Our local colombier

Our village also has a colombier. Now part of a farm, appropriately called 'Le Colombier', it lies at the end of one of the little chemins which run up the small valleys just outside the bourg.

Last vestiges of the mediaeval donjon

The colombier in Charnizay would once have belonged to the original mediaeval castle. Now all that remains of that is a semi-derelict donjon, much altered. In its last incarnation it served as a 'ferme fort'. However, plans are afoot to see if the donjon could be brought back to life  --sometime in the future-- as it forms part of the greater complex of buildings which includes our new Salle de Spectacles.

Charnizay's colombier

Charnizay's colombier is a relatively modest affair. It has about 450 niches. Simply constructed as a small square tower it had a drive-through double doorway. This allowed the horse and cart to enter on one side. The pigeon droppings could then be easily swept out of the niches directly into the cart before it was driven out the other side.  Keeping the pigeons was not only a matter for having a handy food source, their droppings provided valuable fertilizer for the fields.

niches

The pigeons are long gone, the current inhabitant is a barn owl

The current owners of Le Colombier farm goats and run a lovely eco-friendly gite; you can find out more if you like here on the Gites de France website. They undertook some restoration work of the colombier and opened up one of the doorways which had been closed up by a previous owner. While this work was being done they found a stone which commemorates the completion of the dovecot. Their house is dated to the same year.

Inscription recording the completion of the colombier

The date, 1539, is significant in French history. In the same year Francois Ier signed the
Ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts. This piece of legislation, specifically articles 110 & 111,  played a significant role in the move towards a linguistic and ideological unification of France. 

Nous voullons et ordonnons qu’ilz soient faictz et escrits si clerement qu’il n’y ait ne puisse avoir aucune ambiguïté ou incertitude, ni lieu à en demander interpretacion.

 Et pour ce que telles choses sont souventesfoys advenues sur l'intelligence des motz latins contenuz esdictz arretz, Nous voulons que doresenavant tous arretz ensemble toutes autres procedeures, soyent de nous cours souveraines ou aultres subalternes et inferieures, soyent de registres, enquestes, contractz, commissions, sentences, testamens et aultres quelzconques actes et exploictz de justice ou qui en dependent, soient prononcez, enregistrez et delivrez aux parties en langage maternel francoys et non autrement.

Above: the two relevant articles in Old French

The clauses required that French was used in all official documents, replacing Latin. [Although Latin did continue to be used to some degree in Catholic church registers]. The knock-on effect was that the articles also impacted on the other languages and dialects spoken in many regions of France and thus played a role in the linguistic unification.