Forêts et communautés religieuses en Alsace sous l’Ancien Régime

Abstract

From the end of the Middle Ages onwards, religious communities in Alsace benefitted from a rich heritage of woodlands that covered their needs in wood. From the sixteenth to eighteenth century, management of ecclesiastical forests evolved. Religious communities employed specialised personnel to supervise and exploit the forests. They sold large amounts of shaped timber in urban centres. To this end, they consigned the use of the forests to external entrepreneurs in the formof long-termconcessions. Some signed contracts with smithies or glass-makers. By the end of the seventeenth century, Alsatian religious communities thus entered modern economic circuits. Indirectly they began to use their forests to advantage, but too often they sold the raw material at a low price to industrials, who made a large profit.With the economic and demographic rise of the province in the eighteenth century, the ecclesiastical forests attracted the interest of rural communities and lay lords, as well as royal authorities. Litigation ended in 1789 with the nationalisation of clerical holdings.