The GARCELONS in Aragon

Translated by Carolyn Halstead.

An e-mail letter from Philippe Garcelon, which brought us this text in Spanish, plus our curiosity, have led us to research the path upon which our adventurous ancestors could have embarked.
This epic journey toward Spain, which has attracted so many of our people at different periods of time, could not leave us indifferent.
Even if we are placing our focus on their trips to Spain, at the same time we cannot forget that they traveled everywhere in France and that they also included Holland, Guernsey, England and other places as well that we have not yet turned up.


Text in Spanish

(French title )

Movement of merchandise and commercial systems in the Pyrenees
(XIII  XIX centuries)

VOLUME 1

Jean-Michel Minovez and Patrice Poujade/ Editors
7th Course on the History of Andorra  International Colloquium on Andorra
Conference Center at Escaldes-Engordany. 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th October 2003
CNRS  University of Toulouse-Le Mirail

(Spanish title) The Patterns of Auvergne Emigration and the Development of Copper Metallurgy in Southern Aragon


Emilio Benedicto Gimeno (Ph.D. University of Zaragoza)

The accuracy of the translation was approved by Jacques GODEFROY.

Possible itineraries:

Journeying from Ally in the Cantal to Calamocha in Aragon, and following as well as possible the details of the following itineraries represents today an approximately 850 km trip.
Imagine Geraud Garcelon and his companions leaving in 1632 on this long journey; clothes, baggage, horses. The Pyrenees mountain peaks are closed six months of the year because of snow and bad weather


First part of the itinerary.
This has to do with an article about the Chinchon company.

It is about an emigrant from the Cantal in the XVIII century. The itinerary is on horseback from Aurillac to Valencia by way of Barcelona. (A.D. from the Cantal cote 130 F 6)
Say its a total of 176.5 leagues and each one takes ¾ of an hour on horseback, that would be about 25 days.
(176.5 leagues: 1 league = around 4,200km)


We have figured that today the section of the trip from Aurillac  Toulouse must be 34 ligues or 240 km. approximately.

Portion of the trip Distance in ligues
Aurillac - Saint Mamet 3
Saint Mamet - Maurs 4
Maurs - Figeac 3
Figeac - Villefranche de Rouerge 5
Villefranche de Rouergue - Cailus 5
Cailus - Montauban 6
Montauban - Fronton 3
Fronton - Toulouse 5


Second part of the itinerary, stopping at the town library in Mamers -72- (number of the department of la Sarthe, the principal city being Le Mans)



 Guide for the Traveler in the Pyrenees
by RICHARD, editors of European itineraries by
Richard. L. Maison Bookstore, 5 rue Christine, Paris. -1851-
(About 100 years after the above itinerary, but one could reasonably think that there have not been major changes since then.

At the present time: 145 km for 13 myriameters (ancient unit of measure) and 6 km mentioned below. (1 myriameter = 10km.)

See some details of the journey below the photo.

We have stayed in this pleasant region and hiked along these trails without doubting that these were the routes that those from the Cantal took on their way to Aragon.
Are we governed by an atavism that comes from our Garcelon genes?
Do we find ourselves sometimes and by chance on one of the paths they took?

For those who are already familiar with the itinerary from Luchon to the Hospices de France followed by the climb to the Venasque pass, you will not find the latter hike restful!

From the Hospices de France to the Venasque pass the ascent is 1100 m. Then descend on the Spanish side toward Venasque. This is an itinerary with which we are not yet familiar but which must be just as spectacular.


(It must be noted that this route was described before 1851 and that living conditions were very different then, more like what our Cantal travelers on their way to Aragon were familiar with one hundred years earlier than those experienced today.)


Selections from the guide through the Pyrenees

Bagneres de Luchon to Benasque

Travel on horseback, two days (this route still exists and is a wonderful hiking path).

From Bagneres de Luchon you pass by the Castel-Vieilh tower, the Hospice at Luchon, five lakes, (four hours after Luchon). Here the route makes a zigzag and is in very poor condition and one would do well to descend on horseback. Looking at the lakes is lovely, and you must make a ten minute stop. A half-hour hike leads to the Venasque pass. This last part of the route is the most tiring, but also the most beautiful and the most picturesque. When you reach the pass, you have in front of you the somber and majestic Maladeta and its immense glaciers.

A view of the Benasque peak taken after "les Hospices de France"
Here the route makes a zigzag and is in very poor condition and one would do well to descend on horseback. See above&

 

From the Venasque pass you reach the foot of Pena Blanca in an hour and fifteen minutes by a difficult zigzag trail. Almost an hours hike takes us to the Benasque Hospice in a magnificent basin. Near the hospital you can see three lovely waterfalls. Its about an hour from the hospice to the Ramougno falls. This falls drops from the mountain of the same name. Then comes Pont des Bains, then Fantail falls, and the sulphur baths at Benasque. Then you cross one after the other the Malihierne and the Cubere bridges (one and three-quarter hours) along an area of rough ground and dotted with falls, then one hour more and youll come to Benasque.

Benasque: a small Spanish town of 500-600 inhabitants; its streets that are poorly laid out are dirty, narrow and winding. Because of a lack of hotels you must stay in private homes.

Another point: along the road that climbs to the Benasque pass and before arriving at the shelter, theres a place called the copper potmakers hole! What a coincidence and what is the origin of this name?


Another possibility:
continue the itinerary through the valley of the Garonne as far as Vielha in Spain.

20 kilometres before reaching Bagneres, all you need to do is follow the Garonne River to St. Beat in order to rejoin Spain and Vielha and the Vielha pass.
From St. Beat then Bagneres de Luchon, Benasque and Fraga, the distance is for all intents and purposes the same.
All you need to know now is what the mountain passage is like by way of Vielha peak!

Considering the height of the two mountain peaks, 2440m. to Venasque and a little less than 2500m. to Vielha peak, the mountain pass remains the big problem as the winters at that time were severe, (the Seine froze over in Paris).

See Le Pas de Peyrol (Potmakers Peak) at Puy Mary at the present time.
(Pas = peak and Peyrol means potmaker in the auvergnat vernacular.)

All thats left is finding the route through Spain!!!

The establishments at Caspe and Fraga near Lerida can help us in this research.

============================================

Comments on crossing the Pyrenees

Its obvious that the great migration routes, such as the roads to Santiago de Compostela or armies crossing to surrender in Spain, have acquired an important status.

But it would be, in our opinion, a mistake to think in the abstract about the capacity to adapt on the part of the Cantal travelers and about their business instincts.
In order to engage in this activity, they had to establish commercial networks, as one does at the present time, appeal to peoples sympathies, know their customers well and based on that, be able to obtain from people accurate information.
They had to, of course, increase their area of activity, and also find passes where they could cross the Pyrenees safely with the earnings they had amassed during their stay in Spain.

And so much the better that they had created commercial societies that had conventions or accords or passeries (a local term also meaning accord but reserved for use between the French and Spanish. Both terms can be substituted by coutume or custom.) Both French and Spanish communities shared the summer visitors passing through the Pyrenees and they, too, had their own commercial relationships.
Their contact was made easier because they all spoke Occitan.
Therefore the terrain was favorable for our Cantal people and the risks were probably fewer than on the main roads.

These mountain passes still exist and the customs among the French and Spanish peasants the same.
And there wasnt necessarily only one way to reach Aragon. Instead several were to their liking since they had come out of good relationships that had developed.

===================================================

Selection of the document

The Emigration Networks of People from Auvergne and the Development of Copper Metallurgy in South Aragon
by Emilio Benedicto Gimeno (Ph.D. University of Zaragoza)

We have obtained the translation of the document from the original Spanish to French thanks to the perseverance of Jacques GODEFROY. That article is on the French website.
Here it is now translated from Spanish to English:
We have focused on the part that seems essential to us as far as the Garcelons and the populace of the canton of Pleaux are concerned. Besides, these elements push us to carry out more extensive research on the parishes of Ally, Chaussenac, Barriac les Bosquets and the notaries who served at these places.

The use of the references in Spain would be a plus, but thats another story!!!


The chaudronniers or dinandiers or copper pot makers from Auvergne were well known in all of Europe. We find them in numerous locations in France (Alsace, Lower Normandy and the Alps) and also in foreign regions and cities like Artois (Flanders), Madrid, Valencia as well as Aragon. The term dinandier comes from Dinan in Belgium. They must have learned how to work copper and make utensils from the French. For centuries the inhabitants of the Massif Central have been primarily an emigrant people. The cantons of Upper Auvergne (like other French mountain zones) have undergone demographic growth but deprived of resources, they have been forced to send their men to search for other livelihoods outside the localities they came from. (1)

1  According to the account elaborated by Lefevre dOrmesson in the year 1697, every year 5,000 or 6,000 workers left Auvergne and who returned there with 700 or 800 thousand pounds. These emigrants came principally from the mountains in the Aurillac, Mauriac and Saint Flour zone, in the northwest cantons. Cited by Duroux, R (1992): The Auvergne People from Castille. Rebirth and death of a XIX century migration.

THE COPPER POT MAKERS FROM AUVERGNE

We are familiar with the chaudronniers or copper pot makers presence in great detail in the town of Calamocha, Aragon, from the year 1632. The first were Pierre and Guillen Albarate, originally from Mealet in Auvergne. One of the two was married to a woman from Calamancha ( which implies that for several years they left for Aragon). In the city of Zaragoza we find some auvergnats (people from Auvergne) from the year 1642.

We find them at that time working in several localities in the Jiloca valley. In the town of Daroca in the 17th century Jean Visie from Rallai and eight other persons from the Massif Central about whom we do not know their occupations but who could well have been copper pot makers. The Baguena Council in the year 1718 hired Antoine Sabio (Savau) (a) French pot maker residing in this same locality, to repair all the copper-based utensils from the local stores.
Jean Pujol, a merchant from Saint Christophe les Gorges in Auvergne, resided in Mora de Rubielos. He enjoyed close relationships with the pot makers from the Jiloca Valley. (47)


a  Geraud Garcelon married Francoise Sabio. We have turned up the Sabau at Chaussenac. Is there a link with this Antoine?
47  A.HPCalamocha, Notaire: Martin Miguel Esteban, 1646/XII/17(Sig. 1109. fol.364v.)

The meeting places for the emigrants coincide perfectly with the copper mining zones in the Spanish system and with the sites where the martinets or hammers driven by hydraulic power to flatten the metal were set up. We find the greatest concentration of copper pot makers in Calamocha, which had been their destination since the beginning of the 17th century.

We find another large concentration in the little town of Luco de Jiloca, where they worked the mines and the martinets that were set up there. They were numerous as well in the town of Teruel, where they worked the copper extracted from the Albarracin mountain. Spread among these three localities we find 68 potmakers from Auvergne who represented 70% of all those in Aragon.
The city of Tarragona, near the mines at Calcena, was home to 12 potmakers. In the Jalon valley, the potmakers resided in Calatayud where mining took place in the mountains at Vicor and the Ateca area. The towns of Caspe, Ejea, Fraga and Maella had an insignificant number, one or two artisans maximum. Not having any mines nearby, these artisans sought to provision themselves with basic staples from more or less distant areas and they then provided provisions for the local market as well as repairing old chaudrons or cauldrons and old bouilloires or two liter pots with lids.

With regard to the matter of the places of origin of the copper pot makers, those who lived in Calamocha in the 17th and 18th centuries, according the the parish registers, came from Upper Auvergne, from the canton of Pleaux, and secondarily from the cantons of Saint Flour and Aurillac. For the origin of the emigrants weve established that from Ally there were 29 emigrants, Chaussenac: 15 and Saint Martin Cantales: 5, the rest scattered from among the villages of Barriac les Bosquets, Escorailles, Fontanges and Meallet.
The societies or commercial or artisans groups of copper pot makers that we find in Luco de Jiloca and in Teruel during the years 1764-1766 also originated in Upper Auvergne, particularly from the villages of Chaussenac with 9, Ally with 4 and Saint Martin Cantales with 2 others. As we see it, the places of origin of the copper pot makers who made their way to the southern part of Aragon during these times were very limited and were concentrated in a small area in Auvergne with a tradition of involvement in artisans activities.


THE EMIGRANTS SOLIDARITY RESOURCES

The migratory flux from Auvergne was characterized by putting in place a series of guidelines based on rural solidarity common among mountain groups. These guidelines were very simple: lineage, parentage and neighbors in the inhabitants community.

The pot makers who traveled in groups, living and working if possible within the same group, shared the same skills and they were gathered or assembled together with some relatives or neighbors from their place of origin. These group displacements offset the traumatic effects of being uprooted. Their mix of ages, their common migratory experiences and the perennial nature of this migratory current were also mitigating factors. By traveling together and residing together, these Auvergne mountaineers were able to maintain their own way of life by slowing the process of inevitable acculturation. Their destinations contributed to molding their character but at the same time they could up to a point remain faithful to a common cultural heritage.
Emigration of the potmakers had a strong family component. Several members of the family were usually involved, and engaging in the same type of activity, they regrouped in Spain in the same locality and probably in the same house. Pierre Albarate from Meallet married a woman from Calamocha in the year 1633, which did not prevent him from receiving his brother Guillen into his home.
Etienne Fontanges (b) lived with his brother Pierre from 1638 on. The potmaker Pierre Riviere, who joined the group after 1634, lived with his brother Antoine, who he would later call his son. (51)

b  Michel Garcelon married Margueritte Fontanges and had as their first child Jean in 1674. What is the link?
51  A.HPCalamocha, Notaire: Martin Miguel Esteban, 1632/VII/22 (Sig. 1098, fol.96 r.), 1638/II/20 (Sig.1101. fol.51 r.) and 1657/1/26 (Sig.1120, fol. 16v.)

These close family relationships also explain the continuity of emigration through the generations. Geraud Garcelon was living in Calamocha in 1640 specializing in making cauldrons.

In December 1644, having become ill, he made out his will, citing as legitimate heirs his sons Francois, Jean, Michel and Pierre, all residents of Auvergne. In the will he decided that his son Francois should continue the trade of copper pot making and he willed him all his worldly goods, i.e., credits (debts owed to him from customers) and whatever material was in stock that belonged to him in Spain. Francois was obliged to take his brother Jean under his wing, to do everything necessary during the first three years to help him and to teach him the métier or trade of potmaking. When Geraud Garcelon died, his son Francois would continue emigrating, would reside in Calamocha to continue working in copper potmaking, but he would involve all his brothers Jean, Michel and Pierre. (52)

52  A.HPCalamocha, Notaire: Martin Miguel Esteban, 1634/XII/29 (Sig. 1108, fol. Iv)


At the beginning of the year 1632, when the potmakers Etienne Fontanges (c) and Geraud Garcelon were going to appear before the judge or notary of Calamocha in order to inform him of the fact that they had formed a company of potmakers with Jean Cocard, (d) and that the latter had died recemtly. As the deceased did not have relatives in Spain, they requested that the judge name some witnesses for the act of dissolution of the company and for the sharing of the profits that they had accumulated. In figuring the accounts they pointed out that Jean Cocard had invested in the founding of the company 243 escudos and had obtained profits of 154 more escudos. To the total they were to divide 397 escudos and they did it in the following way: 306 escudos to pay off the debts owed various persons that they said were the most reliable ones and 46 other escudos in different kinds of merchandise. From the rest of the capital they deducted the costs of Cocards illness and burial. They also divided up various tools, arms and a rattan chair..(54)

c  Could Etienne Fontagnes be Gerauds sons father-in-law?

d - Pierre and Simon Garcelon will later create a society with Antoine Blancher from St. Martin Valmeroux and then his son Pierre. To take up their business in Salers, they will also have an accountant in Limoges. The principle of business organizations only dates from today!

54 A.HPCalamocha, Notaire: Martin Miguel Esteban, 1637/II/12 (Sig. 1100, fol. 48v.)


Another dissolution document that stands out from 1670 but it is more like a final balance sheet. On that date Michel and Georges Garcelon, neighbors from Ally who are also potmakers promised to pay a third shareholder of the company, their brother Jean, 1200 sous in six equal payments, to be paid every two years because of the sums that are coming to him today and to keep for him in addition a sack full of tools. (55)

55 A.H.P. Calamocha, notaire : Martin Miguel Estaban, 1670/III/7 (sig. 1130).

Evidently, dying in Spain was one of the emigrants greatest worries. Everyone had a will, normally done by a notary in France, but they could modify or change it completely before the notaries in Spain, if that was considered necessary. In the notaries protocols we have found two testamentary modifications made by the potmakers Geraud Garcelon in 1644 and Antoine Riviere the elder in 1680.
These men with wills, if they were gravely ill, decided that they would rather be buried in the parish church at Calamocha (or in the church in the village where he died added Geraud Garcelon) or wherever the usual funeral rites would take place (burial, novena and anniversary). Antoine Rivera delegated the decision according to whatever would be convenient for his brother to do, his brother also residing in Spain. Geraud Garcelon specified that one should say thirty requiem masses, fifteen of them in the convent of San Roque in Calamocha, which would attest to his love and attachment for the Jiloca valley from having spent long years of his life in Aragon, and the other half of the masses in the Notre-Dame chapel of the parish church at Ally in Auvergne.
The two potmakers married in their place of origin and most of their belongings went to their wives and children.
Geraud Garcelon
created a difference between the belongings that he had in France and what he left his wife, Francoise Sabio (Sabau), with the proviso that she leave them to their children distributing them in a way that would be suitable and the goods he had in Spain would be passed on to their son Francois Garcelon, so that he could continue his lifes work of being a potmaker.

The other parts of the document are very interesting and show us different aspects of the life of these people in Aragon, and there are numerous and interesting anecdotes!!!

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