Coutras
Coutras (in Saintongeais Coutras ) is a common French, located in the department of the the Gironde and the area Aquitaine.
Geography
Commune located on the Drone in Country Gabaye.
History
Multiple discoveries of cut or polished Flints, testify to a prehistoric human establishment on all the cantonal territory. Coutras, with the confluence of the rivers, owes also its development with its strategic position with the crossroads of ancestral ways: roads of Angouleme and Périgueux to Bordeaux.The first lords of Coutras were established on the Mound-of-Mount, dominating the confluence of the rivers and controlling the passages to ford of the highway network. The seigniory depended on the Vicomté of Fronsac, creates in 769 by Charlemagne and integrated into the county of Angouleme before being attached to that of the Périgord to the IXe century. The most former known lord is Etienne de Mont, which gave by a charter the church of Coutras to the Abbey of Guîtres to the beginning of the XIe century.
In 1555, the Comté of Fronsac became a Marquisat, and the seigniory of Coutras, where a Sénéchal sat, was high with the row of county, which, during the wars of religion, formed an important center of Protestantisme.
The October 20th 1587, Coutras was the place of a battle between the Protesting S of Henri de Navarre (future Henri IV) (Antoine de Chandieu was its Master of camp) and the Catholique S of Anne of Merry. The Duc of Merry was beaten and killed out of a blow of Pistolet. 2000 catholics also perished, of which the young brother of Anne, Claude of Merry, Seigneur of Saint-Saver.
A medieval castle, demolishes by Odet de Foix then Viscount of Fronsac would have preceded that Renaissance that the Maréchal Duke of Richelieu dismantles in 1737. At that time, the seigniory included/understood the parishes of Abzac, Chamadelle, Coutras, the Chalaure, Fieu, Églisottes, Paintings, Porchères, Saint-Anthony, Saint-Christophe-of-Double, Bayas, and Lagorce.
With the Revolution, the new territorial organization indicates Coutras like chief town of a canton gathering the parishes of the seigniory, except Bayas and Lagorce, increased of the three parishes in the south of Isle.
Administration
Demography
Places and monuments
Personalities related to the commune
See too
- Common of the Gironde
Etymology
Coutras comes from the Gaulois Corterat which means " Small Fortress " (Corte = small, Spleen = fortress).
External bonds
- the official site of the community of communes of the Country of Coutras
- a site on Coutras and its surroundings today…
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Coutras on the site of the national geographical Institute
- Coutras on the site of INSEE
- Coutras on the site of Quid
- Localization of Coutras on a chart of France and communes bordering
- Plane on Coutras on Mapquest