Lalaye
Encyclopedia
Lalaye is a commune
in the southwest of the Bas-Rhin
department in Alsace
in north-eastern France
.
The inhabitants are known as Lachenois.
on the departmental road D39, one of a number of minor roads that twists across the Vosges Mountains
into Lorraine
. It is three kilometres (two miles) upstream of the cantonal town, Villé
, and on the left bank of a branch of the Giessen river which tumbles down from Urbeis
to the west-south-west. To the north the commune is bounded by the Honel ridge which continues at an altitude of around 600 meters to the Blanc-Noyer peak (822 meters) which dominates the area. To the south a line of lower peaks running from the Kohlberg (500 meters) to the Goutte Henri (610 meters) a separates the Urbeis Giessen from the "Giessen proper".
The village itself is positioned at the lower end of the valley, having an average elevation of just 310 meters, shortly before the Charbes stream and the Urbeis Giessen converge. The houses are stretched along the south facing side of the narrow Charbes valley.
tradition: the oldest evidence of exploitation is in place known as La Hollée. The principal mineral here, Galena
(lead ore) was being extracted on a daily basis at the end of the Middle Ages
. Along the route to the hamlet of Charbes is another mine known by the local language name of "Haus Osterreich" and which was worked during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Both these sites have been subjected to several modern investigatory excavations, during the course of which an ancient well
was discovered which was equipped with a water wheel
and a two chamber water pump
.
Seams of antimony
at Wolfsloch were mined during the same period, for a century between 1648 and 1748. More important was the coal mining, which provided high quality coal
, principally used in forge
s. After lapsing for several years, mining returned to the village during the German occupation in 1901. Other mines, some better documented than others, include those at Sachelingoutte (sixteenth century), Pransureux, Le Beheu and Ruisseau.
An old mylonite
quarry which was still being exploited after the Second World War is located at Molloch, on a part of the same site as the old lead mine at La Hollée. The rock extracted here was chiefly used as an underlay rock for road
construction.
name "Lach" and from the Latinate
patois
equivalent "Lela". A range of spelling variants turns up through the centuries. The Germanic name "Lach" is recorded in 1303 and again in 1561. Following the French occupation of Alsace, francophone versions gain currency: La Ley in 1768, Lallay on Cassini's
eighteenth century maps, Lalay in 1758 and finally Lalaye. As in the rest of Alsace, periods of German occupation between 1871 and 1918, and again between 1940 and 1944, saw a return to German versions of the name.
family. In the middle of the thirteenth century the Habsburgs owned the Albrecht Valley: the notary's task was to inventory the family's rights and revenues in all the villages including "Lach". Subsequently the village passed through several hands, either in absolute possession or else as a fiefdom. Most noteworthy among these proprietors were the Rathsamhausen zum Stein family and, later, the noble Bollwiller family.
. After 1648 the French entrusted the Lalaye lands to Choiseul-Meuse
. The village was repopulated by migrants from Lorraine
who brought their latinate patois
with them.
. Later, in 1665, a report on "The Condition of the Parishes" in the Villé lordship mentions the lack of any chapel at Mittelscheer, but indicates the presence of a suitable building at Lalaye (at that time still called Lach) in good condition and dedicated to Saint Dorothy
. At the time the Abbess of
Andlau
enjoyed the tithe
while the priest from Villé administered this chapel and celebrated the mass in it.
In 1777 the old chapel was demolished and work began on a church, planned by the architect Christiani and which would be built on the same spot. The church was far larger than the chapel it replaced, which had become necessary because of immigration to the village during the eighteenth century. Between 1720 and 1750 the size of the registered congregation increased from about twenty souls to about fifty. In 1803 a vicar was assigned to Lalaye-Charbes, and from 1810 he was able to reside in a newly constructed presbytery. Lalaye obtained parish status in 1820.
while others crossed the Atlantic to the United States
or, like the missionary Jean Gaire, to Canada
. Often early emigrants were joined subsequently by others from the commune.
Communes of France
The commune is the lowest level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are roughly equivalent to incorporated municipalities or villages in the United States or Gemeinden in Germany...
in the southwest of the Bas-Rhin
Bas-Rhin
Bas-Rhin is a department of France. The name means "Lower Rhine". It is the more populous and densely populated of the two departments of the Alsace region, with 1,079,013 inhabitants in 2006.- History :...
department in Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
in north-eastern France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
.
The inhabitants are known as Lachenois.
Geography
Lalaye is positioned approximately fifteen kilometres (nine miles) to the west-north-west of SélestatSélestat
Sélestat is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.In 2006, Sélestat had a total population of 19,459. The Communauté de communes de Sélestat et environs had a total population of 35,397.-Geography:...
on the departmental road D39, one of a number of minor roads that twists across the Vosges Mountains
Vosges mountains
For the department of France of the same name, see Vosges.The Vosges are a range of low mountains in eastern France, near its border with Germany. They extend along the west side of the Rhine valley in a northnortheast direction, mainly from Belfort to Saverne...
into Lorraine
Lorraine (région)
Lorraine is one of the 27 régions of France. The administrative region has two cities of equal importance, Metz and Nancy. Metz is considered to be the official capital since that is where the regional parliament is situated...
. It is three kilometres (two miles) upstream of the cantonal town, Villé
Villé
Villé is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.-References:*...
, and on the left bank of a branch of the Giessen river which tumbles down from Urbeis
Urbeis
Urbeis is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.-References:*...
to the west-south-west. To the north the commune is bounded by the Honel ridge which continues at an altitude of around 600 meters to the Blanc-Noyer peak (822 meters) which dominates the area. To the south a line of lower peaks running from the Kohlberg (500 meters) to the Goutte Henri (610 meters) a separates the Urbeis Giessen from the "Giessen proper".
The village itself is positioned at the lower end of the valley, having an average elevation of just 310 meters, shortly before the Charbes stream and the Urbeis Giessen converge. The houses are stretched along the south facing side of the narrow Charbes valley.
Mining
The commune contains significant mineral deposits and has a long miningMining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
tradition: the oldest evidence of exploitation is in place known as La Hollée. The principal mineral here, Galena
Galena
Galena is the natural mineral form of lead sulfide. It is the most important lead ore mineral.Galena is one of the most abundant and widely distributed sulfide minerals. It crystallizes in the cubic crystal system often showing octahedral forms...
(lead ore) was being extracted on a daily basis at the end of the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
. Along the route to the hamlet of Charbes is another mine known by the local language name of "Haus Osterreich" and which was worked during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Both these sites have been subjected to several modern investigatory excavations, during the course of which an ancient well
Water well
A water well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, boring or drilling to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The well water is drawn by an electric submersible pump, a trash pump, a vertical turbine pump, a handpump or a mechanical pump...
was discovered which was equipped with a water wheel
Water wheel
A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of free-flowing or falling water into useful forms of power. A water wheel consists of a large wooden or metal wheel, with a number of blades or buckets arranged on the outside rim forming the driving surface...
and a two chamber water pump
Water Pump
Water Pump is one of the neighbourhoods of Gulberg Town in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. It is near main Water Pump that supplies fresh water to the city of Karachi....
.
Seams of antimony
Antimony
Antimony is a toxic chemical element with the symbol Sb and an atomic number of 51. A lustrous grey metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite...
at Wolfsloch were mined during the same period, for a century between 1648 and 1748. More important was the coal mining, which provided high quality coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
, principally used in forge
Forge
A forge is a hearth used for forging. The term "forge" can also refer to the workplace of a smith or a blacksmith, although the term smithy is then more commonly used.The basic smithy contains a forge, also known as a hearth, for heating metals...
s. After lapsing for several years, mining returned to the village during the German occupation in 1901. Other mines, some better documented than others, include those at Sachelingoutte (sixteenth century), Pransureux, Le Beheu and Ruisseau.
An old mylonite
Mylonite
Mylonite is a fine-grained, compact rock produced by dynamic recrystallization of the constituent minerals resulting in a reduction of the grain size of the rock. It is classified as a metamorphic rock...
quarry which was still being exploited after the Second World War is located at Molloch, on a part of the same site as the old lead mine at La Hollée. The rock extracted here was chiefly used as an underlay rock for road
Road
A road is a thoroughfare, route, or way on land between two places, which typically has been paved or otherwise improved to allow travel by some conveyance, including a horse, cart, or motor vehicle. Roads consist of one, or sometimes two, roadways each with one or more lanes and also any...
construction.
Etymology
The name Lalaye comes from the German and local dialectGerman language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
name "Lach" and from the Latinate
Medieval Latin
Medieval Latin was the form of Latin used in the Middle Ages, primarily as a medium of scholarly exchange and as the liturgical language of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, but also as a language of science, literature, law, and administration. Despite the clerical origin of many of its authors,...
patois
Patois
Patois is any language that is considered nonstandard, although the term is not formally defined in linguistics. It can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects, and other forms of native or local speech, but not commonly to jargon or slang, which are vocabulary-based forms of cant...
equivalent "Lela". A range of spelling variants turns up through the centuries. The Germanic name "Lach" is recorded in 1303 and again in 1561. Following the French occupation of Alsace, francophone versions gain currency: La Ley in 1768, Lallay on Cassini's
César-François Cassini de Thury
César-François Cassini de Thury , also called Cassini III or Cassini de Thury, was a French astronomer and cartographer.- Biography :...
eighteenth century maps, Lalay in 1758 and finally Lalaye. As in the rest of Alsace, periods of German occupation between 1871 and 1918, and again between 1940 and 1944, saw a return to German versions of the name.
Origins as part of the Villé seigniory
The precise age of the village is not known. The first surviving record of it appears in an inventory compiled in 1303 by a notary named Burkhard von Fricke who was working for the powerful HabsburgHabsburg
The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...
family. In the middle of the thirteenth century the Habsburgs owned the Albrecht Valley: the notary's task was to inventory the family's rights and revenues in all the villages including "Lach". Subsequently the village passed through several hands, either in absolute possession or else as a fiefdom. Most noteworthy among these proprietors were the Rathsamhausen zum Stein family and, later, the noble Bollwiller family.
The Thirty Years' War
Lalaye was one of many Alsatian villages ruined by the Thirty Years' WarThirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
. After 1648 the French entrusted the Lalaye lands to Choiseul-Meuse
Choiseul, Haute-Marne
Choiseul is a commune in the Haute-Marne department in north-eastern France....
. The village was repopulated by migrants from Lorraine
Lorraine (province)
The Duchy of Upper Lorraine was an historical duchy roughly corresponding with the present-day northeastern Lorraine region of France, including parts of modern Luxembourg and Germany. The main cities were Metz, Verdun, and the historic capital Nancy....
who brought their latinate patois
Welche
Welche is a Gallo-Romance dialect of Lorrain spoken in Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin in the western Alsace in France. The varieties of this dialect are the variety of Bruche, the variety of Villé, the variety of Lièpvre, the variety of Kaysersberg and the variety of Orbey...
with them.
Religious
The Roman Catholic community of Lalaye was affiliated to the parish of nearby Villé: it was therefore necessary for citizens to make the four kilometre (two and a half mile) trek to Villé in order to attend Sunday MassMass
Mass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...
. Later, in 1665, a report on "The Condition of the Parishes" in the Villé lordship mentions the lack of any chapel at Mittelscheer, but indicates the presence of a suitable building at Lalaye (at that time still called Lach) in good condition and dedicated to Saint Dorothy
Dorothea of Caesarea
Saint Dorothy is a 4th century virgin martyr who was executed at Caesarea Mazaca. Evidence for her actual historical existence or acta is very sparse. She is called a martyr of the Diocletianic Persecution, although her death occurred after the resignation of Diocletian himself...
. At the time the Abbess of
Andlau Abbey
Andlau Abbey was a women's collegiate foundation for secular canonesses located at Andlau in Alsace, eastern France.-History:...
Andlau
Andlau
Andlau is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.The village owes its origin to Andlau Abbey which was founded in AD 880 by Richardis, the Empress of Charles the Fat...
enjoyed the tithe
Tithe
A tithe is a one-tenth part of something, paid as a contribution to a religious organization or compulsory tax to government. Today, tithes are normally voluntary and paid in cash, cheques, or stocks, whereas historically tithes were required and paid in kind, such as agricultural products...
while the priest from Villé administered this chapel and celebrated the mass in it.
In 1777 the old chapel was demolished and work began on a church, planned by the architect Christiani and which would be built on the same spot. The church was far larger than the chapel it replaced, which had become necessary because of immigration to the village during the eighteenth century. Between 1720 and 1750 the size of the registered congregation increased from about twenty souls to about fifty. In 1803 a vicar was assigned to Lalaye-Charbes, and from 1810 he was able to reside in a newly constructed presbytery. Lalaye obtained parish status in 1820.
Emigration
From the nineteenth century Lalaye experienced a major population exodus, primarily due to a lack of work in the valley. Some residents migrated to cities such as ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
while others crossed the Atlantic to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
or, like the missionary Jean Gaire, to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. Often early emigrants were joined subsequently by others from the commune.