A PEASANT ORGANISATION UNDER THE FORMER REGIME: The HAUT-RHIN shepherd confrérie ; UNE ORGANISATION PAYSANNE SOUS L'ANCIEN RÉGIME : LA CONFRÉRIE DES BERGERS DU HAUT-RHIN

Abstract

The shepherd figure in a 'grain country' L'Alsace is traditionally an agricultural country. Under the old regime, livestock farming played an important role only in the arid regions of Hardt, Ochsenfeld near Cernay and Thann, and on the heights of the Vosges. Horses and cattle, which are necessary to pull down the cherries, are also present there as elsewhere in the plain. But these soils where grass is relatively poor and dry are mainly the country where sheep are elected. As J.M. Boehler points out, sheep is confined to little, fallow land and grass from municipalities can remain for up to eight months on pasture, compared with four to six for cattle. It therefore saves fodder and straw, which is the product of manure, provides some of the meat consumed by the farmer, and the wool which feeds the domestic manufacture of the fabrics. Calling for meadows or simply brownfield land, he is a competitor for the cultivated area of the centre of the plain, but he has a place on the poorer land with less demand for margins, where the size of the municipalities that can host them is also twice as large as elsewhere. Sheep are far from being the dominant element of the Alsacian herd, but in a 'grain country' it is the emblem of the breeder. While the farmer teaches a few pigs and volatiles for meat and, if he has the means, horses and cattle for ploughing, but never sheep, the shepherd, on the contrary, brings sheep (and other livestock) and grows only incidentally, because he is a speciality of rearing. Schäfer, which under this designation may be a pastre of animals other than sheep, including a goose keeper, is therefore the breeder in excellence, and the term may misleadingly refer not only to pastry, but also to farm or metayer. ; International audience ; The shepherd figure in a 'grain country' L'Alsace is traditionally an agricultural country. Under the old regime, livestock farming played an important role only in the arid regions of Hardt, Ochsenfeld near Cernay and Thann, and on the heights of the Vosges. ...