Petit-Bersac

Petit-Bersac
region	Nouvelle-Aquitaine
Department	Dordogne
Arrondissement	Périgueux
Canton	Ribérac
Community association	Communes du Pays Ribéracois
Coordinates	45 ° 17 ′ N , 0 ° 14 ′ E Coordinates: 45 ° 17 ′ N , 0 ° 14 ′ E
height	43-118 m
surface	10.83 km 2
Residents	181 (January 1, 2017)
Population density	17 inhabitants / km 2
Post Code	24600
INSEE code	24323
Website	www.petit-bersac.fr
	; Mairie (Town Hall) by Petit-Bersac

Petit-Bersac is a French municipality with 181 inhabitants (at January 1, 2017) in the department of Dordogne in the region Nouvelle-Aquitaine (before 2016: Aquitaine ). The municipality belongs to the arrondissement of Périgueux and the canton of Ribérac .

The name in the Occitan language is Pitit Braçac . The part of the name “Braçac” is derived from an estate that in Gallo-Roman times belonged to a “Bercius”, whose name is perhaps of Gallic origin. The addition "Petit" ( German small ) is used to distinguish it from the name of the community Grand-Brassac , which is located further east in the department.

The inhabitants are called Bersacois and Bersacoises .

geography

Petit-Bersac is located approx. 40 km west of Périgueux in the Ribéracois region of the historical province of Périgord on the western border with the neighboring Charente department .

Petit-Bersac is surrounded by the neighboring communities:

Nabinaud (Charente)	Saint-Séverin (Charente)
Laprade (Charente)		Bourg-du-Bost Chassaignes
	Saint Privat en Périgord

Petit-Bersac is located in the Dordogne river basin on the left bank of the Dronne , a tributary of the Isle . It forms the natural border with the northern and western neighboring communities and in this area between the Dordogne and Charente departments.

Tributaries of the Dronne cross the territory of the municipality,

the Vindou,
the Pauly and the
Ruisseau de Muret.

history

Former train station

There are numerous traces of settlement in Gallo-Roman and Merovingian times, especially a villa , as well as ditches for offerings, wells for burial of the dead and an aqueduct . An important road crossed the Dronne via fords in two places, upstream at the hamlet of Chaboin and downstream at the hamlet of Vigéraud. This path was already mentioned in pre-Roman times and gave the place a privileged location, which explains a certain population density from antiquity to the Middle Ages . Between the hamlets of Graulaud and Gravette, a Merovingian well for the burial of the dead was found in 1971, which contained a wide variety of fragments of vases. The first of a total of 18 sarcophagi were discovered about 300 m from this site in March 1973 , in which, in addition to poorly preserved skeletons, a sax , a dagger knife, a fibula , a pearl bracelet and two belt buckles made of bronze could be recovered. A Franziska , a thorn for fastening a belt and another fibula were also found nearby. All of the finds allow the graves to be dated to the second half of the seventh century. The village was subsequently owned by the Hospitallers , whose presence was very pronounced throughout the area. In the 19th century the place belonged to the castellany of Ribérac .

Toponymy

Toponyms and mentions of Petit-Bersac were:

Bersacum (1369, collection of the Abbé de Lespine),
Le Petit Brassac (1750, map by Cassini ),
Petit Brassac (1785, map by Belleyme),
Bersac (1793, Notice Communale ),
Petit-Bersac (1801, Bulletin des Lois ),
Le Petit-Bersat (1873, Dictionnaire topographique du département de la Dordogne).

coat of arms

Coat of arms of the Petit-Bersac municipality

The coat of arms can be interpreted as follows. The white bar symbolizes the geographical location on the border of the départements and at the same time between the distribution areas of the Occitan language and the Langues d'oïl . The bridge, on which you can see three arches and which crosses a blue river, represents the Dronne, the natural border. It is lengthened by a pouring stone. On top of this stands a white column with a yellow base and a yellow capital , which indicates that the place is over 2000 years old and the relics that attest to this age. The three yellow, blue armed , tongued and equally crowned lions show that Petit-Bersac belongs to the Périgord, because these heraldic figures determine the coat of arms of the Counts of Périgord.

Population development

After records began, the population rose to a peak of around 750 in the first half of the 19th century. In the period that followed, the size of the community fell to around 170 inhabitants with short recovery phases by 2010, before a phase of moderate growth began.

year	1962	1968	1975	1982	1990	1999	2006	2010	2017
Residents	295	231	204	206	210	195	177	171	181

From 1962 official figures without residents with a second residence
Sources: EHESS / Cassini until 2006, INSEE from 2010

Attractions

The municipality has 13 buildings that are listed as national cultural assets.

Parish Church of Saint-Saturnin

Parish Church of Saint-Saturnin

The church, dedicated to Saint Saturninus of Toulouse , was built in the 11th or 12th centuries. It is relatively certain that the temple of the Gallo-Roman villa had stood on the same spot since the end of the first or second century . The Visigoths , who occupied Aquitaine from 418 to 507, built a previous church instead of the temple. The horseshoe-shaped apse , which is characteristic of Visigothic churches, underlines this assumption. Protestant troops destroyed the bell tower during the Huguenot Wars , which lasted in the Périgord from 1562 to 1594. The bell was sunk into the lake of Rambaud, which was filled in today, not far from the Dronne. In 1868 the bell tower was rebuilt according to plans by the architect Jules Mandin and the nave was restored. On April 2, 1885, the church was damaged by fire. It has recently been renovated again and the bell tower has been rebuilt in an architecture better suited to the Romanesque style.

The nave has a length of three bays . It is preceded by an anteroom above which the bell tower rises, which is covered with a tent roof with flat tiles. The semicircular choir opens under the beginners of an earlier candle arch . Buttresses that end halfway up alternate on the outside with the three windows that allow light to enter the choir. The interior of the rooms is covered with paneling throughout the building .

Mas de Montet castle

The name goes back to Gallo-Roman times and comes from the word “mansion”, which referred to a relay station . The property was built in the 18th century on the foundations of an earlier building from the 15th and 16th centuries in the Renaissance style. The de Malleret family that built it goes back at least to 1509, when Pierre de Malleret, landlord of Mas de Montet, married Jacquette, daughter of Jean de Signac. The castle subsequently came into the possession of the de la Cropte de Chantérac family in the 18th century and the Lau d'Allemans in the 19th century. In November 1861, Louisa Mathilde Marie du Lau d'Allemans received the castle from her father. She married Pierre Marie Béranger, Marquis von Nattes in Paris . After living at the castle until 1912, she returned to Paris and died there of the consequences of a car accident. She is buried next to her husband in a corner of the Petit-Bersac cemetery. Her son, Pierre Paul Armand Berenger, sold the castle to the banker and real estate agent Léon Vitrac from Sarlat-la-Canéda on February 17, 1918. Numerous owners followed. One of them, Emilienne Rolland, ran the estate and came up with the idea. to transform the castle into a luxury hotel. Former French President François Mitterrand often stayed here and even invited his ministers to private meetings. In 1997 the castle was closed for renovations and reopened in 2005 after a complete renovation. The new owners carried out another repair in 2010.

The first, two-storey residential wing with a rectangular floor plan was subsequently completed by numerous outbuildings, square and round towers, a side pavilion , and a raised terrace. To the west of the residential building, agricultural buildings are grouped around a closed inner courtyard. To the north there is a greenhouse , a small orangery and other buildings for agriculture.

Lavergne Castle

The former residence of the Bounet family was built south of the center of Petit-Bersac in the mid-18th century, possibly on a medieval foundation. It consists of a residential wing with a rectangular floor plan, to which a pavilion adjoins to the south. Another pavilion, which was planned in a northerly direction, was never erected. The two-storey residential wing is covered with a mansard roof, with hollow tiles in the upper part and flat tiles in the steeper sloping part. In the eastern part, the residential wing has an extension that is covered with a pent roof with hollow tiles. The agricultural buildings extend west and south of the residential wing and form an enclosed inner courtyard. The property is now a farm and can only be viewed from the outside.

Nougeyrolles mansion

The initial residential wing with a square floor plan was probably built at the end of the 15th or the beginning of the 16th century. The other residential buildings were added in the 17th century. The ground floor of the initial two-story building is illuminated by tall windows that frame the entrance. A tent roof with flat tiles covers this residential wing. Further residential units are grouped around the main body, especially against the northwestern facade and in a northeastern direction. These are covered with hollow bricks. The mansion is now privately owned.

Economy and Infrastructure

Logo of the Charentes-Poitou butter

The main focus of agriculture in the municipality is cattle breeding and the cultivation of tobacco and corn.

Petit-Bersac is located in the AOC zones of the Charentes-Poitou , Charentes and Deux-Sèvres butter varieties , as well as the Noix du Périgord , the Périgord walnuts, and the Périgord nut oil.

Active workplaces by industry on December 31, 2015
total = 26

sport and freetime

The Boucle de Petit-Bersac circular route is 13.8 km long with a difference in altitude of 60 m. It leads from the center through the area of the municipality past the Gallo-Roman museum and the Mas de Montet castle.

traffic

The Route départementale 20, Petit-Bersac crosses from west to east and connects the town to the east with the neighboring village of Bourg-du-Bost and in the further course of Ribérac , the capital of Canton. Petit-Bersac can also be reached via Route départementale 20E4, which branches off the D 20 at Bourg-du-Bost in the east and crosses the Dronne in the west.

literature

Jean Pichardie, "Les monuments funéraires médiévaux de Saint-Saturnin, à Petit-Bersac", in Bulletin de la Société historique et archéologique du Périgord , 1976, tome 103, [1]