Last modified: 2011-05-13 by ivan sache
Keywords: ille-et-vilaine | cancale | ship: terre-neuva | oyster | eagle: double-headed (black) | cross (green) | letters: aplc (blue) | cross (blue) |
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![[Flag of Cancale]](../images/f/fr-35-cc.gif)
Flag of Cancale - Image by Ivan Sache & Pascal Vagnat, 25 June 2001
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The municipality of Cancale (5,293 inhabitants in 2007; 1,300 ha) is located 15 km east of Saint-Malo, at the western end of Mont-Saint-Michel Bay.
Cancale, allegedly founded in 545 by St. Méen (the Welsh monk Conald Mewen), was mentioned for the first time in 1032, as Cancavene, when Duke of Brittany Alan III transferred the domain of Cancavene, the port of Porz Pican and the St. Méen church to the abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel. The name of Cancavene was probably derived from two Breton words, conq, "a cove", and aven, "a river". In the Middle Ages, Cancale belonged to the lord of Plessis-Bertrand, whose castle, located in Saint-Coulomb, was destroyed at the end of the 16th century. The last lord of Cancale, Magon de la Lande, was beheaded in 1793.
At the end of the 17th century, Vauban, considering Cancale as the weakest point in the defense of Saint-Malo, ordered to build new batteries. In 1704, Siméon Garengeau planned to build a small fortress on the Rimains islet, located off Cancale, which was not done. On 4 June 1758, during the Seven Years' Wars, an English fleet made of 115 vessels bombed Cancale and the coastal defenses, allowing the landing of 20,000 soldiers commanded by the Duke of Marlborough, who besieged Saint-Malo and burned the privateers' ships moored in Saint- Sevran. Two weeks later, the assaulters withdrew short before the arrival of the French troops commanded by Duke d'Aiguillon. On 13 May 1779, following the failed French landing in Jersey, six English frigates shot more than 2,000 bullets again Cancale and burned three ships in the port. Following the latter attack, the States of Brittany decided to build a fortress on the Rimains islet. Much bigger than Garengeau's proposal, the fort, achieved in 1786, could house 200 men serving 26 cannons; the most powerful fort in the region, it dissuaded the English attempts of attack and was never involved in war acts.
Cancale is the cradle of the cancale oysters ("horse-foot" flat
oysters [Ostrea edulis]), originally picked up from deep-sea,
natural banks located off the town. In 1545, King Francis I, fond of
good food (and good women, too) granted to Cancale the titles of
town and of official oysters' supplier of the court; fresh oysters
were served at the Royal table twice a week. Francis I's successors,
Henry IV, Louis XIII and Louis XIV, maintained the privilege,
increasing the fame of Cancale.
The oyster resource became endangered, since more than 100 million
oysters were extracted each year from the natural banks. In 1759,
Louis XIV, also fond oy oysters, regulated oyster collect, which was
forbidden during the summer months to allow reproduction and growth of
the young oysters. The ban is the remote origin of the "r-month" urban
legend, that claims that oysters are edible only during months having
a "r" in their name, therefore not in May, June, July and August.
In modern times, oyster collect in Cancale was strictly regulated by
the Maritime Affairs administration; on the April fishing day, the
boats rally in the port of La Houle and rushed together to the banks,
which was called the caravane. The local boats specifically designed
to bring back the oysters to Cancale, were called bisquines, a name
coined around 1820 in official marine registers. Improved all along the 19th century, especially after the organization of the first regatta on 31 August 1845, the bisquines were progressively abandoned when oyster fishing declined.
The small port of La Houle, often flooded until the building of a sea
dyke in the 18th century, was a main center of trade of oysters,
which were painfully washed and prepared by women (as recalled by the
beautiful statute "The Oysters' Washers") and immediatly shipped,
mostly to Paris and London.
In the 1920s, oyster fishing declined and was superseded by oyster-
farming. In the same period, the oyster swimming larvae of the bay
were all suppressed by a mysterious disease. Today, the larvae are
imported from disease-free areas in South Brittany and "sown" in the
parks set up close to the shore. Some 520 concession owners grow
oysters on a 375-ha area dedicated to ostreiculture. Attempts of
reintroduction of the flat oysters in the bay have been made since the
1980s, with some promising results.
In the middle of the 19th century, a fishing port developed in Cancale, where a fleet of some 50 terre-neuvas was registered, maintaining a tradition dating back to Jacques Cartier. The terre- neuvas, named from "Terre-Neuve", Newfoundland, were huge three- masters involved in the grande pêche (grand fishing) of cod on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. The joint fleets of Saint-Malo, Saint- Servan and Cancale represented one third of the French terre-neuvas. The local fisher Ernest Lamort (1890-1958), nicknamed "The Seamen's Friend", founded the first seamen' professional union in France.
Cancale is the birth town of St. Jeanne Jugan (b. Joucan; 1792-1879).
Raised in a very poor family, Jeanne refused marriage and moved to
Saint-Servan, when she started to collect money for the poors she
housed in her small room; her local group, named in 1842 "The Poors'
Servants", was renamed in 1849 "The Little Sisters of the Poor" and
approved as a congregation on 9 July 1854 by Pope Pius IX. The
congregation manages today 208 houses in 31 countries. Jeanne was
canonized on 11 October 2009 by Pope Benedict XVI.
The less-known Marguerite Le Pastour (1720-?) escaped her parents'
house in Cancale dressed as a man and fought in the French and
Austrian armies; she was appointed executioner in Lyon, where it took
27 months to find out she was a she-executioner. Jailed for a while,
she married in Lyon and came back to Cancale for the rest of her life.
Source: Cancale unofficial website, by Fabrice Guilbert
Ivan Sache, 22 August 2010
The flag of Cancale is green with the municipal coat of arms in the middle, surmonted by the name of the town in white capital letters. Usually hoisted on the port's beacon, the flag can be seen, hoisted on boats, on photos taken during the 2010 Sea Pardon.
The arms of Cancale are D'azur à un trois-mâts d'or, équipé d'argent sur une mer de sinople, environné d'un orle de dix huîtres d'or; au franc-canton d'argent chargé d'une aigle bicéphale de sable ("Azure a
three-master or with masts argent on a sea vert orled by ten oysters
or a canton argent a double-headed eagle sable").
The ship and the oysters recall the main activities of the town. The
canton is said to represent the arms of the Du Guesclin family, a senior branch of which was lord of Cancale in the 13th-15th centuries.
Ivan Sache, 22 August 2010
Association des Plaisanciers du Littoral Cancalais
![[Burgee of APLC]](../images/f/fr-35~cc.gif)
Burgee of APLC - Image by Ivan Sache, 22 August 2010
The burgee of the Association des Plaisanciers du Littoral
Cancalais (APLC), the association of local, non-professional fishers,
as seen on photos shown on the APLC website, is white with a green cross and the letters "A", "P", "L" and "C" in the respective quarters of the flag.
The colours of the flag must have been taken from the coat of arms /
flag of Cancale.
Ivan Sache, 22 August 2010
Club Nautique de Cancale
![[Burgee of CNC]](../images/f/fr-35~c1.gif)
Burgee of CNC - Image by Ivan Sache, 31 October 2010
Club Nautique de Cancale (CNC) was founded in August 1959 by Dr. Albert Roellinger to organize regattas; in 1960, a sailing school was founded with the support of the Youth and Sports Service of the Department of Ille-et-Vilaine. The club was officially registered in November 1963 and opened its club house on the port of Port-Mer. The sailing school was subsequently transfered to the municipality; the club has today sections for catamarans, dinghies and cruise boats.
The burgee of the CNC, as shown graphically on the club's website, is light blue with a white-light blue-white cross.
Ivan Sache, 31 October 2010
