The Berry region, the Indre and Cher departments

The Berry was a French province created under the Ancien Régime, with Bourges as its capital. The administrative structures disappeared following the French Revolution.

The Berry experienced at this time its golden age whose echo can be found in a text by Titus Livius, which mentioned a Birturgian royalty (whose fief was what is now the city of Bourges). This eruption onto the European scene is explained by the people's daring in war, its social homogeneity and its economic efficiency. To this was added a metal-working technique that made it possible to produce iron that could be forged in a single step, called reduction. This type of iron, produced from the fusion of a local ore using incandescent charcoal was shaped into easily transportable ingots. Until the first half of the 1st century B.C., the Biturgians were at the heart of a dynamic whose strategic stakes Caesar was completely aware of.

THE GALLIC WARS AND THE BATTLE OVER AVARICON (BOURGES)

In 52 B.C., the entire center of Gaul rose up. Caesar subsequently sent his army to Avaricon (Bourges) to strike at the uprising's heart. On his flanks, Vercingétorix used the scorched-earth tactic and harassed the enemy's supply convoys. In front of the capital of the Biturges, Caesar had an assault embankment built that was 80 feet long with two rolling towers. The besieged inhabitants heroically and methodically defended themselves: sorties, incendiary arrows… The final assault was completely unexpected and took place in the pouring rain. After a 25-day siege, Avaricon was taken. The vae victis ("woe to the vanquished ones") was terrible: nearly 40,000 dead according to Caesar's calculations. It was henceforth the time for economic redeployment. Mediolanum (Châteaumeillant), the large Biturgian oppidum (main settlement), lost its rank in the Roman era, but later rose in importance as it was located at the intersection of the Roman roads (Bourges, Levroux, Drevant).

ROMAN THEOCRACY

A new form of civilization space was imposed whose cultural plan explicitly referred to a geography of the spectacle: the combat of the gladiators… As for the arenas, they made it possible, starting in the 2nd century A.D. to respond to a particularly flourishing market for spectacles by tripling admission capacity.

FROM BARBARIAN CHAOS TO CAROLINGIAN PEACE

The Berry, like the Aquitaine, was soon placed under the domination of the Visigoths. Slowly, the Frank's thrust penetrated the Aquitaine territory. After the victory of Clovis in 507 in Vouillé, the clash of forces between the Île-de-France and the Aquitaine was exacerbated and became an armed conflict. Bourges was besieged many times and frequently changed hands. In 766, the lack of a decision was such that the partitioning of the Berry into two parts was made official: Bourges, directly administered by the Franks and Argenton by the Aquitaine. Charlemagne then naugurated a period of peace. Most of the population was Christianized: Sunday observance, use of the sacraments and respect for the Christian rights that marked the liturgical year

Starting in 840, the Berry was plunged into a spiral of violence, changed hands several times and was divided up into counties and seigneuries. This trend toward fragmentation then accelerated. The Berry was divided into the Lower Berry and the Upper Berry following a feudal geography: the Déols and the Bourbons. Subsequently, there was no longer any barrier between the king of France and the Berrichon feudal system.

FROM THE "VERY RICH HOURS" OF THE DUC DU BERRY TO THE "GREAT MISFORTUNE" OF THE 100 YEARS WAR.

Peace returned to the Berry, which had become a duchy, for 40 years. This border region, ravaged by the English, could be a starting point for another conquest of the Poitou and the Aquitaine. Financial structuring was accompanied by prestigious architecture… Who isn't familiar with the illuminations of exquisite perfection of these "very rich hours"? But the English were watching… and 20,000 Scottish soldiers came to the aid of the Berry. The Berrichon nobility then became part of Charles VII's entourage. At the end of the Middle Ages, the Coeur family illustrated the Berrichon success in trade.

The regions that make up the Berry

The Berry is composed of several natural regions, from north to south:

a small part of the Val de Loire, between Gien and Sancerre;
a small part of Sologne, between Vierzon and Aubigny-sur-Nère;
Pays-Fort, between Sancerre and Aubigny-sur-Nère;
Sancerrois;
the Berrichon Champagne (also called the Septaine, the principal natural region around Châteauroux, Issoudun and Bourges);
Boischaut, north of the Indre (Levroux) and south of the Cher (Saint-Amand-Montrond) and the Indre (La Châtre);
from a part of Brenne, southwest of Châteauroux, to Saint-Benoît-du-Sault