artois, and had been detached from Artois in the
15th century.
Most of Picardy is a vast plain with
open fields, famed for the gruesome
Battle of the Somme. The main crops of Picardy are
wheat,
sugar beets, and
fodder. Sugar beet was introduced by
Napoleon I during the
Napoleonic Wars in order to counter the
United Kingdom which had seized the sugar islands possessed by France in the
Caribbean. The sugar industry made the fortune of Picardy in the
19th century and contributed to the ruin of the sugar economy in the Caribbean.
Villages of Picardy have a distinct character, with their houses made of dark red bricks, in contrast with the neighbouring provinces.
A minority of people still speak the
Picard language, one of the
languages of France, which is also spoken in
Artois (
Nord-Pas de Calais région). "
P'tit quinquin", a song in the Picard dialect, is a symbol of the local culture (and of that of Artois).
Further Information
Get more info on 'Picardy'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://picardy.totallyexplained.com">Picardy Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
