La genèse des paysages agraires en France. La Touraine en est-elle une synthèse ?

ABSTRACT French geographers from Vidal de la Blache, to Roger Dion, MM. P. Flatres, X. de Planhol, J.R. Pitte, M. Bonnaud, and a great deal of others, have studied our agricultural landscapes. These landscapes were usually known as open-fields, or groves, or mixed, or mediterranean ones. In Touraine we think no genuine old open-fields were seen. Groves were scarce. The original «paysages coupés : with fields, vineyards, scattered hedges, rows of trees, clusters, always take up a lot of space. From the beginning of the 14th century, these «paysages coupés» are seen by miniatures, old cadastral maps, descriptions and accounts of travels. Since then shifts kept on, mainly after the Liberation with the developping open-field. We have hoped for accurate descriptions displaying theses landscapes from the Loire valley to the south of France.