Ken Ritley

Saline-les-Bains blows your mind, because it shows you an aspect of medieval history that you probably had no idea about. Or at least, that I had no idea before I visited it. Over a thousand years ago people discovered that the water flowing up from underground springs was salty. So even as far back as 1115 they created “saltworks” to collect the water, dry it, to obtain salt.  One interesting learning for me was: this became the most important village in France. Around 1000 people were employed in the saltworks, and around 4000 people were employed as lumberjacks, cutting down trees as far away as 20km, since great quantities of wood were required to evaporate the water and obtain the salt.

Saline-les-Bains blows your mind, because it shows you an aspect of medieval history that you probably had no idea about. Or at least, that I had no idea before I visited it. Over a thousand years ago people discovered that the water flowing up from underground springs was salty. So even as far back as 1115 they created “saltworks” to collect the water, dry it, to obtain salt.  One interesting learning for me was: despite being treated very well, a worker’s life expectancy depended very much on the job they did – but also their salary. Working underground or doing menial labor was not terrible injurious, and such workers lived to 70+ years old. But the people who stoked the fires that dried the brine . . . they would die in their early 60’s.

Although the early centuries of Saline-les-Bains had the saltworks above ground, at some point they began to move underground, to obtain access to the spring water that was saltier that than which reached the surface – thereby increasing the evaporation yield.

I did not take the following snap myself, but it shows how the evaporation room looked like. The temperature inside would have been in the high 40s – but the really dangerous job was stoking the fires that burned below to heat these pans. According to the tour guide, the life expectancy of that job was no higher than 60 years old:

Saline-les-Bains blows your mind, because it shows you an aspect of medieval history that you probably had no idea about. Or at least, that I had no idea before I visited it. Over a thousand years ago people discovered that the water flowing up from underground springs was salty. So even as far back as 1115 they created “saltworks” to collect the water, dry it, to obtain salt.  One interesting learning for me was: salt was not required for human health or flavoring, but rather this was the only known method of storing fresh foods (such as meat and fish) over the winter. A family living in Middle Age Europe required around 25 kg of salt per year!