The Poitiers suburb of Montbernage, across of the Clain, is a quiet and peaceful place. It was not always so. In the early 8th Century, in 711 AD, the troops of the Umayyad Caliphate invaded the Iberian Peninsula. Within two decades, they had destroyed the Wisigothic Kingdom. As early as 720 the Umayyads had a foothold around Narbonne, in southern France. In 732, under the Governor General of El-Andalus, Umayyad cavalry crossed the Pyrenees and crushed the forces of Odo the Great, the then Duke of Aquitaine. The Moslem army, of some 30,000-100,000 men, continued north, pillaging and destroying as they went along, heading either to Paris or to Tours, home of the richest monastery in western France. By October the Umayyads had arrived at the gates of Poitiers, and camped at Montbernage, along the banks of the Clain.
On October 10, 732, the Arab forces met the Merovingian army, led by the power behind the throne, Charles Martel (“the hammer’). This was the second of the three major “Battles of Poitiers,” though the encounter was likely some 10 miles north of Poitiers, at Moussais-la-Bataille. After having conquered Egypt, North Africa, the Wisigoths, the Persian Empire, the Byzantine Army, and Aquitaine, here the Arab armies finally met their match. Charles Martel’s army “hammered” the Umayyad troops, bringing him everlasting fame: his son Pepin le Bref (Pippin the Short) would usher out the last figurehead Merovingian king, and usher in the new Carolingian dynasty; his grandson, Charlemagne, would create an Empire even larger than that of the Umayyads.
Having lost their leader, Abdul Rahman, the defeated Arab troops headed back south and over the Pyrenees. As they hastily retreated, they did, according to local legend, leave behind something important. Apparently, Arab armies included some expertise in logistics: while they partly lived off the land, as invaders had since time immemorial, not everything they found could meet either their tastes or Islamic strictures on food, and so they brought some of their own provisions. Specifically, they brought along goat herds. Some of the goats, and possibly some of the goat keepers, did not make the trip back south. They stayed where they had camped before the battle, perhaps around Montbernage. From the chebli (Arabic for goat) came a particularly tasteful cheese, that we now call Chabichou. Legend says this is the origin of the famous goat cheeses of the Poitou-Charentes, which today account for about 2/3 of France’s 100,000 tons a year of goat cheese production. As Stephane Henaut and Jeni Mitchell put it in the recounting of the legend in their marvelous book, A Bite-Sized History of France, “Chabichou is a delicious reminder that the meeting of different cultures and civilizations should be a source of enrichment rather than conflict.” Today one can sample many of the wonderful goat cheeses of the Poitou, and see where they are made, along the Route du Chabichou. This touristic itinerary is well-indicated by road panels, and has its own website. If one goes on The Week of Cheese in April, the small country roads may feel like one is part of an invading or retreating army, but otherwise expect peaceful countrysides, and very tasty lunches.
