Burgos, Spain- home of Andre Robidou
Burgos is the area in Spain from which Andre Robidou, the founder of the Rabideau family in North America, came.
Early humans occupied sites around Burgos as early as 800,000 years ago. When the Romans took possession of what is now the province of Burgos the site had been a Celtiberian city. In Roman times it belonged to Hispania Citerior (“Hither Spain”) and then to Hispania Tarraconensis. In the fifth century the Visigoths drove back the Suebi, then the Arabs occupied almost all of Castile in the eighth century, though only for a brief period, and left little if any trace of their occupation. Alfonso III the Great, king of León reconquered it about the middle of the ninth century, and built several castles for the defence of Christendom, which was then extended through the reconquest of lost territory. The region came to be known as Castile (Latin castella), i.e. “land of castles”.
Burgos was founded in 884 as an outpost of this expanding Christian frontier, when Diego Rodríguez “Porcelos”, count of Castile, governed this territory with orders to promote the increase of the Christian population; with this end in view he gathered the inhabitants of the surrounding country into one fortified village, whose Visigothic name of Burgos signified consolidated walled villages (Gothic baurgs). The city began to be called Caput Castellae (“Cabeza de Castilla” or “Head of Castile”). The county (condado) of Burgos, subject to the Kings of León, continued to be governed by counts and was gradually extended; one of these counts, Fernán González, established his independence.
In the eleventh century the city became the see of a Catholic bishop and the capital of the Kingdom of Castile. Burgos was a major stop for pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela and a centre of trade between the Bay of Biscay and the south, which attracted an unusually large foreign merchant population, who became part of the city oligarchy and excluded other foreigners. Throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Burgos was a favourite seat of the kings of León and Castile and a favoured burial site. The consejo or urban commune of Burgos was firmly in the hands of an oligarchic class of caballeros villanos, the “peasant knights” of Burgos, who provided the monarchs with a mounted contingent: in 1255 and 1266 royal charters granted to those citizens of Burgos who owned horses and could arm themselves relief from taxes, provided that they continue to live within the city walls The merchant oligarchy succeeded the cathedral chapter as the major purchasers of land after 1250; they carried on their mercantile business in common with municipal or royal functions and sent their sons to England and Flanders to gain experience in overseas trade. A few families within the hermandades or confraternities like the Sarracín and Bonifaz succeeded in monopolising the post of alcalde, or mayor; a special court, the alcalde del rey was first mentioned at Burgos in 1281 By the reign of Alfonso X the exemption of the non-noble knights and religious corporations, combined with exorbitant gifts and grants to monasteries and private individuals, placed great stress on the economic well-being of the realm.
In the century following the conquest of Seville (1248), Burgos became a testing-ground for royal policies of increasing power against the consejo, in part by encouraging the right to appeal from the consejo to the king. In 1285 Sancho IV added a new body to the consejo which came to dominate it: the jurado in charge of collecting taxes and overseeing public works; the king reserved the right to select its members. The city perceived that danger to its autonomy came rather from an uncontrolled aristocracy during royal minorities: Burgos joined the hermandades of cities that leagued together for mutual protection in 1295 and 1315. In the fourteenth century official royal intrusion in city affairs was perceived as a palliative against outbreaks of violence by the large excluded class of smaller merchants and artisans, on whom the tax burden fell. The alguacil was the royal official instituted to judge disagreements.
On 9 June 1345, sweeping aside the city government, Alfonso XI established direct royal rule of Burgos through the Regimiento of sixteen appointed men
In 1574 Pope Gregory XIII made its bishop an archbishop, at the request of king Philip II.
Burgos has been the scene of many wars: with the Moors, the struggles between León and Navarre, and between Castile and Aragon. In the Peninsular War against Napoleonic France, Burgos was the scene of a battle, and again in the 19th century Carlist civil wars of the Spanish succession. During the Spanish Civil War Burgos was the base of Gen. Franco’s rebel Nationalist government.
Marie Rollet, wife of Louis Hebert, QC’s first settler; d. 1649 at QC In 1617, with her husband and three children she came from Paris to QC where she found starvation, sickness, and threats of Indian attack. A year after their arrival, says SAGARD, the first marriage solemnized in QC with the rites of the church took place, that of their daughter Anne and Etienne Jonquet. Anne died in childbirth the following year, but there is no record of the child.
Louis Gaston Hebert was born in 1575 at 129 Rue Honore, Paris, France; the son of Nicolas Hebert and Jacqueline Pajot. His family was quite affluent, with ties to the Royal Court of Catherine de’ Medici; where his father was the official druggist and spice merchant to the Queen. In this capacity, he would have had access to the royal palace; and though a bourgeois; would have been respected as a gentleman of the court. But Louis could not depend on a large inheritance and had to make his own way.
In turn, the natives taught his family the proper use of snowshoes, toboggans and canoes; all necessary to survive in the harsh Canadian environment. Her children, with the benefit of youth, were adapting well, learning the customs of their adopted country and enjoying the spirited games that were a large part of Canadian life. Foot races, lacrosse and tobogganing helped to pass away the long winter days, and in summer they enjoyed gathering berries, fishing in the streams, swimming and canoeing. In France, many of those things could only be enjoyed by the nobility. Though they had erroneously selected an uncultivated clump of high ground near the habitation, the family went to work, clearing an area where they could begin planting their crops. There was no plough available, and the tools her husband was able to purchase were practically useless. Still, the small garden he created, gave him the ridiculous honor of being “the first Canadian farmer”. Of course we know he wasn’t really the first farmer, only perhaps the first French-Canadian farmer, since the natives had been cultivating crops for more than 5,000 years and most of what he would eventually learn about agriculture, came from them. Louis also learned a great deal about the proper use of herbal remedies, which benefited the French traders, who depended on him to cure their ills. This well-bred, highly educated Parisian, may not have been much of a farmer, but he helped to sow the seeds of friendship between the two nations, ensuring a continued loyalty to the French.