Dombes

The Dombes is one of the countries of the Ain.

Localization

Dombes corresponds to a plate of morainic origin (stone silt, and of Argile) located in the Département of Ain at the North-East of Lyon. It is limited to the west by the valley of the the Saone and to the South by the Côtière which overhangs the plains of the the Rhone. In the east, it is the river of Ain which separates it from the Bugey. The Northern limit is not very clear; gradually Dombes comes into contact with the Bresse.

Country

It is an old country of France, included/understood in the large-government of Burgundy, which was located between the Bresse, the Lyonnais, the Beaujolais and the Mâconnais. Dombes formed a Principauté which had as a capital Trévoux and which corresponded about to the old district of Trévoux. Nowadays, Dombes is, with the Bresse, the Bugey, the Revermont and the Pays of Gex, one of the “Countries of Ain”.

Characteristics

The pond S, very many (more than thousand), are of human origin. They were dug - mainly by the Moine S, by making profitable the morainic deposits clay . In particular, their profile is controlled and determined by the type of fishing, illustrated on the Photo: with the difference of the ponds of the Drill, to the flat bottom, the ponds of Dombes present a very light slope, allowing the Eau to regularly run out slowly and towards the emissary (called “thou”) during their draining at the time of fishing. They allow a important Pisciculture for a long time, but until the 19th century, the area suffered from a endemic Paludisme .

Alternation Assec - évolage is a cultural and farming characteristic local, where cereal culture and breeding of the Poisson are closely associated.

Without forgetting frog of Dombes celebrates it which is a culinary speciality.

“It” or “the” Dombes?

The question of the use of plural or the singular to name the area is prone to discussion. Dombistes current as well use name “Dombes”, but only the use of the singular is correct; it is besides in this manner that one recognizes Dombistes originaires.
One will note this subject the name of the commune of the country Villars-les-Dombes, which lends to confusion. Here, “them” comes from Latin and means “in” Dombes.

Communications

The area is crossed by the line of Dombes and the road Lyon - Borough-in-Bresse. The south-western part became suburban of Lyon.

History

The Dombes at the time of Jules César was populated by the Ambarres. At the 5th century, it belonged to the kingdom of the Burgondes. At the time of the division of Verdun in 843, it returned to Lothaire Ier, i.e. with the Empire. But the distance of the capacity caused the creation of seigniories which set up in quasi-autonomous sireries.

At the end of the 12th century, the lords of Baugé and Thoire and Villars shared the area. The marriage of the July 15th 1218 between the girl of the lord de Baugé and Humbert V of Beaujeu made pass Dombes in the field of Beaujeu until in 1400, where their grounds passed to the Bourbons. The southern part of Dombes belonged, it, with the lords de Thoire and Villars, also possessionnés in Bugey.

Starting from the advent of Humbert V of Thoire and Villars in 1300, the sirery was directed gradually towards France (Humbert VI will be one of the principal craftsmen of the fastening of the Dauphiné in France in 1336; the last three lords de Thoire and Villars were used the kings as France during the Guerre One hundred Year old.

Dombes suffered from wars between the counts of Savoy and the lords de Thoire and Villars (allies with the Dolphin and the count de Chalon against Savoy) starting from the end of the 13th century. While wanting to help Edouard, count de Savoie against Guigue V dolphin of Viennese, Humbert Ier de Beaujeu was made prisoner with Varey in Bugey in 1325. He was constrained to lend homage for the seigniories of Meximieux, Miribel and Borough-Saint-Christophe in the East of Dombes, and asked to the count de Savoie a compensation. The grounds of the lords de Thoire and Villars underwent, as for them, several rides left the grounds of the counts de Savoie, until the climate does not calm down, in the neighborhoods of 1355. Humbert VII of Thoire and Villars, not having seen her only son surviving to him and being threatened by the duke from Burgundy to which it refused to lend homage, sold her grounds in 1402, dividing them between the dukes of Savoy and Bourbon (which had obtained the Beaujolais wine of the last to sir of Beaujeu in 1400 and could thus increase their grounds towards the east), thus placing himself under the protection of these large princes. Humbert VII of Thoire and Villars kept however the usufruct of her grounds until her death in 1423.

In 1523, François Ier showed the constable of Bourbon of Félonie, under the terms of what it confiscated his grounds in the kingdom of France and dispatched an army to confiscate the part of Dombes belonging to him, although these grounds being Empire side, the the Saone making border between the kingdom of France and the Saint Worsens Romain Germanique. It established a Parliament then in order to manage Dombes on its behalf: Parliament of Dombes which sat initially at Lyon, by “borrowed territory”.

In 1560, François II returned their possessions to the dukes of Bourbon who also recovered their possessions of Dombes. The emperor not having had the ambition to counter the king of France when it had confiscated this territory raising however of its jurisdiction, the dukes of Bourbon set up Dombes in small independent sovereignty whose Trévoux became, obvious result with the width taken by the city at the end of the Middle Ages, the capital.

One consequently gathered in this city all the bodies necessary to the good administration of a small state: a hospital was founded there by Anne-Marie-Louise of Orleans, duchess of Bourbon-Montpensier, under the impulse of Claude Cachet of Garnerand, adviser at the Parliament of Dombes.

It exchanged then in Louis XIV, his first cousin, the sovereignty of Dombes against the release of the duke of Lauzun, with which it was in love.

Louis XIV did not attach Dombes sovereignty to France, it allotted it directly to the Duke of Maine, his illegitimate son with Madam de Montespan who thus became sovereign prince about it. The duke of Maine made transfer the Parliament from Dombes of Lyon to Trévoux, making build starting from 1696, a palate to accommodate it, which one can still visit nowadays. He supported, moreover, the printing works established in Trévoux or was not exerted the censure of the kingdom of France, authorizing the Jésuite S to print there their Mémoires (newspapers of information and scientific, theological, literary criticism…). Several editions of the Dictionnaire of Trévoux were also printed there.

At the time of the sovereignty of Dombes, the drawing of gold and money in order to make wire suitable of them to decorate invaluable fabrics were a monopoly royal in France. To draw, it was necessary to pass by the royal wire-drawers (machines being used for drawing of metal) of Lyon or Paris. However, Trévoux being located at only 25 km in the north of Lyon and profiting from tax immunities since located apart from the kingdom of France, the gold gunners included/understood the interest quickly that they would have to be established there. They settled in mass with Trévoux and durably established to with it an industry which thrived until the second world war. At the end of |, the trévoltiens specialized in the manufacture of dies (part through which one passes metal forces some in order to refine it) out of diamond, making of Trévoux the world capital of the diamond die.

In 1762, the son of the duke of Maine, the count of Have, exchanged the sovereignty of Dombes with Louis XV against grounds in Normandy where it was, in addition, possessionné. It consequently was definitively attached to the kingdom of France.

In the middle of the 19th century of the monks created the abbey of Our-Lady-of-Dombes the with the Plantay, in order to help to cleanse the marshy area and to limit the effects of the Malaria.

Naturalism

From an ornithological point of view, Dombes is the biogeographic zone presenting largest specific diversity of the area the Rhone-Alps: it has 131 species of birds nicheurs. It is a wetland of international importance for the migratory birds, classified in ZICO (important zone for the conservation of the birds). The whole of the ponds is proposed with the network Natura 2000. Among the emblematic species of Dombes, one can quote:

the Grèbe with black neck;
the russet-red Clear ;
the Guifette moustac.

Piscicultural economy

Dombes only shelters with it nearly 18% of the national surface of the exploited ponds. These extensive piscicultures are managed by some 300 pisciculturists who produce 21% of the national piscicultural production (1600 T) of which

- 27% of the carp S raised in France,

- 21% of the Brochet S. Half of the production is intended for the market and the other with repopulation of the ponds by the angling club. One notes also the development of the breeding of Truite S and a multiplication of the ponds and lakes devoted exclusively to the practice of the Pêche to the fly.

This economy was disturbed in 2006 by the appearance of the virus Influenza 1 H5N1 HP in the area, which justified a prohibition to approach the banks, which prevented certain pisciculturists from working.

External bonds

Dombes Photographs and reports
Fiche Natura 2000 “the ponds of Dombes”
Discover Dombes

The area with the 1000 ponds with its gastronomy, its circuits discovered, its museums, its castles, its churches and abbeys, its golfs, its producers and craftsmen local, its riding schools, its places of fishing. A whole world

the Country with the thousand mirrors the villages and the ponds of Dombes
Discover Holy Bernard

The village of the spinosiens, inhabitants of Saint Bernard, village of the valley of the Saone on the Western limit of Dombes.

Villars Dombes

The site of the town hall of Villars Dombes

Partial source

References

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