[385] ] In one of these, dated 1243, mention is made of the ‘vinea parva’ belonging to the Abbey of Avenay, and of the ‘vineam Warneri in loco qui dicetur Monswarins,’ perhaps the existing clos Warigny. In another of Philip the Fair, dated 1300, and confirming the abbey in the possession of property purchased from Jeanne de Sapigneul, we read of ‘unam vineam dictam la grant vigne domine Aelidis sitam en Perrelles’ and ‘unam vineam dictam a la Perriere.’ In charters of the fourteenth century vineyards are mentioned at Avenay and Mutigny, under the titles of Les Perches, Haut-Bonnet, Praëlles, Les Foissets, Fond de Bonnet, Berard, Chassant, &c. One sold to the abbey in 1334 by Guillaume de Valenciennes was at a spot then, as now, styled Plantelles. In 1336 the justices at Château-Thierry confirmed the Abbess, Madame Clémence, in the ‘droit de ban vin’—that is, the right of selling her wine before any one else in the territory of Avenay. This was again confirmed in 1344 by the Bailly of Sézanne, who held that she alone had the right of selling during the month after Christmas, the month after Easter, and the month after Pentecost. Amongst other records is one noting the condemnation of Perresson Legris, clerk, of Avenay, who was sentenced in 1460 by the Bailly of Epernay to a fine of 60 sols, for selling his wine during the month after Christmas without permission of the Dames d’Avenay. The charters of the fifteenth century also abound in references to vineyards, or ‘droits de vinage,’ appertaining to the abbey at Les Coutures, Champ Bernard, Auches, Bois de Brousse, Thonnay, &c., in the territory of Avenay, and Les Charmières, Torchamp, Saussaye, &c., at Mutigny.
[386] ] In 1668, an epoch at which the wines of Avenay had acquired a high reputation, the abbey owned 43 arpents of vineland at Avenay, Mutigny, and Mareuil, yielding the preceding year 200 poinçons of wine, the sale of which produced 6000 livres. It also had 13 pressoirs banaux, which were farmed for 50 poinçons of wine, and tithes of wine at Mareuil amounting to 14 poinçons and 460 livres in money, and at Ambonnay amounting to 3 poinçons, the total of 67 poinçons fetching 1206 livres. The valet who looked after the vines had 50 livres per annum, and the cooper who looked after the wines, 40 livres. The total cost of stakes, manure, culture, pruning, wine-making, and casks was 2700 livres per annum. Ten pièces of wine ‘of the best of the abbey, and worth 300 livres,’ were annually given away in caques and bottles to ‘persons of quality and friends of the house, and travellers of condition who pass;’ whilst 120 poinçons, valued at 3000 livres, were consumed at the abbey itself. The abbey was partially destroyed by fire in 1754; and its destruction was completed during the Revolution, at which epoch its vineyards yielded a net revenue of 2500 livres.
[387] ] In addition to Madame de la Marck, who was connected, by the marriage of one of her brothers to a princess of the house of Bourbon, with Henri Quatre, and to whose influence with that monarch the execution of the ‘Traité des Vendanges’ was mainly due, the roll of the Abbesses of Avenay comprises several illustrious personages, amongst them St. Bertha; Bertha II., daughter of the Emperor Lothaire; the ex-Empress Teutberga; Bénédicte de Gonzague, daughter of the Duke de Nevers, and sister of the Princess Palatine, who took such an active part during the troubles of the Fronde; and ladies of the illustrious families of Saulx Tavannes, Craon, Levis, Beauvillers, Brulart de Sillery, Boufflers, &c. M. Louis Paris, in his Histoire de l’Abbaye d’Avenay, gives some curious instances of the exercise of the ‘haut et basse justice’ possessed by these ladies. In 1587, under the rule of Madame de la Marck, we find the Bailly of Avenay, acting as ‘first magistrate of Madame l’Abbesse,’ sentencing one man and four women ‘to be hung, strangled, and burnt, and the goods belonging to them confiscated to the profit of the Lady Justiciary,’ for the crime of sorcery. In 1645 we find a ‘sentence of the Bailly of Avenay against Simeon Delacoste, accused and convicted of the crime of homicide committed upon the person of Jean Bernier, and for this condemned to be hung and strangled by the executioner on a gallows erected in the public market-place, with confiscation of 300 livres, to be levied on his goods, to the profit of the Lady Justiciary.’ When the criminal could not be caught, as was the case with Nicholas Thimot, vine-grower at Avenay in 1555, the sentence ran that he should ‘be hung in effigy, and his goods confiscated to the profit of Madame.’
[388] ] The following lines, quoted by M. Philibert Milsand in his Procès poétique touchant les Vins de Bourgogne et de Champagne, may be taken as referring either to the wine or the scenery:
‘Si quis in hoc mundo vult vivere corde jocoso,
Vadat Cumerias sumere delicias.’
[389] ] In Arthur Young’s time (1787–9) an arpent of vineyard at Hautvillers, valued at 4000 livres, yielded from two to four pièces, or hogsheads, of wine, which sold from 700 to 900 livres the queue (two pièces). This is more than the wine would ordinarily realise to-day, although in years of scarcity it has fetched 700 francs the pièce, and in 1880 as much as 1000 francs.
[390] ] Cazotte, ex-Commissary-General of the Navy and author of the Diable Amoureux, who was guillotined as a Royalist in 1792, had a magnificently fitted mansion at Pierry. He distinguished himself by his opposition to the pretensions of the Abbey of Hautvillers, which in 1775 claimed the right of taking tithes at Pierry not only in the vineyards, but on the wine in the cellars. Cazotte argued that unless the monks chose to take their due proportion of grapes left for them at the foot of each vine, all they were entitled to was a monetary commutation of the tithe; for the wine being usually made of grapes from a dozen different sources, many of them beyond their domain, it would be impossible to ascertain the proportion that was their due. The Parliament of Paris decided, however, that the abbey might take the fortieth of the wine a month after it was barrelled, unless the vine-growers preferred to give them the fortieth part of all the grapes brought to the press. The fact was that the monks really wished to check the practice of mixing grapes from different districts at the press, for fear wine equal to their own should result from this plan, first satisfactorily put in practice by Dom Perignon. Arthur Young mentions that an arpent of vines at Pierry was valued at 2000 livres, half the price the same extent commanded at Hautvillers.
[391] ] M. Armand Bourgeois, in his work on Le Sourdon et sa Vallée, mentions a local tradition to the effect that Saint Remi, who from his will is shown to have owned vinelands of some extent in a part of this district still known as the Evêché, installed a hermit in this said grotto of the Pierre de Saint Mamert to supervise his vineyards.
[392] ] Bertin du Rocheret writes thus in 1744, and adds that the aspect of Avize had at that epoch become entirely changed by the numerous fine ‘maisons de vendange’ erected there.