Bocage

for the Portuguese Neoclassic poet (1765 – 1805), see: Manuel Maria Barbosa du Bocage

Bocage of the Boulonnais (Boulogne-sur-Mer region).

Bocage is a Norman word which has entered both the French and English languages. It may refer to a small forest, a decorative element of leaves, a terrain of mixed woodland and pasture, or a type of rubble-work, comparable with the English use of 'rustic' in relation to garden ornamentation.

Etymology

Bocage country on the Cotentin Peninsula.

Bocage probably derives from the Norman French word boscage, from the Old French root bosc ("wood"), which today in place names is pronounced [bɔk] or [bo]. The boscage form was used in English for leafy decoration such as is found on eighteenth-century porcelain. Similar words occur in Scandinavian (cf. Swedish buskage) and other Germanic languages; the original root is thought to be the proto-German "bosk". The boscage form seems to have developed its meaning under the influence of eighteenth-century romanticism.

In English bocage refers to a terrain of mixed woodland and pasture, with fields and winding country lanes sunken between narrow low ridges and banks surmounted by tall thick hedgerows that break the wind but also limit visibility. It is the sort of landscape found in England in Devon. In Normandy, it acquired a particular significance during the Battle of Normandy, as it made progress against the German defenders difficult. American personnel usually referred to bocage as "hedgerows".

The 1934 Nouveau Petit Larousse defined bocage as 'a bosquet, a little wood, an agreeably shady wood' and a bosquet as a little wood, a clump of trees'. By 2006, the Petit Larousse definition had become '(Norman word) Region where the fields and meadows are enclosed by earth banks carrying hedges or rows of trees and where the habitation is generally dispersed in farms and hamlets.'

Other uses

Bocage can also refer to:

• Villers-Bocage
• Manuel Maria Barbosa du Bocage, Portuguese poet (1765–1805)
• José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage, Portuguese zoologist and politician (1823–1907)

See also

• Boscage

References

• Oxford English Dictionary
• Nouveau Petit Larousse Illustré (1934)
• Petit Larousse Illustré 2007 (2006)

External links

• Where the Normandy Bocage is to be found.