Menat

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Menat
Menat coat of arms
Menat (France)
Menat
region Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Department Puy-de-Dôme
Arrondissement Riom
Canton Saint-Éloy-les-Mines
Community association Pays de Saint-Éloy
Coordinates 46 ° 6 ′  N , 2 ° 54 ′  E Coordinates: 46 ° 6 ′  N , 2 ° 54 ′  E
height 346-674 m
surface 20.31 km 2
Residents 547 (January 1, 2017)
Population density 27 inhabitants / km 2
Post Code 63560
INSEE code 63223
Website Community website

Menat - town view

Menat ( Occitan is identical), a central French city and a municipality ( commune ) with 547 inhabitants (at January 1, 2017) in the region of Auvergne Rhône-Alpes in the Puy-de-Dôme .

location

The place Menat is at an altitude of about 500 meters above sea level. d. M. in the hilly and wooded landscape of the Combrailles and is located northwest of Clermont-Ferrand (about 55 kilometers drive) and of Riom (about 42 kilometers). The Sioule River forms the eastern border of the municipality.

Population development

year 1962 1968 1975 1982 1990 1999 2006 2012
Residents 1.002 912 813 703 640 610 594 557

In the 19th century, the place usually had between 1,700 and over 2,300 inhabitants. As a result of the phylloxera crisis in viticulture and the mechanization of agriculture , which resulted in the loss of many jobs, the number of inhabitants has since decreased continuously to the current lows.

economy

For centuries, the people of Menal lived as self-sufficient farmers from agriculture, which also included viticulture; in addition there were small trade and handicrafts. After the phylloxera crisis of the wine came decades to a standstill, but now again red, rose and white wines are produced in excess of the appellation Puy-de-Dôme be marketed. Many vacant houses have been converted into holiday apartments ( gîtes ).

former cloister of the Saint-Ménelée abbey
Pont de Menat

history

The history of Menat probably goes back to the 5th century, when a monastic community was formed here, from which a monastery school emerged, at which St. Avitus von Vienne (around 460-518) is said to have studied. Under the abbot Ménelée , later canonized , the community joined the Benedictine order in the 7th century ; in 1107 a papal bull determined the affiliation to the Cluniac order . In the Middle Ages Menat was one of 15 archpriesthoods in the Archdiocese of Clermont .

Attractions

  • The crossing tower of the church built in the 12th and 14th centuries and parts of the cloister area ( cloister , refectory ) are still preserved from the former Saint-Ménelée abbey - otherwise the three-aisled church, whose dimensions are roughly the same as the original, was built in the 19th century fundamentally renewed: the nave has since been spanned by an open roof instead of the former barrel vault; the former ambulatory with three radial chapels no longer exists and the facade of the southern arm of the transept was rebuilt in the neo-Romanesque style . Noteworthy is a Romanesque capital converted into a holy water font ( bénitier ) just behind the west portal. The former abbey buildings have been recognized as Monuments historiques since 1977 .
  • On the outskirts there is a wash house ( lavoir ) from the 19th century.
Surroundings
  • The three-arched stone bridge over the Sioule ( 46 ° 5 ′ 59 ″  N , 2 ° 55 ′ 54 ″  E ), slightly raised in the middle, dates from the 13th century, but has been repeatedly restored in the following years. Half of the bridge structure, which belongs to the neighboring municipality of Saint-Rémy-de-Blot, with the - as usual - pointed pillar reinforcements in the direction of flow, was entered in the list of historical monuments in 1918 .
  • A megalith weighing several tons near the hamlet of Piogat is commonly interpreted as a fallen menhir or a capstone of a disappeared dolmen . Several stone tools have been found in the area.
  • In 1978 an arboretum was created in the Les Brosses forest .

Son of the place

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ancienne abbaye Saint-Ménelée, Menat in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
  2. ↑ Vieux-Pont sur la Sioule, Menat in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)