Gignat

Gignat is a common French, located in the department of the Puy-de-Dôme and the area of Auvergne.
Its inhabitants named the Gignacaires , the usual name finally became Gignatois .

Blazon

Geography

Located at a few kilometers in the South of Issoire, the commune of Gignat stretches on left bank of Lembronnet, small tributary Allier. It occupies of the soils of plain and the Western slope of the plate of Lime. Its surface is of 349 hectares and its average altitude of 450 m, culminating to 552 m on Chaux.
The fertile grounds of the plain maintain the farm. The more arid grounds of the slopes, formerly cultivated in vines, are abandoned today with the friche.
The southern end of Lime is of ecological interest as a natural zone protected for the richness from its flora.

History

History of the toponym

GIGNIACUM in 910,
GIGNIAC in 932,
GIGNAC in 990,
GINNACUM in 1095,
GINHAC in 1510.

Prehistory

Some discoveries show that the sector knew a human occupation during prehistory.

Gallo-Roman antiquity

The toponym Gigniacum would be formed into 910 starting from the patronym Gennius and of the suffix Acum . It would be of Celtic origin or gallo-romaine.
One discovered at the 19th century of the Substruction S, the vases and bricks with edges of Gallo-Roman time. Two burials with Peyrelatte were classified like gallo-romaines.
The village was certainly established in edge of an ancient way, connecting Clermont-Ferrand to Saint-Paulien (the Puy-en-Velay).

Early middle ages

Carolingian a villa known as “Gigniaco” is probably at the origin of the village actuel.
The church, mentioned since the beginning of the 10th century, was dedicated into 910 to Saint-Julien (equipment of the duke of Aquitaine, Guillaume Piles, who had acquired it a few years before).
In 927 its successor, Acfred, exclude the Church in his donation from all that it had in the area of Lembron to the Robert Viscount. It appears then among the dependences of the court of Sauxillanges. At the end of the Middle Ages it is not dedicated any more to Julien saint but to holy Pierre owner of the monastery of Sauxillanges.
The first core of the village formed around this one is announced in the texts as of first half of the 11th siècle.
The village and its territory are governed by a system of Co-seigniory associating an ecclesiastical lord (that of the abbey of Sauxillanges) and a laic lord. This organization ends only with the revolution.

Modern time

At the beginning of the 19th century the public edifices, the church, its cemetery and the communal furnace are gathered in the center of the village which develops according to a North-South axis. The village remains primarily agricultural. In the West the floodplains are used in gardens and meadows. The Right Bank of Lembronnet is occupied by a mill and its dependences. In 1921 the public place east creates on the old site of the cemetery. The War memorial there will be set up then.

Administration

Demography

The common preserve a well marked agricultural vocation but its situation privileged in the zone of attractivity of Issoire and Saint-Germain-Lembron attracts also a population diverse.
She knew a peak of population in 1821, with 551 inhabitants.

Places and monuments

Structure

The village of Gignat, old wine village preserves an architectural heritage of quality, in particular of the houses vigneronnes with pigeon, built on a square level with roofs with four slopes and course closed more or less imposantes.
Old houses are still located by architectural elements of the end of the Middle Ages and beginnings of the modern time (S): below the church a house with cocked hat and framings profiled, various forms the pigeon ones (specific buildings isolated or integrated in the dependences, a ton pigeon is isolated on the slope). In the Western North of the borough, a high restored masonry, of strong house type, with into advanced a tower of staircase of square plan has a small drain-hole visible.
The church presents a small Romance building to single nave very altered, broken gate, trefoil side bays of the bedside, truncated on their part basse.

Agriculture

The cereal cultures dominate in the plain while traces of the wine culture persist on the slopes.

Flora

The point of Lime, the south-east of the commune is an ecological zone of interest. One identified 182 different plants there, in particular of many species of Orchidée S, including four protected spaces in Auvergne.

Minerals

One can find Gonnardite S on the plate.

Personalities related to the commune

See too

Common of the Puy-de-Dôme

External bonds

Gignat on the site of the national geographical Institute
Gignat on the site of INSEE
Gignat on the site of Quid
Localization of Gignat on a chart of France and communes bordering
Plane on Gignat on Mapquest

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