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CHAPELOT Jean, RIETH Éric
Navigation et milieu fluvial au XIe s. : l'épave d'Orlac (Charente-Maritime)
The Orlac boat (Charente-Maritime). dated to the first half of the 11th century and excavated in 1987and 1988, comprises the major part of this publication. 15,50 metres in length and 2,10 in width, this vessel with its own particular caracteristics, is representative of assembled monoxyle boat architecture. The study of this wreck was at the same time combined with a study of river and riverbank improvements at Orlac, and with other medieval wrecks (essentially dug outs) excavated elsewhere in the Charente. This archaeological approach to medieval water transport of the Charente has been continued by an analysis of written sources, the progression of river improvements (Middle-Ages to 19th century), of navigation and their consequences on the regional economy.
Abstract
Abstract
Part 1 - Medieval water transport of the Charente : an archaeological approach
É. RIETH
1. The beginnings of the research
From 1971 to 1973, the site of the medieval and modern port of Port- Berteau (commune of Bussac), situated several kilometres below Saintes, was a scene of a subaquatic excavation during which wooden constructions on the bed of the Charente, an important collection of ceramics, originating from accidents occuring during loading, and a dugout boat 13 metres in length dated to the early medieval period were examinated. Within the framework of an thematic programme of research of the CNRS concerning metropolitan archaeology, between 1984 and 1986, an extensive fieldwork on a 40 km section of the Charente between Port-d'Envaux and Dompierre-sur-Charente was carried out. At the end of the programme, during which several dugout boats, river bed and river bank works and mooring areas were studied. The Orlac site appeared to be the most interesting to excavate. From 1987 to 1988, a subaquatic excavation of this site situated above Saintes took place. Even if the centre of research was focused on a 11th century boat, this took into account other archaeological composants of the site and the river itself in the perspective of recreating the ancient landscape of the Charente river.
The excavation of the Orlac site made use of the classical methods of subaquatic archeology and encountered the usual difficulties related to low visibility.
The analysis of the bed of the Charente at Orlac brought into evidence an important anomaly comprising a bank some 30 metres in length and up to one metre in height in places. Working on the hypothesis that the water level was much lower before the important works carried out during the second half of the 19th century, the actual water level being some 5 metres at Orlac this bank would have formed a shallow. It was in the channel formed by this shallow and the supposed limit of the right bank (fifteen metres from the actual right bank) that the remains of a construction based on wooden piles was studied. The dating of this structure (between 982 and 1029 AD) is very slightly earlier than that of the Orlac boat. Close by, 42 mooring stones form an alingement some 130 metres in length on the same axis as the pile based construction and the boat remains. These mooring stones, of which the weight in the majority of cases is situated between 21 and 42 kg, correspond probably to boat anchors. Their concentration is without doubt an indication that the zone was used as a mooring at a moment in the history of the Charente which is difficult to precise exactly in the absence of dating elements.
2. The Orlac boat
This boat, well conserved, measured 15,50 metres in length with a maximum width at its forequarter of 2,10 metres. The hull was in oak, flat bottomed and double ended and comprised four monoxyle sections. The fixing of the assemblage was assured by more than 200 pegs. Dendrochronological examination indicates that the oaks used for the construction had been cut between 1021 and 1042 AD, a date corresponding probably to the construction of the boat. The construction principle of this boat, edge-jointing the elements, and extended dugout, is very different to that observed in other boats of this type, antique or medieval, studied at present. The relatively elaborate architecture of the Orlac boat can be interpreted as an expression of a particular and well established (regional ?) tradition. With its flat bottom and low freeboard, the Orlac boat appears to be well adapted to the conditions of the Charente above Saintes - low water, reduced current evidenced notably by sedimentary analysis. The study of the technical capacities of the hull, and more .particularly its maximum carrying capacity, estimated to about 8 tonnes, tends to favorise the Orlac boat as a regular transporter of freight. In the regional context of the 11th century, boat construction and management present, amongst other questions, that of its ownership.
3. Other boat remains discovered in the Charente
Five dugout boats, four of which are medieval, were studied in the Charente between 1971 and 1988. To these must be added the remains of a boat of assembled architecture located at Port- Berteau but left unexcavated and dated to the early medieval period. These examples help us understand more clearly the composants of inland water transport in Charente in its technical and economic dimension: technical dimensions with the bringing into evidence of three different construction traditions - dugout, extended dugout, and assembled boats -, for the same period and for the same stretch of navigation; economic dimensions in the mesure where each construction tradition reveals the economic choices in relation to the quantity of wood used, the techniques used, working period, the load capacities, the working conditions... These examples have enabled us to obtain a view of inland water transport for which written evidence seems to ignore.
Part 2 - The Charente : riverbed and bank improvements, river navigation, regional economy
J. CHAPELOT
1. Improvements to the Charente from the medieval period to the present
From the 10th century, improvements to fue bed and banks of the Charente started to multiply. Whilst these improvements remained modest (mills and fisheries in particular), their accumulation had a manifest influence on the river and constitued a beginning of a regulation for which it is difficult to know however if it is a reply to a deliberate policy. The secteur the most concerned was that comprised between Saintes and above Port-du-Lys. Two principal reasons explain the importance of this zone: a slope of the river and at another, the economic competition between the different lay and ecclesiastical landowners related to the creation of mills, fisheries and river crossings and to the revenues that could be obtained. From the 12th century, and particularly the 13th century, improvements aimed at navigation appear to result from political and economic decisions. At this period, the Charente is taken into account in regional activities; inland water transport exists and possesses a confirmed commercial role. If ambitions improvements to regulate the river began seriously at the end of the 18th century (Tresaguet project, 1772), it was only towards the middle of the 19th century that these works finally commenced. The objective of the improvers was finally reached: boats could arrive at Saintes and vessels with an important displacement (60 t or more) could reach Angoulême.
2. Navigation between Saintes and Cognac during the Middle Ages
Written sources indicate the existence the 10th and 11th centuries of fleets belonging to religious orders, which leaves to believe that independant transporters existed at well. The importance each group remains however difficult to measure. By comparison with other regions, it seems that a large part of the use of water courses, before the middle of 11th century at least, was dominated either by ecclesiastics or lay landowners. It was certainly only they who disposed of enough surplus and possibilities of commercialisation. Only they had the real and regular need of products such as salt, wine and building stone. It was only at the end of the 10th century and certainly at the beginning of the 12th century that towns, in the Saintonge as in others regions, took over.
3. Conclusion : Boats of the Charente and their importance for the local economy during the 10th‑11th centuries
The Orlac wreck and the improvements of the Charente river bed lean in favour of an improvement policy and its commercial use as from 990-1020 AD_ These improvements are strictly contempory on one hand to the installation of castles and that of seigniorial rights in the sector between Saintes and Cognac, and the other hand the installation in the same area of watermills which indirectly helped navigation. This double phenomen is revealed by archaeology as from 1000 AD, that is to say well before the first written sources mention the commercial use of the Charente or the traffic of certains commodities such as salt. Rarely have written sources and archaeology been associated so well to enlighten a fundemental problem of economic and social history relating to a period poor in sources and to one question in particular - water transport - very little documented even in the later middle ages. Rarely as much as archaeology can, have things been so clearly here, that archaeological discoveries studied in a solid historical context, are a source of economic and social history of first importance.
