Franche-Comté (, ; ; Frainc-Comtou: ''Fraintche-Comtè''; frp, Franche-Comtât; also german: Freigrafschaft; es, Franco Condado; all ) is a cultural and
historical region
Historical regions (or historical areas) are geographical regions which at some point in time had a cultural, ethnic, linguistic or political basis, regardless of latterday borders. They are used as delimitations for studying and analysing soc ...
of eastern France. It is composed of the modern
departments
Department may refer to:
* Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility
Government and military
*Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...
of
Doubs
Doubs (, ; ; frp, Dubs) is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in Eastern France. Named after the river Doubs, it had a population of 543,974 in 2019.Jura, Haute-Saône and the Territoire de Belfort. In 2016, its population was 1,180,397.
From 1956 to 2015, the Franche-Comté was a French administrative region. Since 1 January 2016, it has been part of the new region
Bourgogne-Franche-Comté
Bourgogne-Franche-Comté (; , sometimes abbreviated BFC; Arpitan: ''Borgogne-Franche-Comtât'') is a region in Eastern France created by the 2014 territorial reform of French regions, from a merger of Burgundy and Franche-Comté. The new region ...
.
The region is named after the ' (
Free County of Burgundy
The Free County of Burgundy or Franche-Comté (french: Franche Comté de Bourgogne; german: Freigrafschaft Burgund) was a medieval county (from 982 to 1678) of the Holy Roman Empire, predecessor to the modern region of Franche-Comté. The name ...
), definitively separated from the region of Burgundy proper in the fifteenth century. In 2016, these two-halves of the historic Kingdom of Burgundy were reunited, as the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. It is also the 6th biggest region in France. The name "Franche-Comté" is feminine because the word "comté" in the past was generally feminine, although today it is masculine.
The principal cities are the capital Besançon, Belfort and Montbéliard. Other important cities are Dole (the capital before the region was conquered by
Louis XIV
Louis XIV (Louis Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was List of French monarchs, King of France from 14 May 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the Li ...
in the late seventeenth century),
Vesoul
Vesoul () is a commune in the Haute-Saône department in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté located in eastern France.
It is the most populated municipality of the department with inhabitants in 2014. The same year, the Communauté d'aggl ...
(capital of Haute-Saône),
Arbois
Arbois () is a commune in the Jura department, in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region, eastern France. The river Cuisance passes through the town, which centres on an arcaded central square where one can sample the local wines.
The commune h ...
(the "wine capital" of the Jura), and Lons-le-Saunier (the capital of Jura).
History
The region has been inhabited since the
Paleolithic age
The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος '' lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...
and was occupied by the
Gauls
The Gauls ( la, Galli; grc, Γαλάται, ''Galátai'') were a group of Celtic peoples of mainland Europe in the Iron Age and the Roman period (roughly 5th century BC to 5th century AD). Their homeland was known as Gaul (''Gallia''). They sp ...
. It was then heavily settled by
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples were historical groups of people that once occupied Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. Since the 19th century, they have traditionally been defined by the use of ancient and ear ...
during the
Germanic migrations
The Migration Period was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roman ...
, most notably the Burgundians, who settled in the region after the Gauls had vacated the area. Later, it was part of the territory of the Alemanni in the fifth century, then the Kingdom of Burgundy from 457 to 534. The Burgundians adopted
Orthodox Christianity
Orthodoxy (from Greek: ) is adherence to correct or accepted creeds, especially in religion.
Orthodoxy within Christianity refers to acceptance of the doctrines defined by various creeds and ecumenical councils in Antiquity, but different Chu ...
,
Christianizing
Christianization ( or Christianisation) is to make Christian; to imbue with Christian principles; to become Christian. It can apply to the conversion of an individual, a practice, a place or a whole society. It began in the Roman Empire, conti ...
the region. In 534, it became part of the Frankish kingdom. In 561 it was included in the
Merovingian
The Merovingian dynasty () was the ruling family of the Franks from the middle of the 5th century until 751. They first appear as "Kings of the Franks" in the Roman army of northern Gaul. By 509 they had united all the Franks and northern Gaul ...
Kingdom of Burgundy under Guntram, the third son of Clotaire I. In 613, Clotaire II reunited the Frankish Kingdom under his rule, and the region remained a part of the Kingdom of Burgundy under the later Merovingians and Carolingians.
County of Burgundy
The name ' or ''Freigrafschaft Burgund'' in German (
Free County of Burgundy
The Free County of Burgundy or Franche-Comté (french: Franche Comté de Bourgogne; german: Freigrafschaft Burgund) was a medieval county (from 982 to 1678) of the Holy Roman Empire, predecessor to the modern region of Franche-Comté. The name ...
) did not appear officially until 1366. It had been a territory of the County of Burgundy from 888, the province becoming subject to the
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars.
From the accession of Otto I in 962 unt ...
in 1034. It was definitively separated from the neighboring Duchy of Burgundy upon the latter's incorporation into the
Kingdom of France
The Kingdom of France ( fro, Reaume de France; frm, Royaulme de France; french: link=yes, Royaume de France) is the historiographical name or umbrella term given to various political entities of France in the medieval and early modern period. ...
in 1477. That year at the
Battle of Nancy
The Battle of Nancy was the final and decisive battle of the Burgundian Wars, fought outside the walls of Nancy on 5 January 1477 by Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, against René II, Duke of Lorraine, and the Swiss Confederacy.
René's ...
during the
Burgundian Wars
The Burgundian Wars (1474–1477) were a conflict between the Burgundian State and the Old Swiss Confederacy and its allies. Open war broke out in 1474, and the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, was defeated three times on the battlefield in th ...
, the last duke, Charles the Bold, was killed in battle. Although the county, along with the Duchy, was seized by King Louis XI of France, in 1492 his son Charles VIII ceded it to Philip of Austria, the grandson and heir of Charles the Bold. When Philip's son, Emperor Charles V, inherited the Spanish throne in 1516, the Franche-Comté, along with the rest of the Burgundian lands, passed to the Spanish.
Province of the Kingdom of France
Franche-Comté was captured by France in 1668, but returned to
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, ...
under the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. It was conquered a second time in 1674, and finally was ceded to France in the Treaty of Nijmegen (1678). Enclaves such as Montbéliard remained outside French control.
The Franche-Comté was one of the last parts of France to have
serfdom
Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which develop ...
. In 1784, half of the population consisted of serfs, accounting for 400,000 out of the 1 million French serfs. Landowners took one-twelfth of the sale's price if a serf (''mainmortable'') wanted to sell up. Serfs were not forced to stay on the land, but the lord could claim ''droit de suite'', whereby a peasant who died away from his holding left it to the lord, even if he had heirs. A runaway serf's land was forfeit after ten years.
Louis XVI
Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...
issued a decree banning these practices on 8 August 1779, but the Parlement of Besançon blocked this until 1787.
After 1790
The population of the region fell by a fifth from 1851 to 1946, reflecting low French natural growth and migration to more urbanized parts of the country. Most of the decline occurred in Haute-Saône and Jura, which remain among the country's more agriculture-dependent areas.
Environment
This region borders Switzerland and shares much of its architecture, cuisine, and culture with its neighbour. Between the Vosges range of mountains to the north and the Jura range to the south, the landscape consists of rolling cultivated fields, dense pine forest, and rampart-like mountains. Not so majestic as the Alps, the Jura mountains are more accessible and are France's first cross-country skiing area. It is also a superb place to hike, and there are some fine nature trails on the more gentle slopes. The Doubs and Loue valleys, with their timbered houses perched on stilts in the river, and the high valley of Ain, are popular visitor areas. The ' is a land of gorges and waterfalls dotted with tiny villages, each with a domed belfry decorated with mosaic of tiles or slates or beaten from metal. The lakes are perfect for swimming in the warmer months. The summits of Haut Jura have wonderful views across ( Lake Geneva) and toward the Alps.
Forty percent of the region's GDP is dependent on manufacturing activities, and most of its production is exported. Construction of automobiles and their parts is one of the most buoyant industries there. Forestry exploitation is steadily growing, and 38% of the agriculture is dairy and 17% cattle farming. The region has a large and lucrative cheese-making industry, with 40 million tonnes of cheese produced here each year, much of which is made by ''fruitières'' (traditional cheese dairies of Franche-Comté); for instance,
Comté cheese
Comté (or Gruyère de Comté) () is a French cheese made from unpasteurized cow's milk in the Franche-Comté region of eastern France bordering Switzerland and sharing much of its cuisine. Comté has the highest production of all French App ...
comes from this region.
File:Cret Pela.jpg, Landscape, Franche-Comté
File:Besancon2m.jpg, Besançon
File:La Petite Montagne vue du Molard de la Justice, Jura, France.jpg, , a view from
File:Broissia.JPG, View of Broissia, a commune in the Juradepartment
Geology
*
Vosges and Jura coal mining basins
The Vosges and Jura coal mining basins are an area of France located between two mountain ranges, that has been shaped by four centuries of coal extraction from the 16th Century to the 20th Century. It includes four coal basins in three geograph ...
Principal cities
Besancon boucle Doubs.jpg, Besançon
Chateau Montbeliard 3.jpg, Montbéliard
LionBelfortEtChateau.jpg, Belfort
Dole 104.jpg, Dole
Place du Palais, Vesoul.jpg,
Vesoul
Vesoul () is a commune in the Haute-Saône department in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté located in eastern France.
It is the most populated municipality of the department with inhabitants in 2014. The same year, the Communauté d'aggl ...
Franc-comtois
Frainc-Comtou (french: franc-comtois) is a Romance language of the ''langues d'oïl'' language family spoken in the Franche-Comté region of France and in the Canton of Jura and Bernese Jura
Bernese Jura (french: Jura bernois, ) is the name f ...
'' refers to two dialects of two different languages. Franc-comtois is the name of the dialect of Langue d'Oïl spoken by people in the northern part of the region. The dialect of Arpitan has been spoken in its southern part since as early as the thirteenth century (the southern two-thirds of Jura and the southern third of
Doubs
Doubs (, ; ; frp, Dubs) is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in Eastern France. Named after the river Doubs, it had a population of 543,974 in 2019.languages of France.
Paul de Casteljau
Paul de Casteljau (19 November 1930 – 24 March 2022) was a French physicist and mathematician. In 1959, while working at Citroën, he developed an algorithm for evaluating calculations on a certain family of curves, which would later be formali ...
, mathematician
*
Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and ...
, painter
*
Frank Darabont
Frank Árpád Darabont (born Ferenc Árpád Darabont, January 28, 1959) is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. In his early career, he was primarily a ...
, filmmaker
*
Charles Fourier
François Marie Charles Fourier (;; 7 April 1772 – 10 October 1837) was a French philosopher, an influential early socialist thinker and one of the founders of utopian socialism. Some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical ...
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...
, poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist
*
Auguste and Louis Lumière
The Lumière brothers (, ; ), Auguste Lumière, Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas Lumière (19 October 1862 – 10 April 1954) and Louis Lumière, Louis Jean Lumière (5 October 1864 – 6 June 1948), were French manufacturers of photography equipment ...
, early filmmakers
*
Jean Mairet
Jean (de) Mairet (10 May 160431 January 1686) was a classical french dramatist who wrote both tragedies and comedies.
Life
He was born at Besançon, and went to Paris to study at the Collège des Grassins about 1625. In that year he produced ...
Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle
Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle (20 August 151721 September 1586), Comte de La Baume Saint Amour, was a Bisontin (Free Imperial City of Besançon) statesman, made a cardinal, who followed his father as a leading minister of the Spanish Habsbur ...
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, , ; 15 January 1809, Besançon – 19 January 1865, Paris) was a French socialist,Landauer, Carl; Landauer, Hilde Stein; Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl (1979) 959 "The Three Anticapitalistic Movements". ''European Socia ...
philosopher, socialist
*
Jean Baptiste Alexandre Strolz
Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Baron de Strolz, sometimes written Stroltz, (6 August 1771 Belfort, France – 27 October 1841 Paris), was a French general during the Napoleonic wars and subsequently an important political figure.
He was chief of staff ...
*
Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Suard
Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Suard (15 January 1732 – 20 July 1817) was a French journalist, translator and man of letters during the Age of Enlightenment. He was born in Besançon and died in Paris.
Biography
Suard was incarcerated in the ''Royal F ...
, journalist
*
Hubert-Félix Thiéfaine
Hubert-Félix Thiéfaine () is a French pop-rock singer and songwriter. He was born on 21 July 1948 in the town of Dole in the Jura département.
Mostly shunned by television and radio, he has built over the years – through word of mouth ...
Cancoillotte
''Cancoillotte'' or ''cancoyotte'' is a runny French cheese made from metton cheese, and produced principally in Franche-Comté, but also Lorraine and Luxembourg, where it is also called ''Kachkéis'' or ''Kochkäse'' in German (cooked cheese). ...
Édel de Cléron
Édel de Cléron is a traditional French cheese of relatively recent origin which carries the name of the village where it is made, Cléron, in the valley of the Loue of the Doubs department in Franche-Comté.
* By its taste, form and texture, it ...
,
Metton
''Metton'' is a runny French cheese made in Franche-Comté, mostly used as an ingredient for making Cancoillotte. The traditional process to produce Cancoillotte with metton is to cook it in an earthenware
Earthenware is glazed or unglazed non ...
,
Morbier
Morbier () is a commune in the Jura department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in Eastern France. In 2019, it had a population of 2,263.
, Munster, Vacherin
* Sausages: Saucisse de Montbéliard, saucisse de Morteau, Gendarme