Saussemesnil

Saussemesnil is a common French, located in the department of the Manche and the area Basse-Normandie.

Geography

History

Saussemesnil or Sauxemesnil?

The name of the parish of Sausemesnillo appears for the first time at the time of a lawsuit in July 1288 against Montaigu-la-Brisette, parish close about the Dîme S novales, i.e. the tax raised by the Church on the lately cleared grounds.

Stephan Laîné refutes the significance of the C-W communication Sauxemesnillo like Saxon field or field of Saxi. According to him, the phonetic rules do not authorize this explanation, and it privileges the explanation of a double C-W communication per convenience of Clerc, like that of Brussels of which the " x" " decides; ss".

Concerning the origin of the name of Saussemesnil, one thought of the field of the Willows because of the occasional C-W communication of Saulxmesnil but it is far from being the tree of the country and from an etymological point of view the sequence is hazardous. The existence of the Guard of Sauxmaresq in Forest of Brix not far close to Tourlaville does not bring any convincing element, the forest framing being too late compared to the subject. The historical geography of the parish shows enough that the wettest zones were cleared tardily (XVIe-XVIIIe centuries) and in the angle opposed exactly in the middle history which the church constituted. The existence of the place says Sauxemesnil to Bridge-Rilly close to Négreville either, it corresponds instead of extraction of the ground to pots by the potters of Saussemesnil.

An element is to be taken into account even if it is of a difficult handling: the border between Saussemesnil and its neighbors more in north was a long subject of conflict because of the multiple clearings also practiced by the inhabitants of the Mesnil-with-Valley and those of the Theil. The septentrional definite location adopted at the end of the 17th century is pressed on the brook called Vey Saussey. Saussey is also the name of a parish of Coutançais without one being able to deduce anything from it. One can think that the river is the only element of really stable and locatable reference mark in the middle of the clearings. But from there to justify the toponym of Saussemesnil there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.

a continuous face of clearing during 5 centuries.

It is thanks to this dispute on said novales that one can follow the development of the parish step by step, the rule being simple: the clergy takes only as from the moment when the ground was really development, which constitutes for us an interesting marker. If lawsuit there is, they is on the one hand because several ecclesiastics dispute harvest (Abbot of Montebourg, cleaned of Sauxemesnil, Chapitre of Coutances) and on the other hand because of the confused character of the face of bored clearing of enclaves and sunken lane. As if the progression had been stopped Net as of the beginning, it is then towards the North-West, the west and the south western that the parish increased with the wire of time, enlargings supported by peripheral sanctuaries (Saint Martin with the Yew, Ruffosses). The history of the settlement marks a very significant pause of the end of XIVe century until the medium of XVe century: this part of the peninsula was touched very hard by the “large one vuydement” of 1378 imposed by the Crown, name given to the scorched earth policy practiced in North-Cotentin to slow down the English projection whose exactions probably drove out in front of it the recalcitrant ones at the beginning. And it is necessary any to think that those which did not give up were abused or enlisted of force by the roughneck soldiers and the brigands who infested wood surrounding. The tax indices which one has for this period are enough overpowering. The country like is durably emptied its population. It is at the end of this time of misfortunes that in a preoccupation with a rebuilding the Crown granted or confirmed into 1461 with the inhabitants of this part of Cotentin of the rights of use which authorized them to take ground with pots. These rights particularly did not aim Sauxemesnil whose name is not even quoted in the act. The interested parties hurried to affirm that these rights were former to the English unloading of 1407 but if their declarations do not prove anything, that always given pleasure.

The second history of Sauxemesnil starts truly with the first third of XVIe century, i.e. a little front Gilles de Gouberville. The oldest mentions of establishment of clearers by name known place us in the bosom of the sergentery Pinel, whose spring chaired already the recognition of the rights in 1461. The other speakers are the Woolly one, the oldest family known in this region and of which one of the ancestors Thomas Laîné was titular of a vaquery to its name which returns to other rights of use. It is time to speak about the fieffes made by adjudication on the edges of the royal Field. XVIe century was one century of emergence of the forest right and the administration installation to apply it. This emergence was thwarted by the financial needs for monarchy never with court of expedients to reinflate itself in civil period of war. One of its expédients consisted in organizing great local annual stock sales in favor of the bordering populations of the forest with the doubly creditable goal to emphasize portions of “vain grounds and waves” from now on useless and to fix inclined populations to serve themselves without thinking of the following day. The fact is that these adjudications were made by the police chiefs of the king sent purposely for this purpose and that the first purchasers of these batches of grounds to be emphasized were the officers of Valognes who were at the same time lords in the surrounding parishes. The list is long those of them which crunched some, the turn of master key passes consisting in misleading its world on surfaces and the quality of the portions put on sale. Easy way consisting under-conceding with its clean vassal batches of ground where it was precisely interdict to build and with large never to build there furnaces whose one guesses the flamer risk. A little as in subcontracting subcontracting today and their schedule of conditions, the clauses first of the contract were forgotten with the first under-concession. One goes thus considering quickly creating true hamlets of tile makers and potters whose central administration discovered only one century later the existence, during the general inspection called Réformation carried out here by Guy Chamillart and his lieutenant.

Potters of Saussemesnil

Meeting of several hamlets potters established during the last waves of clearings, the parish was with Néhou and Vindefontaine one of the principal centers potters of the Cotentin of the end of the Middle Ages until the beginning of the 20th century, encouraged by the local lords whom, as officers of Water & Forêts would have to prevent the construction of the pot furnaces in the edges, such Gilles de Gouberville. Vast tribes potières answering in the name of Mouchel, Lepoittevin and Vallognes in concentrated in four hamlets skirting the Western borders of the parish: the Large one and Small Mouchel Hamlet close to Monvason, Rabusquets in the West and Sicqueval at the border of Tamerville.

A kind of family monopoly founded on matrimonial alliances between dominant clans excluding in fact the intruders. It is partly for this reason that with the difference in the centers potters of Vindefontaine and Ger, Saussemesnil is a community not ruled potière, i.e. all except a corporation regulated by statutes: the only documentary evidences of this community are users, i.e. it exists only for the right to take ground with pots in the " The Hague de Valognes" (Négreville) and of the " wood morgu or with demy pourry" in the Forest of Brix. Right for which a provost of the potters of Saussemesnil raised the payment of a revenue to the royal Field as of the years 1550. In theory the rights of use had been abolished since the forest Code but one had made exception for certain cases like Saussemesnil and Néhou on the condition of limiting the activity to a furnace, a hamlet and an household head: 2 for Mouchel, 1 for Lepoittevin and for Vallognes. These provisions imposed by judgment in 1674 were never applied by an immediate agreement between potters prohibited and privileged to fictitious blows of sale, rotations of pleasure of the furnace between brothers then cousins and finally of constructions of furnace in the edges. In 1782, the center includes/understands ten furnaces and 32 craftsmen potters. The wild character of the edges, the generalized homonymy and the complicity of the local authorities (the lords of Saussemesnil were a long time officers of Water & Forêts of Valognes and Mouchel is made recruit as forest wardens) were surest of the shelters.

Even if all are not potières, each tribe is divided into recognizable clans distinct with the port from a avernom, i.e. a clannish and hereditary nickname. One counted more than one hundred of avernoms for only Mouchel. There are reasons to think that rather strong consanguinity (6% of the marriages) is not only related on the need for locking the profession with any foreign marriage, to the need to approach a legal pot furnace or to find a chalk-lining which legitimates the activity (the 3/4 of the profession are the illegal ones). The pottery is only one element of an old and very widened design of the family whose activities are curiously complementary and similar to that of a company (workshop of potter, innkeeper, contractor of wood, forester etc…) One even thinks that while making work the brothers, cousins and brothers-in-law, the profession practices the microphone-credit and avoids wage-earning because the selling prices of the crockery are hopelessly low and support very with difficulty the competition of other materials. It is probably one of the reasons of its prolonged survival crossing without encumbers the Revolution and the disappearance of the privileges and accepting the intruders definitively only provided that they marry girls of the Tribe potière founder, that of Mouchel says Riettes whose the majority went down from the clans potters and who has dependant part with the local church since several of its descendants practiced the religious statuary.

Population and company

Onomastic and homonymy

At the beginning of the 19th century, 45% of the almost 2000 inhabitants name Mouchel, Lepoittevin or Vallongnes. Is added to it a homonymy of the families second-rate (in manpower) like Touraine and Vautier, and sometimes to horse on several parishes like Leblond.

It is clear that in fact the clearings and not the pottery are at the origin of this agglutination of populations for which the forest gets sometimes wood, sometimes the grazing ground (illegal) paid work (in the sales) sometimes the grounds to be cleared when the edges are sufficiently ransacked to be sold off.

The appearance of the nicknames is parallel to the waves of clearing, with a score of years close, as if it had been necessary to take into account the installation of a generation around a hamlet. The first nicknames of the 16th century did not hold more than one generation perhaps because of the Guerre of the League in which Saussemesnil is implied actively. Hervieu, lords of Sauxemesnil at the edge of the ruin indeed on several occasions took the weapons to pare the faithful English sometimes supports of the Protestants then the royal troops of Cherbourg when the King of France itself was Protestant. A bloody failure in 1593 front the doors of Cherbourg leaves several hundreds of victims on the ground. Of Mouchel, Raynel Gréard and Hamon appear in the list of the plotters who followed their Masters at the time of this missed blow.

The second wave is that of the middle of the 17th century to which correspond oldest avernoms , hereditary and clannish nicknames in opposition to the individual nicknames which die out with their holder. In practice, the individual is called by his nickname preceded or not by his first name. They take their sources in the name of a ground (Vallongnes says Laforge, owners of the piece of the Berryer forging mill, Mouchel says Muscadin owners of the Muscadin garden) of a rented farm (Mouchel says Latourelle), of a lord which one is farmer (Mouchel says Grenneville/Grainville), of the hamlet of origin (Lepoittevin says Rabusquets: verb to rabutchir employed for the work of the ground, Mouchel says Lasablonnière: fine sand was imposed to the sharecroppers of Sauxemesnil to amend the too acid ground, Vallongnes says Rombisson: the Round Bush was a detached thicket of the kidneys of the forest of Brix) of the profession of origin (Mouchel says Querrier, then Leguerrier of the verb to querrir which means to transport, Lepoittevin says Tronche, of the verb troncher which means to cut wood) of the memory of the ancestor (Mouchel known as Grand Robert, Leblond says Maro) or of a presumedly hereditary defect family (Mouchel known as Gros Back, Vallongnes says the Large Eyes), like, more curiously, in the family name of the wife (Mouchel says Lecappelain, of the name of their mother).

It happens that a maternal nickname rocks towards another clan (Mouchel says Drillot says Latourelle and says Cauco), or that he transfers because of decoupling between the oral examination and the writing (Mouchel Leguerrier and Mouchel say Carrière, went down thus from Mouchel Lequerrier, the origin of the word was forgotten; Mouchel says Riettes are the descendants of Mouchel Orillette by reference to the holding of Oraille, i.e. orée of the forest where the clan made stock).

social Structure and layer

In 1754-1755, the population sauxemesnillaise is made up of 345 operating owners and 14 farmers divided on a surface of almost 1400 acres from arable land and 270 vergées of meadow, the whole of poor funds and rather thin in ploughing according to the comments of the personnel of the Intendance of Caen. The thing is confirmed by the big number of lime kilns (illegal) established within the limits of the parish: the forest grounds are acid and require to be amended. Work of Charles Butel on the commune at the next century confirms a strong density of small and average owners condemned to complementary community activities at the same time by the low surface per capita, compartmental with fine meshs, the trying proximity of the forest and the very unequal quality of the grounds increasingly gorged with water and clay as one advances in direction of Large Bosq. But to be exact, one must also say that a big part of the community potière does not make pots because it needs a complementary income but initially and before very for the maintenance of the privilege in right if not. All indicates that the profitability of the profession appears manifestly critical because of the small size of the furnaces and the price of wood in constant increase during the XVIIIe century. About fifteen large farms make up in a traditional way by the farms of the local lords (Hervieu, Muldrac) who generally share the parish and resident in their private mansion with Valognes. Part of these farmers are also farmers of said for the priors, priests, abbots and Chapitre of Coutances who take their right share of harvests on the clearings with blows of lawsuit-rivers. They are quite naturally close to the families of millers (Lecorps and Touraine at the XVIIe century, Bertault at the next century) installed on banks to Glory and its affluents. In a more original way some of these farmers are also descendants of these clearers potters (Mouchel says Vichard descendants of Mouchel says Leguerrier, Mouchel says Lafosse) which made " so much; their pre carré" that they can leave the trade of the pottery to the collateral ones or homonymous brothers-in-law. All occurs like if the pottery, the clearings continual and the trades of the forest were used as retarders with the rural migration thanks to this secular play of solidarity lignagère.

Sources: Departmental records of the Apple-brandy, Intendance, C 288 and C 4384. Charles Butel, demographic and socio-professional Study of two rural communes of Cotentin, Saussemesnil and Yvetot-Scrap-metal, (1841-1914) Master's paper, University of Caen, 1983.

Administration

Demography

Demographic trends of the Old Mode to today

Population of Saussemesnil of many fires

1431 : 38
1521 : 62
1652 : 178
1695 : 250
1713 : 380 (?)
1727: 293
1789 : 349

On the basis of 4 final inhabitant by fire on average, knowing that Saussemesnil did not complete its demographic transition at the end from the Old Mode (rate of increase naturalness 1792 = 3%). In 1793, the census counts 1294 inhabitants. The strong growth of population at the end of the 17th century and the 18th century is to be put in relation to the waves of clearings of the Forest of Brix. In addition the forest adjudications of the Control of Water & forests of Valognes introduce in Saussemesnil an addition of population which is not durably attached to the parish and which saw small trades of wood under difficult conditions, often of the bijudes or huts at the bottoms of the clearings. This situation partly explains the prolonged maintenance of a high mortality. It is also why the statistics of the period are even more prone to guarantee than usually. The parish remains very strongly endogame (more than 80% of the marriages). The prevalence of Saussemesnil with respect to its neighbors was worth to him on a purely transitory basis during the Revolution the row of Chef-lieu of canton.

Places and monuments

Personalities related to the commune

François Mouchel says Lamare, potter-sculptor, born in February 1719 deceased in November 1786, sons of the potter Léonard Mouchel says Lamare and Marie Joret. One allots to him several statues of churches in the surroundings and there is an invoice signed of him for the realization of the cover (ridge tiles with laces) of the Castle of Bridge-Rilly in 1770. It is in addition the syndic of the community of the potters of Sauxemesnil during the conflict which opposed the profession to the dealers of the forest of Brix between 1772 and 1782. It thus went to Rouen with the brothers lepoittevin says Rabusquets to plead the cause of their rights of use. At summer questioned by justice with the beginning of the year 1782 after the aggression against the Sovereign Robert guard.

Nicolas Mouchel-Cauco says Colin Cauco, born in 1794 potter-sculptor deceased in November 1874 wire of Jean-Louis Gregoire Mouchel Cauco and of Jeanne Francoise Therese Mouchel says Lamare, i.e. relative of the precedent. Its contemporaries said its remarkable gifts and its faculty to imitate very model which was presented to him, which did not prevent that he died misèrablement. The fountain recently bought by the Museum of Normandy is signed of him.

Sources and references

Random links:

Calafat | Bloodscream | Numa (actor) | Cut Europe of the winners of cut of football 1993-1994