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Gallo-Roman
It seems that the Queyras was inhabited before the beginning of the Gallo-Roman times. The copper mine of Saint-Veran, now disused, was operated in the late Neolithic, at the time said chalchéolithique's (copper age), there are four thousand years. In Gallo-Roman, the Queyras is inhabited by a Celtic-Ligurian people (that is to say, the Gallic) is known as the Latin Quariates (pronounced kwaryatès), whose modern name derives Queyras. Quariates is the name the Romans gave to this people, probably from their Gallic name, believed, rightly, that it was formed on the root cairn, which means "rock", "Rockpile . Another word of Gallic origin appears in place names or place names of Queyras: bric's, which means "mountain", which is found in Bric Froid, Bric Bouchet and the etymology of shelter (* ad bricos). Quariates name is attested in the inscriptions. It is engraved on the triumphal arch erected at Susa's (in Italy, at the base of the neck of Mongenèvre) in the year 8 BC. King Cottius in honor of Emperor Augustus. It also appears on an engraved stone, later used as a lintel in a chapel Escoyères, hamlet of the commune of Arvieux and seems to have been the place from which have made the romanization and the evangelization of Queyras. On this stone partially truncated, you can read a Latin inscription, whose text has been reconstituted following which a man named Albanus Bussulus was prefect of Quariates and Brigiani, people who lived in the valley Briancon.
Middle Ages
In 1050, the Briançon is given in fief to the counts of Albon, the Viennese dolphins and it is integrated into the independent Kingdom of Dauphine. It is then formed by five, say "escartons, which correspond to constituents: the Briançon, Queyras, and three valleys, which are Italian since 1713, namely the valley of the Dora Riparia (Oulx, Sestriere, Exilles) val Clusone (Pragelati, Fenestrelle), the upper valley Varaita (Casteldelfino - in French Chateau Dauphin - Pontechianale), which, together, formed the Grand Escarton. Each of these escartons is composed of communities, also called "universities". The Queyras were seven: Ristolas, shelter, Needles, Old Town, Arvieux, Moline, Saint-Veran. In 1343, the Dauphin Humbert II, which is short of money, following the long and ruinous wars he waged against Savoy and his active participation in the crusades, sells five communities escartons a charter of freedoms and privileges. By paying 12,000 gold florins and an annual pension of 4000 ducats, people become "free and bourgeois." Of civil liberties granted them. Thus, they meet to deliberate freely of their business and their elected representatives, called "consuls." They have the right to hunt and, consequently, that of bearing arms. In fact, the five escartons have long formed what some have called (erroneously) a Federal Republic, which reportedly exhibited similarities with the democratic organization of Swiss cantons.
In 1349, the cash requirements of the Dauphin Humbert II have not been satisfied, the Dauphine is transferred to the King of France. Dauphine becomes a province, whose history is intertwined soon then with that of France. In Briançon and Queyras, the escartons are maintained, the people who managed to preserve the rights and freedoms they had paid six years ago and loved where they continued to pay an annual rent.
s sixteenth, seventeenth century, eighteenth century
The Queyras is marred by numerous conflicts, religious and political. Supporters of Peter Waldo Lyon (and nominated for this Vaudois), which advocated the twelfth century to reform the church to which he accused of losing interest in the poor, seeking to escape persecution, and for that, seek refuge in valleys remote areas of the Alps, which, in Piedmont, and those Pellice Germanasca adjacent Abriès and Ristolas. It may be under their influence that Queyrassins the middle of the XVI c., belong overwhelmingly (80%, say historians) to proposals for reform of the Church, such as Luther and Calvin have made, and become So Protestants (see "wars of religion" and "Protestantism"). Disturbances take place from 1557 to 1598. Episodically, they turn into battles. Churches and temples are burned; families massacred. The Edict of Nantes, Edict of Tolerance says, puts an end to conflicts.
In 1685, following the repeal of the edict (see "Recall"), decided by Louis XIV, under the influence, it seems, Madame de Maintenon, many Queyrassins are forced to renounce Protestantism. A number of them, about 10%, says it does, refuse and prefer to take refuge in Switzerland and the Palatinate, where some swarmed to the United States or South Africa ( cf. "emigration" and "immigrants"). Notion continue to practice in secret, at night and in the mountains, worship prohibited.
Throughout the seventeenth century, and until 1713 and even in 1748, France conducted extensive wars against various European countries or vice versa. In the war against the League of Augsburg from 1690 to 1696, militiamen Vaud, fighting for the Duke of Savoy, and appointed "Vallarins" and "Barbets" in Archives of Queyras, crossing the border repeatedly , loot and burn villages, kill people in order to avenge the Protestant victims of abuse. Troops of the King of France have often crossed the Queyras, or have long parked or in camps Furfande, or the Wheel, is among residents. They are forced to provide timber, fodder, grain, cattle, mules armies (bonds called the stage and the neighborhood). In 1699, a public inquiry, intended to revise the "fires", from which the tax is established, shows a general impoverishment of Queyrassins, which led to the departure of several families to regions less ungrateful.
In 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht alter the border between France and Piedmont. A natural route is chosen, called "peak water pending," which corresponds to the line of the watershed. Valleys whose waters flow east and the Adriatic returning to Piedmont, those whose waters flow into the Mediterranean, France. Grand Escarton, which straddles the New Frontier, is dismantled: the three escartons d'Oulx, Val Chisone and Casteldelphino become Piedmont. A great cultural and historic entity is destroyed.
The Revolution abolished the old institutions, and community escarton, replaced by those who are still in force, the municipality and the canton.
nineteenth and twentieth centuries
In 1831, there are seven municipalities in more than 7600 inhabitants. This is probably the highest figure in the history of Queyras. Since then, the population continues to decline (see "Demographics"). In 1881, the Queyrassins are more than 5032. Today, their number does not exceed 2000. In a century and a half, the population fell by nearly 80%.
From 1833 to 1855, a road is built in the valley of the Guil, Guillestre to Abriès. It replaces the old mule trails qu'empruntent sometimes hikers today. Between 1905 and 1911, the portion of the road between Guillestre and La Maison du Roy, is moved and set into the cliff of the Gorges, which requires the drilling of four tunnels. Therefore, it can easily be borrowed from cars and buses. Queyras is no longer isolated from the Durance valley, which, paradoxically, made the exodus easier.
During the war of 1914-1918, more than two hundred young Queyrassins die at the front. Queyras counting about 4000 inhabitants, is 5% of the population disappears young men who will not be replaced. For the Queyras is a real tragedy that highlights the demographic decline (see "Demographics").
Between 1940 and 1960, the Queyras is affected by a succession of calamities which have so long marked its history: In 1940, occupation of La Monta, Ristolas Le Roux by the Italian army in 1940 and 1944, during fighting, burning of villages to shelter, Monta, of Ristolas, Roux. Close three-quarters of the town houses of shelter are destroyed. In 1948, an avalanche destroyed the hamlet of Echalp, killing several people. In 1957, a catastrophic flood of the Guil River and its tributaries destroyed roads, bridges, washed away houses, barns, herds.
In 1950, the Queyras is transformed into a "zone control". The goal is to renovate the agriculture and livestock. Credits, subsidies, grants are awarded to the Queyras. In vain. The agro-pastoral economy which was founded during the millennia Queyras is disappearing, and even in some villages, it disappeared. In
1970s, is created under the leadership of Mr. Philippe Lamour, Parc Naturel Régional du Queyras, which includes seven municipalities historical, which have been added commune Ceillac, the natural reserve of the Val d'Escreins (Common vars) and the Gorges du Guil, located on the common and Guillestre Eygliers. The population continues to decline, and even increases significantly, and sometimes in large proportions, over 50% in shelter (see "demographic change"). The primary economic activity became tourism. Queyras traditional shepherds, reapers, fruit, cheese makers, the chalets estive gradually gives way to another Queyras, very different, that of winter sports resorts and hiking paths.
