LES BAIHARDS (BAYLARDS)

The region has more such places called after what might be toponym patronymics, such as Montbel. Next to it, is a place named: ”Les Baihards” which is phonetically exactly the same as the Flemish word for “de Beiaards” or “the Carillons”. The plural form took “s”, today “en”. This word is with absolute certainty not of French origin.

Neither would be the other possible meaning: “Les Baillards”, from the Flemish word “de Aard” (Foyer in French). There is no English translation for this word, it is simply rendered as “home”, meaning so the “Home of the Baills”.

In German, they have the word “der Herd” for it, which is actually a modern (sic) version of the far more ancient denomination “die Feuerstelle”.

Note that there is no phonetic difference between the “Baillards” and the Flemish “Baill (Bell) aards”.

The few inhabitants of the locality (8 houses) told me that this word was all but French and must therefore be of foreign origin or issued from a family name. They could not be more right!

Not only do the French people of the region have problems to pronounce this word correctly but they also have difficulties to write it down. This tends to confirm the “out of France origin” of the word. I found no less than three spellings:

• Les Baihards,        on the Michelin 2011. Tele Atlas.
• Les Baillards,         on the locality’s indicator.
• Les Baylards,   on the locality’s edge indicator and on Google CNES/Spot image 2013.

Exactly the same phenomenon happened in Flanders, although the toponym patronymic originated there. Remember we found for Bels: Beils, Beyls, Beiles, Bells, Belles, Bellis, Beilz, Beilz, Baels, Bails, Bals, Bailles, Bayls, Bayles and so on, all phonetically so close to each other that the amalgam was/is simply unavoidable. Idem for the mention, in old documents, of the mother and her son in the case of the arrest of the Cathar Bélibaste:

• Baille,                    for the mother Sybille.
• Bayle,                   for her son Pons.

As we know, the “...difficulties to write them (the patronymics) down...” phenomenon was identical in England and the situation was certainly not better in the United States. Over there, a certain Mr John Bayles (see in 1617) was also recorded as: John Bayless, Bayley, Baylie and Baylies. His heirs spread on the new continent, each with his own patronymic variant. Needless to say, that after a few generations, the confusion was total!

The moral of this story is that nobody, independently of time and space (in 1974, in Flanders, my father was even recorded as Robert Beyls instead of Bels), was or can write these nouns down without error. This does not prevent these patronymics to be all homonyms!

The word “Baihards” is Flemish and, as we have seen earlier, designate a Carillon. The Carillon originated in Flanders in the XIth century and was soon adopted by practically all the rich Hanseatic cities of Western Europe. To start with the five biggest Hanseatic counters of the north: Lübeck (amber), Novgorod (fur, wax), Bergen (stockfish), London (wool, wine) and of course Bruges for its linen and cloths. Bruges, financially the strongest of them all, became the first Wall Street of the World!

The Carillon was part of the Belfry and was a kind of tower that surmounted the Guild Hall (city and cloth hall). The one of Bruges built in 1281 upon an older one that was partially devastated by a fire the year before, is 83 meters high. The Belfry had several functions:

• To reveal fires in town.
• To guard and to alert the city in case of fire but also in case of attack.
• To proclaim from the balcony situated over the front door the laws and regulations of the city.
• To safeguard the archives (in Bruges from 1281 until today) and the safe of the city.
• To inform by the Carillon:
• The opening and the closure (lock) of the city gates.
• To indicate the beginning and the end of the working time.
• To announce some festivities of the city, etc.

The UNESCO World Heritage Properties counts 58 Belfries in Flanders. The few listed in France used to belong to Flanders, which was later, as we have seen already, annexed by the French!

We should really speculate about the reason of the word “Les Baihards” in such a isolated and wild place at the foothills of the Pyrenean mountain range, in the south of France! Visiting the site in 2013, I personally find it extremely hard, if not misplaced, to imagine that someone ever built in this named place, which is not even a hamlet, a Belfry with a Carillon, a “Beiaard”. This eventuality can be dismissed with absolute certainty. What remains is the first option, the “Home of the Baille”.

On the other hand, what is more an assertion than a speculation is that the “Les Baihards” is contemporaneous of the other Bels and Belle families’ settlements encountered in the south of France, north of Spain and right in the middle of the Cathars and Templars region.

If today the place “Les Baihards” is separated by the lake of Montbel (Ariège) (artificial since anno 1985), this was evidently not the case in the Middle Ages. Formerly only three kilometers separated the place named from the hamlet. Montbel is also another place that seems to be linked to our lineage. I will explore the site by the next opportunity. Interesting to note is that these villages are only 10 km as the crow flies from the Cathars´ fortress of Montségur!

MAS BAILLS and CAN BAILLS

En route to Baillestavy, I stopped at the place named “Can Baills” to find nothing more than three houses. A few kilometers away, between Can Baills and the Col de Fortou lies the “Mas Baills” (House of the Baills), also called “Mas d´en Baills”, in the place named “Prunet”. I found there a single small farm flanked by a very old pre-Romanesque church that was already mentioned in anno 869!

LA BASTIDE (Pyrénées Orientale)

Still en route to Bellestavy, is a place named la Bastide. This Hamlet must be very old considering its church in roman style. Next to the church is a small castle, dating from the IXth century. The castle, with 10ha ground, is to be sold (as of July 2013) for the price of 350.000 €! The church, being anterior to the castle, might well date from the VIIIth century!

I was very surprised when I read, left of the entrance door of the small church, a panel indicating the name of the people to be contacted to unlock its door. Which was in fact unnecessary since the door was wide open! Typical France! Whatever, the first person on the list was the name of a woman whose name was … “Bails”!  Another coincidence?

This panel reveals that the “out of France” origin of the inhabitants of this small Hamlet (103 inhabitants in 2007), is very high. The names listed are quite obviously not from the region, neither from France: Bails is from Flanders - Lozano is from Spain - Roca might be from Catalonia (France or Spain) and Storch is unmistakably German.

So did the inhabitants do not originate from the region but from other countries. They may be recent retirees from these countries, which established themselves here for the quietness, the mildness of climate and the beauty of the nature. However, they most probably landed here (as the Bails and Co did) during the big brazing of cultures, which drastically intensified after the departure from Western Europe of the last roman Legions.

Subsequently, countless other population exodus resulted from several invasions ranging from the Arabs, the Merovingians, the Visigoths and other “Vandals”, the Carolingians and of course through more recent historical events and natural catastrophes (famine, floods, epidemics, etc.). By the next opportunity, I will explore this “out of France” origin of this hamlet inhabitants.

BAILLESTAVY

Finally arriving in Baillestavy, I could spot its church built on an old donjon. The “Puig del Castell,” mentioned since 1255. However, the oldest mentioned of the Site of Baillestavy found to date goes back to the Xth century in connection with the Abbey of Saint-Michel de Cuxa.

The Catalan name for Baillestavy is Vallestàvia. This word seems, at first glance, to derive from two Latin words “Vallis” and “Stavia”.

The word “Vallis” and its plural form “Valles” stands for valley, hollow, depression (ground). The least we can say is that there are indeed “big” valleys in the direct area. Baillestavy (aver. alt. 585m) is imbedded in a valley almost 800m high on its west flank and 1.900m high on its southeast flank.

Three imposing ravines (ravins d´en Carbonnell, del Prat Cabrera and des Collisses) separate the village from the “Pic du Canigou” distant from 7,4 km as the crow flies and which culminates the area from its 2.785 meters above sea level.

The word “Stavia” sounds Latin but is not! The closest I could get is “Stabiae”, the toponym of an ancient city destroyed together with Pompeii, Herculaneum and Oplontis during the big eruption of the volcano Vesuvius, in 79 CE.

According to the Latin approach, all the patronymics variations of the stem “Bels and Belle”, we encountered in southern France, such as Baillessats, les Baillards, Bails, Bayle, Villardebelle, Belcastel-et-Buc, Castelbel, Carla-Bayle, etc., might derive from this Latin word “Vallis”. This would set a clear link between these patronymics and the topology of the area where these named people lived in. As the patronymic “Butcher” sets a direct link with the trade of the one who is carrying this name!

But what about all the patronymics variations (homonyms) of the stem “Bels” and “Belle” we encounter in Flanders? They definitively did not get their patronymic from the Latin word “Vallis”, referring to the topology of the area where these people lived in, for the very simple reason that in Flanders there are no valleys! Only flat lands abandoned by the retreat of the North Sea some tens of thousands of years ago. Not that long ago, in the early Middle Ages, the city of Bruges was still a Seaport with the sea reaching its city doors. Today, this world famous beautiful city is located some 15 km away from the seacoast (Blankenberge and Zeebrugge) !

I am forced to conclude that this Latin “Vallis” working hypothesis does not work at all for the Flemish Bailes. Comparatively, exactly as the landscape of the painting Nr 2. “The Virgin and Child in a Flemish landscape, circa 1500” has absolutely nothing to do with Flanders, but with a well-known area of the Cathars region. I will develop this theme later.

There are some patronymics that derive from Latin words but, in this particular case, it is not the case (sic) !

Were the Bels - Bailles in this place and did they give the village´s name?

The toponyms of Vallestavia and Baillestavyare being the same, we may compare with what happened 1.000 km up North, with the toponyms of Belle and Balliol. There is really nothing new under the sun!