History of Indre-et-Loire

History

The department of Indre-et-Loire corresponds to the old province of Touraine, whose name comes from the Gallic tribe of Turones, like all the oriental party of the old province of Anjou (Bourgueil, Gizeux, Castle-the-Vallière). After the War of Gaules, Turns, old Caesarodunom, was a town of average importance in the Roman Gaulle. One estimates his population at between 3000 and 5000 inhabitants at the first century after Jesus Christ. The area is then exlusivement rural, living poorly of agriculture, breeding and hunting. Caesarodunum however draws a considerable benefit from the the Loire, benefitting from the salt which goes up ocean. It is also with the crossing of several Roman ways, ensuring him of small commercial repercussions.

With the dislocation of the Roman Empire, Tours became one of the major places of current France. It is then located in the Gallo-Roman kingdom. In the middle of the 6th century, the north of the department is a stronghold of Childebert, and the south of Clotaire. Touraine marks the Arab maximum expansion at the 8th century. It is in the current department of the Vienna that the historians located the Bataille of Poitiers (also named " battle of Tours"), which marked a crushing argument in the expansion of the territory of the Sarrasins. It appears probable that the southern part of the department was occupied during a few months.

To the 9th century, the area passes in the Neustrie of Charles the Bald person, following the Partage of Verdun. The royal field extends then from the Flandres to the Navarre. Touraine will form then the Comté of Turns, before being definitively attached to the royal Field in 1259. Only a small share of the department, at the North-West, was then located in the county of Anjou.

The golden age of the Touraine starts about 1450, under the impulse of Louis XI, in which the dynasty was originating in Touraine. It centred the capacity on Tours (more precisely on the castle of Plessis-the-Turns, on the commune of the Rich person) and with Amboise, where it made build a sumptuous castle. Its Court follows it then, ensuring the richness of the area. The population of Tours passes then to 20.000 inhabitants, the city is a capital goldsmithery tannery.

In the 75 years which followed, of multiple castles are built in the surroundings, with Chenonceau, Chambord, Villandry, Ussé to only quote most known. Léonard de Vinci settles towards the end of its life in Closed Lucé, with Amboise, François Ier residing at the castle to a few hundred meters from there.

The decline starts however starting from the death of this last. The dynasty of the Médicis forsakes the area, preferring Paris to him, Fontainebleau. Only Richelieu made build its palate beside the city which it made build in the south of the department and which bears its name. This palate, equivalent before the hour of Versailles irradiated the area of its splendor. He however was forsaken with died of the cardinal in 1642, and dismantled with the French revolution.

XVIIes and XVIIIes centuries were thus those of the stagnation, the population not increasing, the capacity and the richness being centralized on Paris and the ports royal. The vine however starts to be exploited on the slopes of the the Loire. The rebirth of the department started at the end of the reign of Louis XV, which decided installation of main roads at the beginning of Paris. One of it, the road of Paris to Hendaye, and thus to the Spain, passes by Tours. The boring of this axis launches a major reorganization of the city, with the construction of a monumental entry and a large stone bridge of size.

The French revolution did relatively little victims in Indre-et-Loire, but the emputa of most of its inheritance. Many castles belonging to the noble ones were thus repurchased to be dismantled stone by stone, the churches being plundered, being ransacked. It is also at this period there that the department which one knows today was creates, the March 4th 1790, pursuant to the law of the December 22nd 1789, it starting from old the province of Touraine and all the oriental party of the old province of Anjou.

Communes of the old province of Anjou located in the department of Indre and the Loire

Sown in April-the-Culverts, Benais, Sling-on-Maulne, Bourgueil, Breaches, Channay-on-Lathan, the Vault-on-Loire, Castle-the-Vallière, Chouzé-the-Dryness Chouzé-sur-Loire, Continvoir, Couesmes, Courcelles-with-Touraine, Gizeux, Men, Ingrandes-with-Touraine Lublé, Marcilly-on-Maulne, Restigné, Rillé, Saint-Laurent-of-Flax, Saint-Nicolas-with-Bourgueil, Saint-Philibert-of-the-Lawn, Saint-Symphorien-the-Culverts, Savigné-on-Lathan, Villiers-with-Bouin the.

Finally the town of Richelieu (as well as the parishes located around this city), was attached administratively, during its creation by Richelieu, with the governor of Saumur and the Sénéchaussée of Saumur.

Old fortified towns angevines with the the Middle Ages located today in Touraine:
Chinon, Langeais, Loaches.

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