Boury-in-Vexin

Boury-in-Vexin is a common French, located in the department of the Oise and the area Picardy.

Geography

The commune is located at approximately 65 km in the North-West of Paris, in the east of French Vexin. It is bordering on the department of the Val-d'Oise.

History

The history of Boury is rich in events and vestiges of the past. Its settlement goes back to the oldest times. The frequentation of the site since the Neolithic (5000 with 3000 av. JC) is attested by the discovery in many places of cut or polished stone tools (knives to be harvested, axes, scrapers, points, borers…). The presence in the cultivated grounds of many flint remains makes suppose that there were several building sites of the stone, one in the north of the village on Groux, the other in the south on the plate between Parnes and Boury .

In 57 av J.C., César undertakes the conquest of Gaules and after having overcome Vercingétorix with Alésia, it beat with Clermont, in 51 av JC, Coréus, chief of the Gallic tribes Bellovacque S and Véliocasses, the latter being those which lived Boury . The country of the Véliocasses formed part, on arrival of Jules César, of Gaulle Belgium. Auguste, successor of J.César, divided Gaules into Roman provinces and the country of Veliocasses belonged to the Second Lyons one with Rouen for metropolis. Roman peace marked of a final print the beginnings of our civilization: the romanisation penetrated carefully the Gallic company, making improvements to him but being given in return from a good exploitation from the territory and its resources, in particular agriculture and breeding. It led to a dispersed habitat. Several Roman villas, farms living more or less in autarky, were distributed then on the territory of the commune. The thick tiles with large edge, the remains of pottery which strew the grounds at the place where drew up the buildings of it are the proof. The sites are numerous; with the localities Wood Shoe-maker, the Potard Earth, Cucque, Chartre. Close to Beaujardin, with the Potard Earth one discovers Gallo-Roman thermal baths with hypocauste or underground hearth, and close to Montbines, with the locality the Tile (which one pronounced Thieule formerly), a treasure of 54 bronze parts of Roman epoch, posterior at the first century of our era, was discovered in 1834.

The name of the village east perhaps of Gallo-Roman origin: Burrius being the name of a character who would have controlled the area at that time. Buricium is the name of the village used for the first time in a charter of the Abbaye of Saint-Denis in 862. It is only at the beginning of the 12th century that the village takes the name of Boury .

When the Romans were expelled of Gaulle at the 5th century, and after the cruel invasions come from north, the Vexin was annexed to the Neustrie since Clovis until Charles-the-Simple. Time mérovingienne remain only of the sarcophagi with their cut coffins of a block in the stone. One discovers some at the 19th century in several places on the territory of Boury : with the locality the Plan of Cantiers, the Young person-Seedlings close to Chesne d' Huy, along the old way of Gisors and even, curiously, at the base of the artificial mound of the fort of city. On the right-sided of the old way of Gisors, one discovered in 1785 a Sarcophage hones some containing the bones of a very large human body as well as a sword and clamps from where the name of coast of the General.

Towards 630, Dagobert Ier founds the Abbaye of Saint-Denis and entrusts immense fields to him of which the Vexin. This one will be set up towards 750 in county; the counts of the Vexin are the vassal ones and the defenders of this abbey. One century later, of the Scandinavian pirates, the Norman , appear on the coasts of France and are not long in going up rivers and rivers. In 846, the king Charles II the Bald person joins together with the castle of Neaufles-Saint-Martin the Large ones of the kingdom to define the places where could be drawn up defenses against the Normands and to prevent them from going up the the Seine. In 877, it signs with Pitres, in the Eure, a edict which orders with any owner of a field of certain importance, to build a defense and to bring together around him some men-at-arms ready to intervene against the attacks of the Viking S. It is the origin of the Strong House of Boury and it is as from this moment that the village starts to take some importance.

In 911 and 946, the king of France treats with the Vikings and concedes with the Norman chief, Rollon, by the agreements of Saint-Clearly-on-Epte, all the territory between the Epte and the sea. Vexin is then divided into two: Norman Vexin in the west which will become the Duché of Normandy, and French Vexin in the east, possession of king de France. This partition will generate several centuries of wars between the two neighbors. Thus, Boury becomes a advanced station of the French Vexin and will be strengthened early as Trie and Courcelles, before with Gisors whose castle will be built only after 1097.

In the top the Middle Ages, the village was protected by a strengthened enclosure surrounded by ditches, inside which the fortress and the church were but also a founded Prieuré at the 12th century by Eustace de Boury for the monks about Saint-Benoît, the manor seigneurial, the mill and the dwelling houses.

This defensive unit was not vain because the conflicts multiplied, especially when the duke of Normandy became king of England in 1066, and that the ambitions of the two sovereigns did not cease growing. In all the course of the 12th century, Boury had to suffer much from the hostilities between the kings of France and England. The border is seen bitterly disputed. Boury is devastated and set fire to in 1119 per Robert de Dangu, combined of the English. At the end of XIIe century, the King of France, Philippe-Auguste and the king of England, duke of Normandy, Richard Lion-hearted are reconciled one moment to leave in crusade against the infidels. Philippe-Auguste returns the first and benefitting from the absence of its adversary, seeks to seize its fields. Richard Lion-hearted learns it and returns at once, but on the way of the return, it is initially retained prisoner by the duke of Austria. On its return, the war is inevitable. The September 27th 1198, Richard Lion-hearted seizes Courcelles (without too much evil because there were only seven men in the garrison), then of Boury in the same day. Running since Mantes with the help of its places, Philippe-Auguste runs up against the army of Richard, 1.500 knights and 40.000 men of foot, massed between Beausseré, in the loop of the Epte and Chambors on the Réveillon, on nearly 8 km. Philippe, surprised, is hustled, it crosses despite everything the line of the adversaries and tries to take refuge in Gisors. But in the passing of the Epte at the entry of the city, the wood bridge, under the weight of the men, the weapons and the horses, crumbles in the river. The king is saved. In remembering this event, a gilded virgin was placed, in 1856, this place on the parapet of the bridge. Deaths of this combat would have been buried in a common grave, with the locality “the pit with Richard” indicated on the burrow plan of 1764.

At the 13th century, one of the lords most representative of this time is Jean II of Boury says the Crusader. He multiplies the gifts, with the Templiers, the abbey of Fountain-Guérard in Norman Vexin, with the church Holy-Marie-of the Valley. The church and the priory of Boury will benefit largely from its liberalities and the church will be deeply altered. It leaves in pilgrimage to Saint-Jacques-with-Compostelle and, with two of its sons, accompanies Saint Louis for the 7th crusade. The three will die in Holy Land in 1248. Another son, Guillaume II, died in 1271, is the last lord of the primitive family of Boury. Its ground of Boury failed his/her Isabelle daughter who carried it by her marriage in Ancel of Isle of famous Maison of Isle-Adam.

The family of Isle held the seigniory during one century and half. Boury had to suffer much for this period, the village taken and taken again on several occasions, and the population confronted with a dubious and painful existence. This difficult period but marked by a certain expansion, ends in one century of calamities: famines, plague, the War One hundred Year old (1337 - 1449) and English occupation (1419 - 1444) which will ruin the country about completely. Rouen falls to the hands from the English the January 19th 1419. One month later, the Normandy is completely invested and the fortresses which border the Epte, not being able to hope for any help, fall the ones after the others. The lords of Boury, Jacques of Isle and his Simone sister refusing allegiance with the English take refuge near the king of France, Charles VII. The king of England, Henri V, gives the seigniory of Boury to two of his captains John Poltrot and Richard Merbury. The former lord, Jacques of Isle, are made kill during the engagements and the field will return, after the expulsion of the English in 1449, with his/her daughter Guillemette de Boury, marries of Guillaume de Fontaine. Their son, Guillaume II of Fountain, will sell the seigniory in 1498 to a relative, Jean of the Nozzle-Crespin, seneshal of Normandy, member of powerful and old Norman family which had many grounds in the area. This family will undertake important work to restore the manor seigneurial in ruin. She made demolish the walls of the fortress and fill the ditches.

The buildings open then on the principal place of the village. the gross tower of angle capped with a pointed roof dates from the 15th century, but it will be deeply altered at the 16th century, whereas one built the body of the home which, today, is prolonged by a later building of the 18th century. Inside the tower of the manor was built a monumental chimney, remarkable piece of sculpture Renaissance, was removed in 1902 and was transported to the museum of Boston. On the pinion of the barn, draws up a heraldic lion of the 16th century which holds between its legs an escutcheon with the weapons of the family of the Nozzle-Crespin.

The son of Jean of the Nozzle was vice-admiral of France. Its grandson Charles II of the Nozzle became a burning follower of the Réforme. His/her sister, Francoise of the Nozzle-Crespin, will marry a nearby lord, Jacques Mornay, lord of Buhy, of which it will have several children of which Philippe Duplessis Mornay, friend and adviser of Henri IV, that one will name “the pope of the huguenots”. It will inform her children in the reformed religion. A Protestant colony will be formed in the area around Boury, in Vaudancourt, Chesne d' Huy, reaching to 150 people at the 17th century. Reformed which went to the temple of Buhy, borrowed with this intention, the way which a long time preserved its name of “way of the huguenots”. At the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the Protestants will be expelled. The hamlet of Chesne d' Huy will lose its importance then; it is today reduced with only one firm.

In 1580, Boury will be set up in baronnie by King Henri III. To died from Georges of the Nozzle-Crespin, wire of Charles II, the baronnie of Boury passes by succession to his/her son-in-law Jacques de Pellevé, and it will remain between the hands of this family of Pellevé during one century. The last lord of Boury of the name, Emmanuel de Pellevé, is made kill with the passage of the Rhine in 1672, with the head of his regiment which it maintained his own sums of money. He had obtained into 1652 that the baronnie of Boury was set up in marquisat. Its widow withdraws herself with the castle of Vaudancourt and it yields, in 1681, the baronnie with Guillaume Aubourg, lord of Aubevoye and Escrépigny. He is the son of a captain of the middle-class men of the town of Rouen, named by Henri IV with the Viscount of the city. Guillaume Aubourg, Guard of the Roles of the Offices of France and Grand Usher of France will give up the old residence seigneuriale, badly adapted to the new manner of living under the Sun king, and made build the castle in 1685 within Jules Hardouin Mansart. Four years later work is completed as well as the gardens and the floors with the Frenchwoman allotted to Ours. The king Louis XIV confirms the title of marquis attached to the seigniory of Boury; the armorial bearings of Aubourg “of azure to the gold lion are accompanied with dextral by a star by same and with sinistral, of a money tear”.

Then the disorders of the Révolution arrive. Aubourg escape only from accuracy from the guillotine. Charles III Aubourg imprisoned with the castle of Chantilly with his family will be released in October 1794 after Thermidor. He reinstates his field under the acclamations of the population. The marquis, during his detention, had entrusted three of his more young children to his farmer, principal receiver of the seigniory remained in Boury, the sior Pelletier. This one had two wire which were illustrated in the armies of the Republic and the Empire. Young person, Aime Sulpice, becomes Brigadier general and will be mortally wounded in 1813 with the battle of Leipzig. The elder one, François Elie, will be promoted Major general, Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor, and will be created Count de Montmarie by Napoleon 1st. He dies in 1854, his name is reproduced on the Triumphal arch in Paris.

In 1815, Boury is occupied by the Prussians (a brigade of 200 men) then by Polish soldiers. Charles III Aubourg, marquis de Boury, father of nine children leave with his death in 1823, a difficult succession and, finally, the field must be sold. It had been transmitted hitherto by alliances and successions in the family of its founders. In 1818, the marquis Charles II Aubourg bequeathed to the commune a ground, in the north of the village, to be used as cemetery to replace old which surrounded the church, become decayed and exiguous. His/her son Guillaume IV, mayor of Boury, carried out the project and preserved for his family an enclosure deprived at the center of the new cemetery. In 1837, the count Auguste of Ferronnays also made open a particular cemetery for its family. His wife made set up after the death of her daughter Alexandrine, a very beautiful finely carved cross, out of Carrara marble, which dominates their burial.

The castle is bought in 1823 per Mrs. Tassin de Villiers which during thirteen years did much good in the commune with discretion and understanding. It is buried on the left small alley which leads to the cemetery of the family of Boury.

The castle and the two parks were bought in 1835 by the Count Auguste of Ferronnays, ambassador of France, par of France and Foreign Minister under the King Charles X. the large farm passed to the countess of Lagrange, owner of the castle of Dangu and the wood of Bellée became the property of Adolphe Brongniart celebrates it botanist, member of the Institute. One of the girls of Ferronnays, Pauline, married to an English diplomat, Augustus Craven, wrote a book the Account of a Sister, I' history of her brother and her husband. This romantic work sullied with mysticism had a great success. Another, Eugenie, married the count Adrien de Mun of which was born Albert de Mun, celebrates it speaker, member of the French Academy. The Charles oldest son was elected general adviser of Oise, then appointed of Ger but also mayor of Boury during 12 years. He was married with the countess of Lagrange. Under the auspices as of Ferronnays, Boury knew a certain celebrity but with died of the countess dowager, the castle had to be put on sale by the heirs.

Fallen between the hands from speculators, it failed to be demolished but he is repurchased, in 1851, by the Vialet family; this one makes many modifications to him and preserves it until 1875. The Vialet succession was ready to yield the castle to a contractor who wanted to recover stones and frames of them when it was saved by a descendant by alliance of the last lord of Boury bearing the name of Aubourg.

In October 1870, Gisors was occupied by the German troops. In December, the Prussians concentrate troops to face a French Army which, since Rouen, advances towards Étrépagny. Boury must then place 400 Saxon riders but. without more damage than the heavy supplies imposed by the occupants.

Of another famous characters will make known themselves in Boury, during the 19th century: the sculptors Leon and Helene Bertaux. One owes with the first the monument of the type-setter Eugene Gauthier who is with the Lachaise Father, in Paris. As for his wife, it produces many works, and carves, inter alia, the statues which decorate the frontage of the church of Saint-François-Xavier to Paris. It exposes to the Living room of 1876 " the young person baigneuse" carried out in Boury, according to an young girl of the village which was used as model. She was the founder and the first president of the Union of the women painters and sculptors.

Boury takes as of the 19th century the face which it has still today. The houses are organized around two parallel axes and two places. On one of them exists still the enormous lime which was planted in 1848. The slate or tiled roofs replaced the thatched roofings. There is no industry in the village. The lime kiln established close to the way of Gisors, disappears at the end of the 18th century. Under the Empire first a family of four people manufactured dominos. There were then two tisserands, of the demobilized soldiers, who existed only one moment. A hosiery settles in 1837 and occupies fifteen workmen and some women, but in 1857, it had lost of its importance and closed soon. During this century, many women were lacemakers as at the previous century. Two mills coexisted, the communal mill resulting from the Old Mode established in the large farm, and the Galet mill installed in 1825 at the exit of the village towards Dangu. They ceased any activity in the last quarter of this century. The baker's ovens, which one finds in almost each house, died out at the same time.

During the First World War, the common one has escaped with the invasion but 18 of its inhabitants died in the combat. At the beginning of June 1940, almost all the population, frightened by the bombardment of Gisors, emigrated until in the Flowering ash. The Germans, after having crossed the village left then only one station to Montbines and lived empty houses. There was total and permanent occupation only after November 1943. After two English bombardments facts by error July 10th and 17th around the village, but without victims and damage, Boury was released the August 29th 1944 without resistance of the occupants. Five combatants of Boury died during this war.

After the passage of the occupant, the castle, devastated, had its rescue and its restoration, only thanks to the energy and the perseverance of its owner.

At the beginning of the 20th century, one finds installed in the village, a bakery, a butchery, a pork-butchery, several grocer-flows of drinks and even a hotel with restaurant called “Read-one-sleeps”. But today, all these small shops disappeared. Another characteristic of Boury, rare for a rural village, is to have sheltered, during more than three centuries, a notarial study.

The number of the craftsmen also fell during this period: thus the beautiful forging mill of the shoeing marshal, who functioned since more than one century in the very old building of the “small farm of the seigniory”, it closed his doors. Only still persist of the activities in connection with the building.

Agriculture remains the essential economic engine of the village with its four farms, 580 hectares of arable lands on a total of 1071 hectares for all the commune. The evolution of the population is with the image from what occurred in the canton from Chaumont; the population increase of the end of XVIIIe and the 19th century makes pass the village of 340 inhabitants towards 1725 to the point of 582 in 1841, then it is the fall, 280 inhabitants in 1975 and a recovery started in consequence of the bursting into the campaigns of the south of Oise, of the suburbs of the capital. Today the village of Boury-in-Vexin increased new constructions, and renovated because of a certain passion for residences known as secondary. But as a whole, the harmony, the charm and the style of the old village could be preserved, as well by its former inhabitants, as by its new occupants, conscious of being agents of an invaluable inheritance.

Administration

Demography

Places and monuments

The castle of Boury

Raised in 1687 within Jules Hardouin-Mansart, the castle is harmonious and pure example of the French classical architecture to the apogee of the 17th century.

Since Gaubert, first known Lord (1030) of this House of Boury, which will take part so much, through the centuries, the history of Vexin, the families follow one another by alliances.

In the middle of the 17th century, Baronnie de Boury belongs to Guillaume Aubourg, Conseiller of the King, Garde Roles of the Offices and Grand Usher of France. The old fortress, transformed into Manor by the graces of the Rebirth, does not correspond however to the taste of the Great century for the new monuments, under the impulse of the Sun king. The old home seigneurial and the dovecote raised on the feudal mound will become firm.

Guillaume Aubourg, become by letter patent of Louis XIV, Marquis de Boury, fact call to Jules Hardouin-Mansart for the plans of the new castle. Work will start in 1685 to be completed in 1689. All the ornamentation of the frontages is entrusted to Thibault Pitching (1605-1668)) who collaborated in Versailles.

The castle, furnished and inhabited, belongs to the descendants of those which made it build and which embellished it through the generations, preserving its character of family residence to him.

the church of Boury founded in 1104 per Eustace, lord of Boury and was dedicated to Saint-Germain, bishop of Auxerre; it depended on the Saint Martin's day abbey of Pontoise.

Originally the church had the traditional form of a Latin Croix, whose ends looked at the four cardinal points. The current building, result of the many rehandlings which have occurred during the centuries, includes/understands a nave, accompanied by sides, a transept and a chorus finished by a bedside and flanked of two side chapels.

The chorus constitutes the oldest part of the church and goes back at the beginning of the 13th century or even to the end of XIIe. It is composed of 2 originally enlightened spans by a lancet in the axis of each span; those were destroyed during the construction of the vaults.

The square of the Transept which carries the bell-tower, frame at the same time as the central span, dates from the second quarter of XIIIe. It is formed by four pillars whose large diameter is masked by grouped posts which support four beams in third not. The southern brace preserved its primitive aspect but the northern brace, altered during the construction of the side chapel which accompanies the chorus has a vault on intersecting ribs of the XVI E.

The Nave date of first half of the 16th century, it is divided into 3 spans, covered with vaults on intersecting ribs resting on cylindrical pillars. Those, deprived of capitals, support the arcs in thirds not which make communicate the nave with the sides.

The southern side has a width about equal to that of the nave; it is surmounted by three intersecting ribs, pressed on small pilasters. The northern side narrower, is covered simply with three stone cradles, perpendicular to the axis of the church.

The side chapels are a little lower than the chorus. The southernmost vault dates from the second quarter of XIIIe, probably used by the monks of the close priory; the two blazing windows which light it date from the XVI E and the keys of the two ribbed vaults are decorated by ecus surmounted by the armorial bearings of the marquis who governed the rebuilding of the vault. The septentrional vault placed under the patronage of the lords of Boury had been built at the 13th century by Jean de Boury under the term of Notre-Dame de Pitié. It bears also the name of vault seigneuriale and had an direct access since the old manor.

The Clocher of the church builds on the square of the Transept is a square tower, shouldered with the angles by small buttresses and bored on each face of two bays superimposed in third not. It is surmounted by an arrow covered with slate whose construction is not former to XVIe. One reaches the bell-tower while going up on the vaults of the nave by a staircase installed towards the end of XVIIe in the north-western angle of the nave. With middle height of the current staircase, is a door for a long time condemned which opened formerly in a building depend on the old manor seigneurial. The three bells are of 1553, they were then several replaced and remelted times, the last in 1897.

Outside the church does not have the same diversity of style as inside. The principal or southernmost frontage with its blazing windows, its buttresses deadened by a small round pinion goes back to the XVI E, at the time of the transformations carried out after the One hundred Year old war. The side small door in semicircular arch was bored only later; decorated by an archivolt appearing a vine stock with grapes, it is surmounted by a small niche sheltering a medieval virgin hones some who was stolen. This frontage overhung the old cemetery which extended on part of the current roadway.

The back or septentrional frontage, older, has less of character with its windows warheads with double division. It carries also the traces of openings which gave an direct access since the manor seigneurial.

The Western frontage appears unbalanced. It is formed by a large pinion corresponding to the principal nave, the narrow northern side and the end of the southern side supported by a buttress posed of skew; on this one a sundial dated 1670. Opening in the axis of the frontage, the principal main door is a large square gate out of wooden, with angles blunted and decorated rather pretty woodworks; a blazing window was arranged later laterally. The visible oculus slightly splayed in the large pinion is a vestige of the 13th century.

The church of Boury has several works of art whose principal one is a reliquary venerated since the 13th century and who contains a bone of the arm of Saint-Germain of Auxerre, owner of the parish. This interesting specimen of medieval goldsmithery appears an arm which the hand blessing leaves a double handle. It is made of several money plates pushed back applied to a blade out of wooden by small rivets and decorated filigrees and rinceaux strewn with gems. This reliquary would have been offered to the church by Jean II of Boury before his departure for the crusade in 1244 with king Saint-Louis. It is classified “Historic building” depuis1904. To ensure the protection of the reliquary it was placed in a safe deposit of Beauvais.

A certain number of tables also deserve the attention: a large fabric, classified since 1912, Notre-Dame representative of the Rosary is placed above the furnace bridge of the vault seigneuriale. Allotted to the French school of XVIIe, it shows the Virgin giving the Rosary to Dominique Saint. Another retable representing the Resurrection of Christ overhangs the High altar. Treated in the academic spirit of the 18th century, it was painted in 1787 by Duchesne of Gisors. Same artist, a Virgin of the Assumption, in the Southern vault. A table of the beginning of XVIIe, painted on wood, the Worship of the Magi is placed at the bottom of the church against the southernmost wall, with the top of a furnace bridge dedicated to Saint-Sebastien,

It is necessary to also notice some tender stone statues dating from XVIIe: Saint Michel and Holy Madeleine in the Southern vault, Holy Germain and holy Sebastien in the chorus with the top of the furnace bridge, Holy Roch in the angle of the Northern transept and beside the side main door, large and heavy statue hone some representing a Virgin-mother.

Vis-a-vis this same entry is placed a stone stoup of the beginning of the Renaissance, classified him too. Its hollow capital is decorated figures symbolic systems alternating with florets. The earthenware basin is unfortunately damaged.

the dolmen and the menhir of Béllée

Personalities related to the commune

See too

Common of Oise

External bonds

Boury-in-Vexin on the site of the national geographical Institute
Boury-in-Vexin on the site of INSEE
Boury-in-Vexin on the site of Quid
Localization of Boury-in-Vexin on a chart of France and communes bordering
Plane on Boury-in-Vexin on Mapquest
Castle of Boury: private historic building

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