Old provinces of France

The term of provinces is currently used with an aim of simplification to indicate before administrative divisions of the France to division in departments carried out in 1790.

However, before this date, France consisted of territorial districts resulting from the history, the geography and the settlement which were different selont the various capacities which were exerted there, with different categories like metropolises, provinces, dioceses, duchies, baronnies, governments, states, elections, general information, intendance, Parliaments, country, baillages, country, etc. followed by a name of area which was often the same one, without covering the same geographical extent. Thus, arise it from the Parliament of Artois did not correspond to the same territory as the government of Artois or than the intendance of Artois.

National Convention, after having abolished all the rights and the uses particular to the various areas, decided to institute a uniform cutting of the territory, the departments , and that this cutting would be the same one for different the function from the State: soldier, nun, tax, administrative, university, legal, etc. The city chosen as place chief of each department should have concentrated the seats of each one of these functions and have had at the same time a prefecture, a évêché court, a university, a military place, one, a purse, a fair, a hospital, etc. Protests of the cities which filled since always one of these functions and which were seen thus stripped, which of their Court of Appeal, which of their arsenal, which of their university, which of their fair, prevented from carrying out this plan completely.

ecclesiastical Provinces: cities with the dioceses

The metropolises are the territories under the jurisdiction of a metropolitan Archevêque, also called provinces because they result from the provinces Roman whose first bishops ensured the administration during the fall of the Roman Empire.

They are consisted of the dioceses which have, according to the same process, succeeded old the " cités" Gallic romanized, and which almost always preserved the name of it. The Dioceses were composed of the parishes, whole of inhabitants being able to be assembled in the same church, whose names and limits were preserved in the 36.000 communes.

The ecclesiastical districts, because of their statute of mortmain, are the oldest territorial districts and most stable, since the Prehistoric antiquity until the general recasting of 1802.

See: List of évêchés and archbishop's palaces French.

Legal provinces: Parliaments, bailliages and seneschalsies

According to their right and of their habits, their languages, the terrioire of the crown is divided on the one hand into country of statute law, (approximately the part that one calls the Occitanie today) and into country of right not-writing (North). Each one of these parts includes/understands several Parliaments of which arise them are as much of legal provinces and whose all the royal jurisdictions arose, i.e. legal districts; bailliages and seneschalsies. Each one of it can have in its district several particular territories having habit and which one calls country . It acts in general, of old vicus having preserved local practice. Thus, the seneschalsy of Quercy it is subdivided into five bailliages secondary, corresponding to five old vigueries .

See: Parliament (Old Mode).

Tax provinces: States, Elections, General information and intendances

Some authors try to assimilate the concept of province of that of general information. No doubt the concepts coincide occasionally when, precisely, the extent of a general information recuts that of an older territorial entity more or less. But one could not see synonymy there: nobody will use the term of “province” to indicate the Généralité of Auch or the Généralité of Soissons.

See: General information (France).

Military provinces: great strongholds with the governments

They are the strongholds depending directly on the crown (duchies, counties and steps) and which owe him a military aid.

In addition to the duchy of France which became the royal Domaine, the first six great strongholds have the title of peerage:

  • the three duchies of Aquitaine or Guyenne, of Wasconie or Gascogne, of Normandy,
  • three counties of Toulouse, Flanders and Champagne (about 1212).
Their holders are regarded as the voters of king de France, with the six other ecclesiastical pars.
  • the three bishop-dukes of Rheims, of Direction, of Langres,
  • three bishop-counts of Beauvais, Boundary-line and Châlons (of origin mérovingienne)

The number of the great strongholds varies with the history (heritages, confiscations, conquests, loss, treaties) and increases with the final fastening of the county Provence, duchy of Burgundy, duchy of Brittany, duchy of Savoy, duchy of Lorraine, etc… Some of these provinces are the simple return to the crown of an old stronghold as the duchy of Burgundy whose brother of Hugues Capet had been titular, or as the duchy of Brittany which depended in the past on the duchy of Normandy, therefore crown like sub-fief. Others are true acquisitions like duchy of Savoy, the Corsica , the Comtat-Vénessin or the county of Nice which concerned the Empire or the Holy See.

Contrary to the ecclesiastical provinces, their extent varies during the history according to the possessions of their holders, or political rehandlings. Thus, the duchy of Gascogne disappears at the 12th century; the duchy of Normandy is divided into two military governments).

The thirty-six gouvernents correpondent with the provinces on which all the strongholds depend and sub-fiefs which are as many territorial districts for defense and the constabulary, the lifting of the men-at-arms, the construction of the places, of the arsenals and the castles, the judges of weapons, and thus also all the questions of nobility, armoriaux, etc…

At the end of the Old Mode, without counting the overseas territories like the Antilles, Pondichéry or the Island-Maurice, there exist thirty-six areas equipped with a governor in charge of defense and called " gouvernements".

These thirty-six government correspond, with the areas attached to France since 1791, with what is called today the old provinces of France .

List old provinces of France

Provinces belonging to France to the Revolution

Territories not attached to France in 1789

Were not attached to France, in 1789, the following territories:
  • Comtat Venaissin
  • Avignon
  • Principauté of Salm (1793)
  • Comté of Nice, annexed in France in 1860.
    • Tightens and Aspires to It, which belonged to the County of Nice, became French only in 1947.
  • République of Mulhouse, allied with the cantons Suisse S
  • Principauté of Montbeliard
  • the Duché of Savoy - or territory of the Savoy - annexed in France in 1860, with these provinces:

See too

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