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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2016

Les maisons d’Orléans du 11e siècle au début du 15e siècle. Étude des élévations et des caves

Résumé

In the heart of the Loire valley, Orleans offers the image of a town widely rebuilt after the 100 years war, scattered with residences and town houses dating from the Renaissance. In many areas of the town centre, the successive town-planning operations, and bombing of the second world war contributed towards the change in building. This last element also lead to a lack of documentation due to the destruction of a large part of the County Archives in 1940. The examination of the former iconographical data, crossed with the excavations of the past 30 years and the building analysis recently carried out, have enabled us to rediscover part of the medieval dwellings previous to the siege of 1429, and the important economic rise that immediately followed. This article does not propose any final result, but the first results on this particular subject. This presentation deals firstly with cellars, which often constitute the sole element remaining from these buildings. The heterogynous aspect due to the numerous modifications of these spaces makes the use of building archaeology necessary in each different case, before any attempt of characterisation or typology. A systematic analysis of the cellars situated on either side of a “test street” (rue des Trois-Maries) revealed an important number of cellars built in the 13th and 14th centuries, whereas the elevations of the houses appeared to have been modified during Modern Times. The comparison with other cellars located in the neighbouring blocks indicates that the potential is important despite the absence of a systematic inventory at the scale of the town. The study of the cellars confirms the fact that the plots already existed in the 13th century, and in certain sectors does not seem to have fluctuated since that time. Along with this duration of the plot also appears a correspondence between the cellar and the constructed area of a parcel. Except in a few particular cases, the walls of cellars serve as foundation to the existing buildings. These cellars are sometimes composed of several levels (3 maximum), the lowest of which can have a very irregular plan and often correspond to some ancient quarries. However, the building analysis as shown as well that the inferior level of some of the cellars had been bored below a pre-existing cellar. These cellars present a large diversity of vaults, mainly cross-ribbed vaults, but also groined vaults, lowered cradle vaults reinforced with transverse ribs, and sometimes some plain ceilings. In the case of large scale plans, these vaults are sometimes reinforced with isolated supports such as pillars or columns (Fig. 1). The economic process of reuse remains quite limited, and meticulous construction making use of specific techniques, such as the systematic use of springing stones or the base of cross-ribbed vaults, or of the discharging arches reinforcing the stability of the walls can be noticed. As many techniques that reveal an elaborated building logic, and that enable one to make comparison with other categories of the town’s buildings. The exterior openings are quite numerous (straight stairs accessible from the front door opening onto the street or sometimes the courtyard, traps, basement windows) (Fig. 1). The openings, plus the quality of the interior decoration of the cellars (neat mouldings, capital with plant-like ornamentation, brackets sculpted with human faces or animal, but also murals) open in due time the question of the use of these spaces in the general economy of a house. Finally, it is possible to make the link between these cellars and the building situated above through the examples of remaining or known elevations (Fig. 2). These houses are characterized by the use of course of medium sized stones of Beauce hard limestone for the face of the walls, the systematic us of lintel broadened in their center for the doors (often pedimented lintels), coach doors (or arcades) of “broken” vault, and windows divided in two lights for the upper levels underlined by a ledge height string-course and an impost string-course
Au sein de la vallée de la Loire, Orléans offre l’image d’une ville en grande partie reconstruite après la guerre de Cent ans, parsemée de ses maisons et hôtels de la Renaissance. Une partie de l’habitat antérieur au siège de la ville de 1429 a pu être redécouverte grâce aux analyses de bâti menées depuis les années 2000 dans le cadre de travaux universitaires, qui sont croisées à la relecture des sources iconographiques et aux résultats des fouilles urbaines réalisées depuis la fin des années 1970. L’exposé s’attache tout d’abord à rappeler brièvement les éléments qui caractérisent certaines élévations de ces bâtiments médiévaux (modes de construction, structures et décors des ouvertures, charpentes, etc.). Mais, ce sont les espaces situés en sous-sol qui constituent souvent les témoins les plus tangibles de cet habitat médiéval, lorsque les élévations en surface ont été reconstruites ou profondément remaniées à une époque ultérieure. Sous l’appellation générale de « caves », il convient en fait de distinguer plusieurs espaces : les « salles basses excavées », s’apparentant à des celliers, au-dessous desquelles se trouvent parfois une ou plusieurs « caves », réparties sur un ou deux niveaux. L’étude des « caves » apporte un nouveau regard sur l’évolution de la ville médiévale d’Orléans. Elle indique que la trame parcellaire actuelle était déjà en grande partie fixée vers le 13e siècle dans bien des quartiers. Elle permet également de restituer un paysage urbain irrégulier, où des maisons étroites sur parcellaire laniéré côtoient quelques grands logis barlongs en front ou en retrait de la voie publique. L’étude des caves et salles basses excavées nous renseignent également sur les habitants de ces maisons.
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Dates et versions

hal-01389824 , version 1 (29-10-2016)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-01389824 , version 1

Citer

Clément Alix. Les maisons d’Orléans du 11e siècle au début du 15e siècle. Étude des élévations et des caves. West- und mitteleuropäischer Hausbau imWandel 1150–1350, Arbeitskreis für Hausforschung, Oct 2005, Cluny, France. pp.157-193. ⟨hal-01389824⟩
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