Contact
Ténarèze Tourist Office - +33 (0)5 62 28 00 80
Gascogne Lomagne Tourist Office - +33 (0)5 62 64 00 00
Gascogne Lomagne Tourist Office - +33 (0)5 62 64 00 00
Contact us
Before the Gascons
Bathed by the sea for more than 120 million years, before it partly withdrew at the beginning of the Tertiary era (-24 M), the Gascon territory was then shaped by Pyrenean folding, erosion and sedimentary deposits. In the Miocene (-24/-5 M years), it is a jungle with a subtropical climate which reveals reference paleontological deposits Montréal-du-Gers (-17 M), La Romieu (-13 M)…, where many fossil remains have been discovered.
Prehistory
Gers Gascony has been occupied by humans since prehistory (La Romieu, -300 years BC). At La Brette (near Condom), the nomadic Homo Sapiens from the Upper Paleolithic (-000 to -38 BC) settled for short stopovers following the migrations of large wild herbivores. In the Neolithic period (000 BC), populations settled permanently in the Aquitaine basin, invented agriculture and domesticated animals: a new world was born!
Celts and Gauls
After the Bronze Age, the Celtic peoples settled in Gers Gascony in the 1st millennium BC, mixed with the Aquitanians and occupied the entire territory. Divided into as many tribes (Nitiobroges, Elusates, Lactorates, etc.), their Gallic descendants founded towns and oppida (high fortified strongholds, often fortified); they organized the territory around axes that drained economic currents, encouraged trade and settlement areas. ©CDPM/Flaran, oppidum d'Esberous
From Aquitaine to Roman Novempopulania
After its conquest (56 BC), the Romanization of Aquitaine was based on the Garonne and the old Gallic axes; the north-south route of the Ténarèze then developed. From the XNUMXrd to the XNUMXth century. AD, the new province of Novempopulanie (“of the nine peoples”) was created, whose capital was Elusa, ancient Eauze. This Roman city reigns over a landscape of large agricultural estates, at the head of which is a residence in the countryside: the villa of Séviac. From the XNUMXth to the XNUMXth century, hard hit by so-called “barbarian” invasions, the region, then Christianized, suffered a significant economic downturn. ©CDPM/Flaran for the Eauze museum
Medieval Gascony
At the end of the 7th century, the Vascons took possession of the lands south of the Garonne and gave their name to Gascony (Vasconia) which came under the aegis of the Dukes of Aquitaine (8th century) then the Counts of Fézensac (IX -Xe). From the 11th to the 13th century, feudal fragmentation led to the independence of local lordships from Aquitaine or the King of France. Gascony was then covered with castles, new establishments: rescued, castelnaux and bastides (village of Larressingle, bastides of Montréal-du-Gers and Valence-sur-Baïse, village of Fourcès, etc.), and benefited from the great religious momentum of this time (Flaran Abbey, Pont d'Artigues and pilgrimage to Saint-Jacques, etc.). ©
D.Viet/CRTOccitanie
CRT OccitaniaModern era
Integrated into the Duchy of Aquitaine, Gascony did not escape the conflicts between French and English royalty, then the feud between the Armagnacs and the Burgundians... as well as the endemic plagues! During the Renaissance, with the penetration of reformist theories, it once again became a battlefield before its integration into the royal domain under Henri IV (1607). The episcopal city of Condom retains its stigmata. While its cadets covered themselves with glory thanks to the famous D'Artagnan and his comrades-in-arms, Gascony of the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries was administered, good year, bad year, like the other royal generalities. © Dominique Viet, Regional Tourism Committee of Midi Pyrénées
A rural society
Created in 1790, the department of “Armagnac or Gers” sank into revolutionary torments and then the Empire; faithful to their ancestors, the Gersois distinguished themselves there, on land and at sea, notably Marshal Lannes (photo). The Second Empire brought a new economic boom, marked by the arrival of the railway and the apogee of the Gers vineyards (1870). The resumption of the rural exodus and the phylloxera crisis (1878) put an end to this golden age of the Gers countryside.
From one conflict to another
Despite the benefits of its traditional agriculture and the labeling of its “burning water” (Armagnac Museum), the Gers, like all rural departments, paid a heavy price in the First World War; depopulation increases and the region then becomes a land of immigration (10% in 1936). During the war of 1939-45, after the occupation of the southern zone, its “between two seas” position and its landscapes lent themselves to the establishment of centers of resistance (martyr village of Castelnau-sur-l'Auvignon , Meilhan…).
Entrance into modernity
Within a preserved department, with remarkable tangible and intangible heritage, the Ténarèze concentrates multiple assets: from the paths of Saint-Jacques, to gentle roaming, along the Baïse; landscapes to discover, gastronomy and Armagnac to savor; from fun celebrations and festivals, to the more intimate architectural and museographic heritage of the Cistercian abbey of Flaran… …Everything is there to combine your expectations and your pleasure!
