Dieppe is a French commune located in the department of Seine-Maritime (of which it is the capital of the arrondissement) in the Normandy region. The inhabitants of the city of Dieppe are called the Dieppois.
Gallo-Roman period
In the Gallo-Roman era, the Camp
de César or "City of Limes", located north of the current city of
Dieppe, is a Gallo-Roman wall which attests to the oldest presence
of human life in the Dieppe region. . A few rare remains of Gallic
pottery or weapons bear witness to this still little-known period.
From Vikings to Dukes
In 910, the Vikings settled at the
mouth of the Tella, a deep river that flows into the sea. They
nickname it Djúpr "the deep" or Djúpá "the deep river". Fishermen
sporadically occupy the site to fish for herring, but the real urban
installations were in the land in Arques where a castle was built.
The oldest mention of Dieppe dates back specifically to a charter of
1030 designating by name a small fishing port called Dieppe. During
this period of the Middle Ages, within the feudal system, the
locality belonged to the county of Talou.
The conquest of
England by the Normans from 1066 gave all its importance to the
small fishing port, then in the shadow of the city of Arques, for
the development of cross-Channel relations. Dieppe is one of the
ports on each side of the Channel that the Normans set out to equip
and develop. On December 6, 1067, it was in particular from Dieppe
that William the Conqueror re-embarked for Great Britain.
Still sparsely populated, Dieppe enjoyed increasing prosperity
during the 12th century after Empress Mathilde gave an acre of land
in Dieppe to her chamberlain to constitute a fiefdom. Dieppe then
benefited from the close relations which were established between
Normandy and England and a castle was built there in 1188 by Henri
II Plantagenêt. However, in 1195, this castle was razed and the city
burned down by the troops of the King of France Philippe-Auguste, at
war against Richard the Lionheart, Duke of Normandy. Two years
later, in 1197, the latter granted the lands of Dieppe to the
archdiocese of Rouen but in 1204, after the fall of Château-Gaillard
and the capture of Rouen, Dieppe and Normandy were annexed to the
kingdom of France by Philippe-Auguste. By coming back under French
control, the Dieppe site loses its advantageous position and the
source of its prosperity based on relations between Normandy and
England. The city itself struggles to recover from the incendiary
passage of Philippe-Auguste.
The geography of the place
allows access to the port at high tide and at low tide, in
particular thanks to a natural dyke formed by pebbles (pebbles which
were also used to build the foundations of houses in the city
center; remains of old medieval houses are also visible thanks to
the cellars preserved from the time). It is then an important port
because it is the only one on the Normandy coast between Saint-Malo
and Boulogne-sur-Mer accessible at low tide. The sailors of Dieppe
trade with Scandinavia, Venice or even the Hansa.
Dieppe
under the Capetians
At the start of the 14th century, the city of
Dieppe had about 7,000 inhabitants and extended to the villages of
Bouteilles and Pollet. If the houses built in stone are more
numerous on the quays, the types of constructions are generally
disparate but many are built on a stone flashing generally in
sandstone and made of a wooden frame and a half-timbering filled
with cob composed of 'clay and straw or dried hay.
During the
Hundred Years War, Dieppe found itself at the heart of the conflict
between France and England. It was not until 1300 that Dieppe
regained its aspect of port city. In 1339, sailors and privateers
from Dieppe took part in a victorious raid on Southampton. The city
was also attacked by the Flemings, causing limited damage. In 1345,
King Philippe de Valois, by letters patent, abolished the right of
gabelle and granted the Dieppois some liberalities in trade. He
especially authorizes the Dieppois to fortify the city.
In
1348, the Black Death struck the city, killing about a third of the
population, or more than 2,000 people. The epidemic even became
recurrent still striking the city at the beginning of the 1360s, in
1387, in 1408 and in 1438. The high mortality upset the urban
landscape, many houses, finding themselves without inhabitants, fell
into ruins giving way to land waves.
In 1358, if the fortified enclosure of Dieppe was not yet
completed, the city had gates which were closed at night. In 1361,
King John II the Good granted the people of Dieppe the right to levy
taxes in order to finance the fortifications, ditches and other
necessary works. In 1363, the king considered Dieppe to be a city
henceforth difficult to take without sieging it.
Charles V
the Wise grants new exemptions, privileges and other largesse that
allow the city to take off. From 1364, Dieppe fishermen became
navigators and set off far away to look for spices and ivory (the
date of the first trip to Africa). Thus two large ships from Dieppe
sail as far as present-day Cape Verde where they disembark and then
sail along Guinea and set up a trading post which they call
Petit-Dieppe at the mouth of the Rio Cestos on the coast of
present-day Liberia. They will bring back some raw ivory and a bag.
Navigators from Dieppe also founded La Mine, on the Gold Coast
(present-day Ghana) before the Hundred Years War interrupted Norman
expeditions.
In 1394, the 2nd Dieppe Town Hall called "Maison
de Ville" was built near the hillock of the place du moulin à vent,
on which a stone sentry box was perched serving as a lighthouse to
light up the entrance to the port (the hâble) located between the
Tour aux crabes (a square tower 9.20 m side, 11.25 m high with walls
1.40 m thick) and the cliff of Pollet.
In 1420, following the
Battle of Agincourt, Dieppe was occupied by the English who treated
it as a rebellious city. They keep it for 15 years. In 1430, the
city was notably the place of provisional detention of Joan of Arc
before she was transferred to Rouen where she would be tried and
burned at a stake.
Dieppe was finally liberated from the
English occupation on October 28, 1435 when the city was taken over
by the French under Captain Charles Desmarets (died in 1469) on
behalf of Charles VII. Charles Desmarets (or Charles des Marets)
endowed the city with large fortifications and undertook to build a
new castle. However, 8 years later, in 1443, the English again
besieged the city from Pollet. Dieppe resists Talbot's troops and
definitively repels the attackers thanks to reinforcements brought
in by Jean de Dunois, the bastard of Orleans, and by the Dauphin
Louis, the future Louis XI.