Château-Gontier

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Château-Gontier
Coat of arms of Château-Gontier
Château-Gontier (France)
Château-Gontier
local community Château-Gontier-sur-Mayenne
region Pays de la Loire
Department Mayenne
Arrondissement Château-Gontier
Coordinates 47 ° 50 ′  N , 0 ° 42 ′  W Coordinates: 47 ° 50 ′  N , 0 ° 42 ′  W
Post Code 53200
Former INSEE code 53062
Incorporation 1st January 2019
status Commune déléguée
Website http://www.ville-chateau-gontier.fr

Château-Gontierc town hall

Château-Gontier is a district and a commune Déléguée in the French commune of Château-Gontier-sur-Mayenne with 11,687 inhabitants (at January 1, 2017) in the department of Mayenne in the region Pays de la Loire . Inhabitants are called Castelgontériennes .

Toponomy

The place name is attested in the year 1037 in the form Castrum Gunterii . Gontier was the name of the owner of the 11th century castle.

The name of the former municipality of Bazouges is derived from the Latin word basilica (meaning "market" or "church"). The form of Basilica first appears in 1037.

history

middle Ages

The Count of Anjou Fulko III. Nerra donated the domain of Bazouges to the Benedictines of the Abbey of Saint-Aubin d'Angers , who built the Priory of Saint-Jean-Baptiste there. In order to strengthen the border with Brittany , Fulko also decided to build a donjon . In 1007 he entrusted the guard to Gontier, one of his vassals . This date is also the first written mention of the city.

Château-Gontier subsequently became a barony in favor of Renaud I. The barony of Château-Gontier is of particular historical interest because its northern border frequently changed between the counties of Maine and Anjou . The civil and feudal powers of the Count of Anjou extended to the territory of Maine before the 11th century after the right of conquest , but at that time the parish was already under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Mans .

Map of Anjou in the 18th century
The Seneschalate of Château-Gontier under the Ancien Régime.

In 1343 the state held the monopoly on salt by a royal decree from Philip VI. who introduced the Gabelle , the tax on salt. Anjou was one of the Pays de grandes gabelles with the highest tax and had 16 salt chambers , one of which was in Château-Gontier.

In 1368 the castle was razed by the English .

Renaissance

At the time of the Catholic League , Château-Gontier became the capital of Anjou and was given the right to open Protestant temples. At the same time, the city was the seat of a pays d'élection in 1577 and a royal seneschalate in 1595.

1628 happened Cardinal Richelieu Château-Gontier on his way back from La Rochelle to Paris and ordered the destruction of the castle. In 1639 the second seneschallate of Château-Gontier (branch of the main seneschallate of Angers ) became the seat of a presidential court , which was responsible for criminal offenses and public legal affairs.

French Revolution

On November 11, 1789, the Constituent Assembly instructed the deputies of the old French provinces to vote on the establishment of the new departments .

The thirty MPs from the three provinces of Anjou, Maine and Touraine (which together formed the Tours Generality ) planned to cede part of their territory to Poitou and to divide the remainder into four departments with the four traditional capitals of Tours , Angers, Le Mans and Laval . The latter occupied the territory of the provinces of Maine and Anjou and included the Seneschallate of Château-Gontier and the land of Craon .

In 1790 part of Haut-Anjou (Château-Gontier and Craon) split off from Anjou to form the Mayenne department together with part of the county of Maine . Since then this part of Haut-Anjou Mayenne has been called angevine .

19th to 21st century

In 1809, Château-Gontier merged with the municipalities of Bazouges, Saint-Rémy and Azé . The latter and Bazouges became independent again a few years later, while Saint-Rémy was merged with Saint-Fort in 1813 .

Château-Gontier and Bazouges formed a Commune associée in 1990 and merged in 2006.

The municipality of Château-Gontier merged with Azé and Saint-Fort on January 1, 2019 to form the Commune nouvelle Château-Gontier-sur-Mayenne. Since then it has had the status of a Commune déléguée. The municipality of Château-Gontier was the administrative seat of the arrondissement of Château-Gontier and the canton of Château-Gontier .

Population development

  • 1962: 7.065
  • 1968: 7,888
  • 1975: 8.342
  • 1982: 8.023
  • 1990: 11.085
  • 1999: 11.131

Attractions

Saint-Jean-Baptiste church
  • Saint-Jean-Baptiste church from the 11th century, cross plan with three apses, crypt under the choir, central bell tower from the 12th century, restored in the 19th century
  • Genneteil Chapel from the 12th century, now an exhibition space for contemporary art (sculptures, engravings, paintings ...)
  • Castle ruins from the 13th century
  • Saint-Rémi church, built in the 13th century style, with a stone spire
  • Moulinet chapel in the former municipality of Bazouges, built in the 16th century
  • Ursuline monastery , built in the 17th century around a country estate from the 15th century
  • Église de la Trinité (17th century), church of the former Ursuline monastery
  • Augustinian Monastery Olivier, was founded in the 17th century by hospital nurses from Dieppe and served the Saint-Julien Hospital from 1674 to 1982. The monastery is a member of the Hospitaller regular canons of the Mercy of Jesus
  • Hôtel Saint-Julien , with a 17th century chapel
  • Museum of Art and Archeology, housed in a hotel from the 17th century, has ancient, medieval and contemporary collections
  • Café de la Mairie , the interior decoration, is a work by the Lorraine ceramist Schuller from Saargemünd and the painter Pierre-Louis Richard and was created between 1900 and 1904. The café has been a listed building since 1990.
  • 11th century Saint-Martin church in the Bazouges district

  • Ursuline Monastery

  • Saint-Martin church in the Bazouges district

  • Half-timbered house on Grande Rue

  • Ceramics from the Café de la Mairie

Town twinning

Personalities

literature

  • Le Patrimoine des Communes de la Mayenne. Flohic Editions, Volume 1, Paris 2002, ISBN 2-84234-135-X , pp. 184-209.
  • Alcime Sinan: Le Charme de Château-Gontier , 2002

Web links

Commons : Château-Gontier  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Names of the inhabitants in the Mayenne department , accessed on May 2, 2015 (French)
  2. ^ A b Albert Dauzat, Charles Rostaing: Dictionnaire étymologique des noms de lieux en France , Larousse, Paris 1963.
  3. ↑ Abbé Angot : Baronnie de Château-Gontier , 1915.
  4. ^ Cassini
  5. ↑ entry no. PA00109630 in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French).