Surgères

Surgères is a Commune Frenchwoman, located in the department of the Charente-Maritime and the area Poitou-Charentes.

Geography

Surgères is located at the north of the Charente-Maritime at equal distance from the towns of Niort, La Rochelle, Rochefort and Saint-Jean-with Angély. On the railway Poitiers it La Rochelle, it is connected to the capital by TGV, several times per day.

The name of the city would come from the name of the river which crosses it, the Gères.

Absorb in 1850, (with Saint-Germain-with-Marencennes) Saint-Pierre-with-Surgères.

Climate

Surgères profits from a moderate Climat.

History

The Middle Ages

The site of Surgères is occupied as of the Neolithic , but it is with the Moyen-âge that one finds the oldest hard copies mentioning the city, when the duke of Aquitaine wanting to preserve his grounds of Aunis intrusions Normans, built a wood and stone bastion on the marsh, a head of bridge against the invader whom it named “Castrum Surgeriacum”. At the end of Xe century, the counts de Poitiers started to put the hand on the country of Aunis and installed Guillaume Maingot there to direct the fortress and part of the surrounding grounds.

Two centuries later, this bastion had become a small city activates whose lords counted among the large characters of the Parliament of Saintonge. It is at that time that they built a broad castle whose still the ramparts remain, as well as the Notre-Dame church of the Romance type. When in 1152, Aliénor of Aquitaine married Henri II Plantagenêt, king of England, it made rock his grounds and Surgères with in the hands of the English.

Returned in the French bosom with holy Louis, the city is taken by surprised by the English in spring 1352 (Guerre One hundred Year old).

Rebirth and Modern times

The history of Surgères is also marked by Helene de Fonsèque, MUSE of Ronsard, which celebrated its beauty through various poems of which most famous is the “Sonnet for Helene”:

"When you are quite old, at the evening, with the candle

Assise with the corner of fire, reeling and spinning

Direz singing my worms by filling with wonder you

Ronsard celebrated me time that I was beautiful… "

Surgères found some prosperity during the 16th century before undergoing the wars of religion. Fortified town coveted, it was occupied by the calvinists then by the catholic troops but lost of its importance to the fall of the La Rochelle in 1628, when the Cardinal of Richelieu made reduce the height of the ramparts.

XIXe and XXe centuries

To the revolution of 1789, the life of this small village passed from the feudal state to that of the domination of a rural middle-class which adapted at handsome price the grounds of Rochefoucauld, last lords of Surgères.

The vine growing and distilling contributed to a “golden age” of the city, but the Phylloxéra put an end in 1878 to it. Since butter with the school of dairy (the ENILIA: National school of milk industry and agribusiness industries) contribute to make the fame of Surgères.

Administration

Demography

Economy

Surgère is in the agro-alimentary sector (butter) like the breeding and agriculture. An important activity of boiler making with considering the day thanks to the manufacture of material intended for the agro-alimentary one.

Mediae

Radio

Helene Fm

written press

the hebdo of the Charente-Maritime

Places and monuments

ramparts and the gardens
the church Notre-Dame
the town hall

Personalities related to the commune

See too

Articles of Wikipédia

Old communes of the Common Charente-Maritime
of the Charente-Maritime

Bonds

''' Official site of Surgères '''
''' Information on Surgères ''': ''' site ''' ''' information-surgeres '''
Tourist office of Surgères
Richesheures.net, article and photographs on the church of Surgères
Official site of the Cultural center of Surgères

Sources of the article

Random links: