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Last modified: 2015-05-02 by ivan sache
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Flag of Aubusson - Image by Pascal Vagnat, 7 October 2014
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The municipality of Aubusson (3,716 inhabitants in 2011, 1,921 ha) is located half-distance (90 km) of Limoges and Clermont-Ferrand.
Aubusson originates in the erection of a castle on a rocky spur
watching the valley of river Creuse and a crossing of roads of local
significance. The early ages of Aubusson are documented mostly by
unreliable sources and local traditions blindly spread by scholars
since the 17th century.
The genealogists of the 17th century, including the one who redacted
the Letters Patented who erected in April 1667 the Duchy of Roannais
for François d'Aubusson La Feuillade, claim that the house of Aubusson was one of the oldest and the most qualified of the kingdom. They
title the lords of Aubusson "Princes", which means that they fully
owned their domain and were only nominal vassals of the king,
mentioning Ebbo and Turpio, listed on charters dated 751 and 794,
respectively. Further studies revealed that the two charters had been
concocted in the 11th century. In the 18th century, Joullietton
(Histoire de la Marche et du Pays de Combraille) added another bunch
of historical unplausabilities, which were repeated in the 19th
century by famous scholars such as Victor Malte-Brun (1816-1889).
Joullietton claimed that Aubusson had been first established by two
Roman legions commissioned by Caesar to watch the border between the
Arvernes and Lemovices tribes, as "evidenced" by the "Roman donjon" of
the castle (indeed erected in the 11th century) and several
archeological and toponymic clues (indeed of little specific value).
The town, ruined during the Great Invasions, would have been re-
founded by Saracens withdrawing southwards after having been defeated
in Poitiers by Charles Martel in 732. Charles Martel would eventually
have appointed Ebbo's father to rule the town.
The feudal system emerged in the region in the 9th century. Sources
are once again sparse and conflicting. Odo (875-918), Duke of
Aquitaine, Count of Toulouse and Count of Limoges, is usually credited the division of the County of Limoges into Viscounties. The Chronicles written in the 11th century by Adémar de Chavannes state that Odo divided in 887 the County into the three Viscounties of Upper Limousin (Limoges), Lower Limousin (Tulle), and Marche (Aubusson), granted to Ranulf I. However, it appears that this paragraph of the Chronicle was subsequently interpolated. Indeed, Odo would have appointed Aldebert as Viscount of Limoges in 876; his son Hidelgar, appointed Viscount of Limoges in 884, would have shared the domain between his relatives, establishing the Viscounties of Aubusson and Comborn.
The territorial extent of the Viscounty of Aubusson and the relations
of the viscounts with the other local lords are matters of dispute
among scholars. The Viscounts of Aubusson were soon challenged by
their powerful neighbours, the Counts of Marche, and had to drop the title of Viscounts of Marche. They managed to maintain a de facto independence until 1226, when King of France Louis VIII ordered Ranald VI, Viscount of Aubusson, to submit to Hugh X of Lusignan, Count of Marche. The Viscounty of Aubusson was acquired in 1260 by the Counts of Marche, who took over the title of lords of Aubusson. The
County of Marche was eventually incorporated to the Kingdom of France
in 1314.
Although no longer Viscounts, the lords of Aubusson (genealogy) maintained their local significance over the ages. The most famous representative of the lineage is Pierre d'Aubusson (1423-1503), elected in 1476 the 40th Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. His heroic behaviour during the "Grand Siege" of Rhodes by the Ottomans (1480), when hardly 3,000 Christians repelled 100,000 Turks, yielded him the nickname of "Shield of Christendom".
[C. Pérathon. 1886. Histoire d'Aubusson. La vicomté, la ville, les tapisseries, la maison d'Aubusson]
Aubusson is mostly known as the Capital of Tapestry (website). The Aubusson tapestry was inscribed in 2009 by UNESCO on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, with the following description:
A centuries-old tradition, the craft of Aubusson tapestry consists of weaving an image using processes practised in Aubusson and a number of other localities in the Creuse region of France. This craft produces mainly large decorative wall hangings but also rugs and pieces of furniture. Aubusson tapestry can be based on an image in any artistic style, prepared by a paper "cartoon" (template) designer. Weaving is done manually by a lissier, or weaver, on a loom positioned horizontally, working on the reverse side of the tapestry, and using yarns that are hand-dyed in house. This process is time-consuming and expensive. The Aubusson tapestries are a gold standard throughout the world, to the extent that Aubusson has become a common noun in some languages. The production of tapestries in Aubusson and Felletin provides enough work for three small businesses and ten or so freelance artisan weavers, thus creating a significant volume of related work (wool production and spinning, marketing, by-products, museum, exhibitions and tourism). To stabilize the level of activity and avoid breaking the line of transmission, the interest of the young must be stimulated and this heritage promoted.
Tapestry flourished in the late 15th in Aubusson. At the same period
or slightly later, cutlery, paper, arms, silk, and lace industry
flourished in the central region of France. In 1601, King Henry IV
restricted the importation of Flemish tapestry, which boosted the
industry in Aubusson and in the neighbouring towns, such as Felletin
and Bellegarde. The weavers of Aubusson organized their guild around
1652, with St. Barbara as their patron.
In 1664, Colbert granted the status of Royal Manufacture to the
Aubusson workshops. A similar status was granted to Felletin in 1689.
The Royal Manufacture of Aubusson was not organized as a single,
centralized factory on the model of the Gobelins of Paris. Rather, the
workshops scattered in the Terrade borough were all allowed to print
"Manufacture Royale de Tapisseries" above their entrance door.
The revocation of the Edict of Tolerance (1685) caused the exile of
several local weavers to Germany and the decline of tapestry in
Aubusson. The painter Jean-Joseph Dumons (1687-1779), director of the
manufacture from 1731 to 1755, revived the Aubusson manufacture; with
the advice of the famous painter Jean-Baptiste Oudry (1686-1755), he
imposed the verdure and chinoiserie styles, designing himself some 20
templates.
In the 19th century, tapestry developed as an industry in Aubusson.
The famous manufactures (Braquenié, Hamot, Sallandrouze) became the
main source of income in the town, employing 2,260 workers in 1860.
Tapestry was then mostly used for furniture. The Aubusson National
School of Decorative Arts was established in 1884. His director,
Auguste Louvrier de Lajolais (1829-1908) renovated the pedagogic
methods and commissioned famous artists to design templates, such as
Pierre-Victor Galland (1822-1892), Charles Genuys (1852-1928 - Chief
architect of Historical Monuments), and Henry de Waroquier
(1881-1970), His successors, Antoine Marius-Martin (1869-1955) and
Élie Maingonnat (1892-1966) modernized the production techniques and
developed the concept of "woven art". The revival of the Aubusson
tapestry in the second half of the 20th century is credited to three
template painters: Jean Lurçat (1892-1966), Marcel Gromaire
(1892-1971), and the Benedictine monk Dom Robert (1907-1997).
Ivan Sache, 7 October 2014
The flag of Aubusson is horizontally divided red-white-green. The red
stripe is charged with a crescent surrounded by two stars, all white,
while the white stripe is charged with a tree. On photos showing the flag, the white stripe appears to be broader, but this needs to be
confirmed.
The flag is a banner of the municipal arms, "Argent a bush
vert on a base of the same a chief gules charged with a crescent
surrounded by two stars all argent". The arms are canting, a bush
being in French a buisson.
The flag was hoisted on 6 June 2014 on the building known as
"Chapitre", a part of the ruined medieval castle of Aubusson, once
used to hoist the Tapestry Museum (municipal website).
Four flags are hoisted, from left to right:
- the banner of arms of Limousin;
- the banner of arms of Aubusson;
- the banner of arms of Charles Antoine de la Roche-Aymon* ("Sable
semé of stars or a lion of the same");
- the banner of arms of Marche
A fifth flag is expected to be hoisted soon:, the banner of arms of Pierre d'Aubusson ("Quarterly, 1. and 4. Gules
a cross argent, 2. and 3. Or a cross moline gules").
*Charles Antoine de la Roche-Aymon (1697-1777) was born in Mainsat, a village located 30 km northwest of Aubusson. He was successively Bishop of Tarbes (1729), Archbishop of Toulouse (1740), Archbishop of Narbonne and President of the States of Languedoc (1752), and, eventually, Archbishop-Duke of Reims and Premier Peer of France (1763), also Grand Almoner of France (1760) and Cardinal (1771). On 16 May 1770, he celebrated in Versailles the marriage of Louis, Dauphin of France, and Marie-Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria; he sacred Louis XVI King of France in Reims on 11 June 1775.
Pascal Vagnat & Ivan Sache, 7 October 2014
