Charroux (Allier)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Charroux
Charroux coat of arms
Charroux (France)
Charroux
region Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Department Allier
Arrondissement Moulins
Canton Gannat
Community association Saint-Pourçain Sioule Limagne
Coordinates 46 ° 11 ′  N , 3 ° 10 ′  E Coordinates: 46 ° 11 ′  N , 3 ° 10 ′  E
height 291-426 m
surface 10.43 km 2
Residents 362 (January 1, 2017)
Population density 35 inhabitants / km 2
Post Code 03140
INSEE code 03062
Website www.charroux.com

Mairie

Charroux is a commune with 362 inhabitants (at January 1, 2017) in Allier in the region Auvergne Rhône-Alpes . It belongs to the arrondissement of Moulins and the canton of Gannat and is classified as one of the Plus beaux villages de France ( most beautiful villages in France ).

geography

The village is located on a limestone plateau on the northeastern edge of the Massif Central and offers a wide view of the surroundings. The city of Vichy is about 20 kilometers east (as the crow flies).

history

Bronze find from Charroux d'Allier, drawing by EM Tudot (1861)

Archaeological finds from the late Bronze Age , most of which are now in the Musée Anne de Beaujeu in Moulins , point to the early settlement of the plateau , including an artistically particularly high-quality bronze jewelry whose connection of a wheel cross with a segment of a circle was interpreted as a representation of the sun wheel with the sun bark. Comparable finds from Roman times have not survived, but the square ground plan of the settlement and the proximity to an old traffic route are an indication of the construction of a Gallo-Roman oppidum , as the name Charroux, in Latin in the Middle Ages, attests to. a. in the forms Carofium (1287) and Carrotum (1322), on Latin Quadrivium ("Vierweg", "Kreuzung", late Latin Quarrogium ) tried to trace back.

In 1245 Archambault IX. Bourbon, his “city” Charroux ( ma vile de Charrox ) and its citizens ( borjois ) have special freedom rights. To define the scope of this franchise , eight stone crosses listed with their locations in the certificate were set up. From one of these eight crosses, which stood "on the ox path" or "ox market" ( ou toral ) and was only broken off in the course of the French Revolution in 1793, an important remnant with the Crucifixus and the inscription IHS was found in 1982 in the city museum of Charroux and is the oldest datable cross of its kind in the Bourbonnais.

In the Middle Ages, Charroux was fortified with two walls and eight city gates, of which only the remains of one of the walls and two gates have survived. The city was ravaged by a plague in 1412 and by the plague for several years in 1422. During the uprising of the Praguerie of 1440, when the Duke of Bourbon and the rebellious nobility were on the side of the Dauphin against King Charles VII , Jacques I de Chabannes was besieged by Charles VII's troops in Charroux and the fortress after taking it allegedly pillaged by the royals for fifteen days. In 1586 Charroux was again plundered, sacked and the walls and gates razed when Huguenot troops, after their victorious battle near the hamlet of Cognat near Gannat , devastated the villages, churches and monasteries in the area before they moved on to the Berry . When Heinrich I, Prince of Condé , also marched against Charroux with his mercenaries after the capture of Vichy in 1576 , the city, which had not yet restored its fortifications, had to surrender without a fight and buy free from further plundering.

In 1662 the Bourbonnais became the property of Ludwig II of Bourbon, Prince of Condé , who maintained a hunting lodge in Charroux (now a hotel). The history of Charroux during the French Revolution is documented in detail in the Musée de Charroux et de son Canton and in the archives in the mayor's office ( Mairie ).

In the 19th century there was a small train station at Charroux. The location away from other traffic routes, however, led to a continuous decline and decline in the population from 1300 at the time of the revolution to around 320 today. The handicraft, which previously had a special focus in tannery and leather processing and had benefited from the needs of the local garrisons , experienced a decline, so that in 1842 only one of the previous 32 tanneries was left. Charroux survived as a rural village and has been looking for new development opportunities in tourism since the 1970s. Numerous historic houses are now holiday homes and a number of private individuals and associations are trying to revitalize the place.

Population development

Parish Church of Saint-Sébastien
Church Saint-Jean-Baptiste
year 1962 1968 1975 1982 1990 1999 2006 2016
Residents 427 427 387 352 324 330 374 362

Attractions

See also: List of Monuments historiques in Charroux (Allier)

Churches of Charroux

Charoux owned two parishes and parish churches in the Middle Ages, one of which, St. Jean-Baptiste , belonged to the Diocese of Clermont and was under the Commandery of the Templars of La Marche , while the other, St. Sébastien, belonged to the Archdiocese of Bourges and the Priory of Saint -Germain-de-Salles was under.

There was also a church of the Templars of La Marche in the parish of St. Jean-Baptiste , and in front of the inner city wall a commandery of the Antonites , also known as the hospital, which was later abandoned and converted into a convent for Benedictine women.

In the realm of the legends of later historiography, created by misunderstandings and confusion, there are, however, stories of an abbey also outside the city called le Pérou or la Peyrouse , allegedly Abbatia Petrosa in Latin , which was built on a "stony" plateau five hundred meters from the city as early as the early Middle Ages was founded by Benedictines from Menat or from the famous Aquitaine Abbey Charroux in Poitou-Charentes and lasted until it was destroyed during the French Revolution. There is also a legend that Pope Urban II visited Charroux in 1096 and consecrated an altar there: This process, from January 10, 1096, is well documented, but for the Aquitaine Charroux, not for that in the Bourbonnais.

The parish church of St. Sébastien was transferred to state ownership and sold in 1793, it is no longer preserved today, as are the two religious buildings. The fortified church of St. Jean-Baptiste, on the other hand, was retained in its function and is today one of the main attractions for tourism. It is a three-aisled building divided by two rows of five columns , the choir and apse partly from the 12th / 13th centuries. Century, and the late Romanesque and Gothic style elements. After the vault collapsed in 1742, major renovations took place in 1766–1768. Between 1950 and 1954 construction work was carried out to relieve the pillars of the transept and to support the vault. The fortified tower with an octagonal floor plan, which was added to the transept in the 14th century, with its stump, which has been reduced by most of the tip since the collapse, forms the landmark of Charroux.

City fortifications

The fortified center of Charroux, protected by a curtain wall and a defensive moat with four city gates, two of which are still preserved, are formed around the former citadel , called "the court of the ladies". There are also two remains of the tower (Tour du Guet prison ) and the "House of Condé" on the back.

  • West Gate ( Porte d'Occident or Porte de l'horloge )

  • East Gate ( Porte d'Orient )

literature

  • Le Patrimoine des Communes de l'Allier. Flohic Editions, Volume 1, Paris 1999, ISBN 2-84234-053-1 , pp. 97-101.

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Charroux on Les plus Beaux Villages de France (French)
  2. ^ Pierre Abauzit: Les découvertes de l'âge du bronze dans l'Allier, Note 2: Les dépôts à Charroux. , In: Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique française. tom. LIX, num. 9-10, 1962, pp. 668-683.
  3. ^ Jacques-Joseph Moret: Notices pour servier à l'histoire des paroisses bourbonnaises depuis leurs origines jusqu'à nos jours. Volume I, Imprimerie Bourbonnaise, Moulins 1902, p. 572.
  4. ↑ Ibid., P. 490.
  5. ↑ Based on a copy from 1679, which is said to have been based on the original of the document, reproduced by Jean Marie de la Mure: Histoire des ducs de Bourbon. Volume III, Potier, Paris 1868, there in the attached Pièces supplémentaires et document inédits. Pp. 97-100. ( Digitized at Google Books), on the date of the document, which is sometimes incorrectly stated in the literature as 1145, see the correction on p. 97 Note 1. According to a different copy, coined in northern French, probably from the 15th century the text already in Jean-Baptiste Peigue: Notice historique sur la ville de Charroux en Bourbonnais. In: Jean-Baptiste Bouillet: Tablettes historiques de l'Auvergne. Volume III, Pérol, Clermont-Ferrand 1848, pp. 198–203 ( digitized from Google Books ).
  6. ↑ De la Mure: Histoire des ducs de Bourbon. P. 100.
  7. ^ Jacques Baudoin: Les croix du Massif Central. Créer, Nonette 2000, No. 150; ders., Croix du Bourbonnais. Créer, Nonette 2005, p. 15 fig. 14, p. 59.
  8. ↑ Peigue: historique Notice. P. 204.
  9. ↑ Peigue: historique Notice. P. 204, after Jean Chartier , the chronicler of Charles VII.
  10. ↑ Peigue: historique Notice. Pp. 206-208.
  11. ↑ Peigue: historique Notice. P. 208f.
  12. ↑ a b Peigue: Notice historique. P. 210.
  13. ↑ Moret: Notices pour servier à l'histoire des paroisses bourbonnaises. Volume I, p. 490ff.
  14. ↑ Moret: Notices pour servier à l'histoire des paroisses bourbonnaises. Volume I, p. 492.
  15. ↑ Peigue: historique Notice. P. 196.
  16. ↑ So the otherwise following historical overview on the website of the community www.charroux.com , according to which the foundation was already in the 6th century and the monks from the Aquitanian Charroux - where their mother abbey actually emerged in the 8th century - also the name of their hometown to the new foundation and the settlement there
  17. ↑ To correct the errors mainly justified by Peigue in detail Philippe Tiersonnier: Notes sur Charroux. In: Bulletin de la Société d'Émulation du Bourbonnais. Series 2, Volume 26, Nos. 11-12 (November-December 1923), pp. 471-531, pp. 492-505.
  18. ↑ So the historical overview on the website of the community charroux.com ; similar to Jean Débordes: Les nouveaux mystères de l'Allier. Éditions de Borée, Romagnat 2006, p. 382.
  19. ↑ De consecratione Dominici altaris Carrofensis monasterii, from Urbano papa II facta anno 1096. PL 151,271ff.
  20. ^ Floor plan with Anne Courtillé: Auvergne et Bourbonnais gothiques. Volume I, Créer, Nonette 1991, p. 312.
  21. ^ Courtillé: Auvergne et Bourbonnais gothiques. P. 321f., Illustrations of the capitals with plant ornaments and human caryatids P. 288.
  22. ^ A b Courtillé: Auvergne et Bourbonnais gothiques. P. 411 note 25.