Languedoc

Our account of the Leignes family begins in the town of Sorèze in a very unique part of France, in the Midi-Pyrénées region of southern France which includes part of historic Languedoc province. In the early Middle Ages the Languedoc region was a group of more or less independent states which covered much of the South of what we now know as France.

It had its own language, Occitan, and the word Languedoc derives from langue d’oc – a language in which the word for “yes” was “oc”. With its own rulers, such as the Counts of Toulouse, it was a major commercial crossroad; the land of the troubadours, where learning was widespread, where minorities were tolerated and new ideas welcomed. The troubadour poetry of Langue d’oc flowered from the 10th to the 12th century.

During the same period, the Cathars – or Albigenses – a religious sect, enjoyed a wide following in the area. However, in 1209 Pope Innocent III declared a crusade against the sect and Languedoc was subsequently invaded by northern French troops. By the mid-13th century, Languedoc had been annexed by the French crown.

 

Sorèze is a small village between Toulouse, Albi and Carcassonne, in the south of the Tarn department, and is situated on one of the last spurs of the Montagne Noire [Black Mountains], en route to Arles – one of the major Saint James of Compostela pilgrimage ways. Many of the surrounding villages are listed in “Les Plus Beaux Villages de France”.

Established in 754 as the Abbey Sainte Marie de la Sagne, Sorèze could not escape the ravages of the religious wars between the Catholics and the Protestants, resulting in the Abbey being burned to the ground once in 1572 by followers of Jean Calvin. However, following the Edict of Nantes, the village provided a safe environment for many skilled tradesmen of the Protestant faith who settled there with their families at the beginning of the 17th century.

 

This included the Leignes family who lived in a substantial city home on La rue de Puyvert – formerly known as the “rue de tenturiers”, or Dye Makers street – in Sorèze. This house, which was built in the early 17th century, is still there today and known as Maison Leignes and a local tourist attraction.

We can assume that the family was in the business of making fabric dye, including the famous Pastel Blue dye from the leaves of the legendary Pastel plant after which it was named, and which was exported all over Europe during the Renaissance. The massive export of this blue paste generated an economic boom for the region and created the legend of “Pays de Cocagne“, or “Land of Plenty”.

But – like many other French protestants of that time period – the Leignes family opted to forgo the prosperity of the region and flee abroad following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in October of 1685  in order to avoid persecution by the French institutions of church and state. Although emigration was declared illegal by the French state, around the start of the 18th century as many as 200,000 Huguenots fled to countries such as Switzerland, Germany, Holland and England – and as far away as America and South Africa, where they could practice their religion without fear of persecution.

So we shouldn’t be too surprised that, during the latter part of the 17th century and early into the 18 century, there are records of marriages and births of Leignes family members in Huguenot churches in London, England, or that there are family records of a Protestant Leignes family living in Hordaland, Norway, around the same period, or that at least one member of this family – Pierre Leignes – showed up in the city of Groningen in the northern Netherlands near the end of the 17th century.