Avranches

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Avranches
Avranches Coat of Arms
Avranches (France)
Avranches
region Normandy
Department Some
Arrondissement Avranches ( sub-prefecture )
Canton Avranches ( chief lieu )
Community association Mont-Saint-Michel-Normandy
Coordinates 48 ° 41 ′  N , 1 ° 21 ′  W Coordinates: 48 ° 41 ′  N , 1 ° 21 ′  W
height 7-108 m
surface 10.99 km 2
Residents 10,155 (January 1, 2017)
Population density 924 inhabitants / km 2
Post Code 50300
INSEE code 50025
Website http://www.ville-avranches.fr/
Facade of the Notre-Dame-des-Champs church

Avranches [ avʀɑʃ ] is a French city with 10,155 inhabitants (at January 1, 2017) in the department of Manche in the region of Normandy . Avranches is the administrative center of the Avranches arrondissement . With effect from January 1, 2019, the neighboring Saint-Martin-des-Champs was incorporated. Avranches has been a nouvelle commune ever since .

geography

Avranches is located in the Avranchin (south of the Cotentin Peninsula ) on the European route E401 , which connects Caen with Brittany . From Avranches it is possible to see Mont-Saint-Michel , on which St. Aubert , Bishop of Avranches , had the first chapel built in the eighth century. Here the river Sée flows into the bay of Mont-Saint-Michel and thus into the English Channel .

structure

District former
INSEE code 		Area (km²) Population (2016)
Avranches (administrative headquarters) 50025 4.50 7,719
Saint-Martin-des-Champs 50516 6.49 2,349

history

In ancient times, the Gallic people ( civitas ) of the Abrincatui , to whom the name of the city goes back, lived in the area of ​​Avranches . In the 5th century Avranches was the third city of Lugdunensis II and had a garrison of Dalmatian auxiliary troops . It was perhaps the seat of a bishopric since the end of the 4th century, but this is only documented with certainty for the year 511. From the beginning of the 6th century it belonged to the Franconian Empire .

From Charlemagne allegedly a fortress against the incursions of the Normans expanded, this Avranches could still storming first 866th Shortly afterwards, they were driven out by Solomon , ruler of Brittany , but took the city again in 890. Duke Wilhelm I. Long Sword of Normandy incorporated Avranches into his empire in 936. Soon afterwards it became the seat of its own counts or vice counts , from whom Hugues received the English county of Chester after the Norman conquest of England (1066) . Under this, Avranches received an important school through the famous scholastic Lanfrank in 1040 and had several sponsors of learned studies among his bishops.

In 1141 Avranches fell to Gottfried Plantagenet , Count of Anjou. In 1157, Duke Conan IV of Brittany paid homage to his successor, King Henry II of England . On May 21, 1172, the meanwhile excommunicated Henry II repented here for the murder of Thomas Becket and here concluded the Avranches compromise with the church, where he was Pope Alexander III. before whose legates swore allegiance.

During the conquest of Normandy by Philip II August , Guido von Thouars , Duke of Brittany, seized the city on behalf of the French king in 1203 and had its walls razed. King Louis IX the saint acquired the vice-county of Avranches in 1235 for 160 livre tournois . He made Avranches a royal city. Since he liked staying in Avranches, he had their city walls rebuilt. Philip V united Avranches in 1317 with the county of Mortain . It therefore fell to Queen Joan II of Navarre and her husband Philip of Evreux soon after . Her son, Charles II the Evil , inherited Avranches, which was conquered several times by the English and then again by the French after the outbreak of the Hundred Years War . Charles III of Navarre, son of Charles the Evil, in 1404 the city and its other possessions in Normandy for the Duchy of Nemours to the French King Charles VI. from.

Thomas of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Clarence , brother of King Henry V of England , took Avranches in 1418, but was recaptured by the French the next year. In 1421 the English occupied it again and kept it in their possession until 1450, when it finally fell to France. In 1464 Avranches joined the French barons, united in the Ligue du Bien public , who opposed King Louis XI. revolted, and was now in the hands of Jean II de Bourbon . 1466 Ludwig XI. seize the city, which was conquered again the following year, this time by Charles de Valois, duc de Berry , and only returned to the crown in 1468 after the Treaty of Ancenis.

In the Huguenot Wars Avranches stood on the side of the Catholics and in 1568 opposed Montgomery energetically, who could only seize him by treason, whereupon he had the city plundered. Matignon was able to drive out the Huguenots , but they returned the following year and again wreaked havoc. A few years later Avranches joined the Holy League and did not submit to Henry IV until 1591 after long resistance. In 1639 the uprising of the Norman peasants (the barefoot, French Nu-pieds ) broke out, who revolted against the salt tax . The revolt was put down by Jean de Gassion and as a result Avranches found himself released from the sack.

During the French Revolution , Avranches became the district capital in 1790 and fell twice into the hands of the insurgent royalists of Brittany in 1793. Furthermore, in 1790 the diocese of Avranches was secularized; later his area came to the diocese of Coutances . This changed its name on July 12, 1854 to Coutances (Avranches).

On June 6, 1944, ( D-Day ) at the start of the Allied landing operation in Normandy ( Operation Neptune ), Avranches, like several other cities in the region, was heavily bombed. There were many victims and much of the city was destroyed. It wasn't until a good seven weeks later, on July 31, 1944, that General George S. Patton achieved the Avranches breakthrough .

Culture and sights

Buildings

Notre-Dame-des-Champs At first there was a small church dedicated to the Virgin Mary here . In the 19th century it became too small because of demographic change and the increasingly more popular belief after the revolution . Today's was built in the same place. The foundation stone was laid in 1863. It was consecrated in 1892 by the Bishop of Coutances, Abel-Anastase Germain . During the Second World War , on the night of June 7th to 8th 1944, it caught fire due to bombing and the vault collapsed. After the reconstruction, services were held again from 1962. The church is not a cathedral , even if the architectural style suggests it.

Avranches was a bishopric until 1790 . Until the Revolution there was the Saint-André cathedral . It was destroyed during the revolution and not rebuilt. It was located next to today's Sous-Préfecture. (see Bishops of Avranches )

Scriptorial

A modern museum was built in the converted castle / defense system on Place d'Estouteville. Here manuscripts and early prints are kept and z. T. are shown, which were handed over to the city of Avranche from the Mont Saint Michel Abbey in accordance with a decree of the Revolutionary Administration in 1791 and combined with other manuscripts that already existed and were brought here from other surrounding churches during this time to form one of the most important manuscript libraries in France were. In the newly built museum, the production of the writing materials and the writing of the manuscripts as well as interesting facts about the art of binding are shown, the highlight is then an estimated 20–30 early / medieval original manuscripts in an air-conditioned room. In cooperation with the University of Caen, the books are scientifically evaluated and presented in a virtual library on the Internet. Together with the old city library located in the town hall, which contains around 13500 old books and prints from the 16th to 19th centuries. includes, Avranche is one of the most important book-historical cities in Europe.

Parks

Opposite the Notre Dame des Champs church is the Jardin des Plantes , from the west of which you can overlook the bay of Mont-Saint-Michel.

  • Church Notre-Dame-des-Champs

  • The plant garden (Jardin des Plantes)

  • View from the Jardin des Plantes to the Mont-Saint-Michel

Sports

The footballers of US Avranches were initially represented and 1990s time since 2014 the third in France's league.

Town twinning

Avranches has twinned cities with Saint-Gaudens (France), Saint Helier in Jersey , Crediton in Great Britain and, since 1963, with Korbach in Hesse (Germany).

Personalities

sons and daughters of the town

Personalities who have worked on site

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Population figures retrospectively from January 1, 2016
  2. ↑ See Max Ihm : Abrincatui . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 1, Stuttgart 1893, column 111.
  3. ^ Scriptorial d'Avranches . scriptorial.fr. Retrieved July 12, 2015.

Web links

Commons : Avranches  - collection of images, videos and audio files