Normandie

FR, Normandy: Renaissance of the construction of granges after the Hundred Years’ War

It is little known that, apart from the big monastic granges, there were granges similar in size and shape built on farms of the aristocracy in France and in England too. The origins of the latter may be paralleled to the monastic ones. In contrast to monastic contexts, where the construction of new granges came to a standstill due to the decline of Cistercian Order, the aristocracy, especially the landed gentry, continuously built this type of barn up to modern periods. However, the Hundred Years’ War between 1337 and 1453 deeply affected building activity here too. Only after the end of the war in the course of an economic rebound, building activities increased again. Even damaged or destroyed granges were repaired or rebuilt. Thus an amount of 5 big granges has been erected between 1488 and 1493, only in the Département Eure/Haut Normandie, which have passed nearly unheeded by building researchers up to now.

The exact number of granges of this specific type still existing on noble farms is not known. Up to today, only a few of them have been investigated. Nevertheless, those few well known exemplars still show that the architectural tradition of the monastic barns survived on the farmsteads of the aristocracy, interrupted only by the Hundred Years’ War. The youngest known grange was dated to 1766±6 (d). It can be found at the domain of the Benedictine abbey St. Ouen, Rouen in Daubeuf la Campagne.