Analyse des transformations du maillage paroissial et communal en Touraine à l'aide d'un SIG

Abstract

This article presentss the structure of the G.I.S. used in analyzing the formation and transformations of parish territories in the Touraine. Three practical applications are presented : the calculation of documentary indices, in order to assess the reliability of the spatial and chronological informations from written sources ; the calculation of parameters for the morphological analysis of parish territories, based on the geometrical properties of the surfacic entities, and the calculation of theoretical models tested against existing data. Comparison between theoretical network models, based on distance, relief and hydrography, and actual parish boundaries, both at the time of their creation in 1791 and in 1999 (the year of the modern digital map), indicates that the distance between parish churches was strongly influential in defining the network. Contrary to received wisdom, neither agricultural potential nor the age of the parishes, nor even their hierarchical position, played an important role in variations in the surface area of the parochial territories. © Éditions de l'EHESS.