Temple-of-Brittany

Temple-of-Brittany is a common French, located in the department of the Loire-Atlantique and the area Pays of the Loire.

The inhabitants of the commune are called the Templiers and Templières .

Geography

History

In 1917 the Abbé P. Gregoire published a booklet entitled:

“A village of the Lower Loire, the Temple of Brittany”.

Here in quasi totality:

I - ORIGINS

With five miles of Nantes, on main road of Valves after having crossed at semi distance approximately the village of Sautron, the traveller met some another, or the post office made its first relay with the hotel of the Gold Lion. Of very required it was necessary to make halt there.

This small town was an old commandery, where the Holy Land knights had been established to protect the passers by against the criminals embusqués in the undergrowth from the moors and wood. Also our fathers had they called this place the Temple Maupertuis (bad passage), as well because of its origin as of its situation. At last century and even for a long time it was not as follows any more: the rectified road, the shot down forest, the cleared moors all was changed.

The order monk-soldier of the Templiers was created with Jerusalem in 1118 by Hugues de Payns. Baudouin II king of French in Jerusalem gave them as remains old the Temple of Solomon, from where their name of templiers.

The knights of noble extraction, commit themselves, amongst other things, taking care of the safety of main road to support the Pèlerinage S in Holy Land. They receive money and grounds of the King de France and Duc of Brittany. The rich person Lord S adding offerings to them: Templiers grow rich and found establishments to form recruits, like co. Catherine in Nantes. They install garrisons at the strategic points like the Maupertuis Temple. In 1312, it was the dissolution of the order.

The hospital ones collected their heritage then. The monks of St Jean whose institution went back to the XI° occurred in Jerusalem or they looked after free the sick pilgrims and travellers in the hospitals of St Jean. Dice the XII°, the large Master of the Raymond order Of Puy decide to separate the hospital one in two branches: looking after and combatants. The latter being charged to protect the roads. It is with Malta that was established the seat of the order in 1530. In Nantes, they had the Commanderie St Catherine and the Hôpital St Jean.

We must now ask us this question: at which time did start the establishment of the Maupertuis Temple?

It is necessary to be able in 1182 (but one thinks that the temple existed well before this date) to find a text which mentions this establishment. The chartre in question, allotted to the duke Conan IV which died in 1166 must be looked like apocryphal book; however it keeps all its value for the date which it carries. One reports all the possessions of Templiers there. Inter alia is this one: Molendina de Maupertuis. There was thus there pertaining to Templiers dice this moved back time, of the Moulin S.

But another part of file is more explicit. August 28th 1219, a cross Knight of the Nantes country, Philippe de Vigneux, being in Palestine, with the camp of the Armed besieging Damiette, “made gift with God, the happy Virgin Mary and the brothers of the militia of the Temple of Solomon for the safety of his heart, of all the rights of pasturage and habits belonging to him to the village of known as the brothers of Maupertuis. ” It made this donation in the presence of several comrade in arms, in particular Chautard de Rougé and Rosselin of Sion. This document is so authentic that the inhabitants of the Temple enjoyed these rights until the Révolution.

In the chartier of the Temple and Malta, more mention of Maupertuis until the date of 1580. From this time is a consent of the commander of Nantes affirming “to have a high justice that he exerts with the borough of the Maupertuis Temple and there to enjoy the rights of mills and habits and to also belong to him to be able of swift the cure and the Paroisse of St Léonard of the Maupertuis Temple, The aforementioned church and its presbytery being in its Fief and founded by luy”.

The possession was of tiny importance because the whole role of the parish was of 20fr by sum of money plus 5 Chapon S and 2 payable hens with the All Saints' day and Easter. But the stronghold of the commander extended in the close parishes: Malville, Quilly, Guenrouët, Campbon and Prinquiau. There was also the right to raise said in all the parish of the Temple.

The field of the commandery was composed as follows: with the borough a wood of mature standing timber of four newspapers, elsewhere nine arable land newspapers, 400 newspapers of moors and commun runs, “where people of the commanders make pasturer their bestail”.

Would the parish church of St Léonard have been the first religious center of Maupertuis?

We would be carried to believe that it was the small vault known as of Notre Dame of All Virtues. The worship of the Blessed Virgin being in the tradition of the Order of Malta, It may be that the knight S had initially raised this modest sanctuary in the honor of their owner. Before building a church dedicated to Saint Léonard owner of the prisoners.

An old chronicle reports that following a forwarding on the barbaresque coasts, one brought back to the country much of prisoners Moors and Bedouin that one employed with the clearing of the moors and who mixed later with the indigenous population by marriages.

This Chapelle of all virtues which surrounded formerly a cemetery and near which there was a venerated fountain, (that Ci is still seen but seems neglected) carries the seal of the XVI°, with rehandling which disfigures it partly. Beside it one will notice hurdy-gurdies hovels and in particular a very old construction which bears the name of Ermitage (on the way of the cemetery). Wouldn't this house it have been originally the house of serving or the guard of the vault?

The church St Léonard, poor and small such as you saw it in 1830 formed simple a Nef surrounded by a small cemetery. One sees with the foot of the wall of the Abside a puit (a pump currently) which is still used for the population of the borough: it must date from primitive construction, according to the use of formerly.

The seigniory of the Temple Maupertuis, appendix of St Catherine and St Jean did not exist any more with the XVII°.

The knights about Malta had there right of high justice, mills and other preferences feudal. One still names in the country pre of justice located on the left while entering the borough by the Route of Nantes, between the current road and the old way; the bracket was to rise there and condemned that one carried out after judgment to them there burial had.

A very old cross, which one calls the Croix of the commander, bordering the way and the pre one that we have just mentioned always draws up with the eyes of the passers by. With his foot one would have found human bones; she lost an arm that a Véhicule would have, said one, broke.

The Cadastre indicates the place of the communal oven and the fuye which was to be between the current presbytery and the church.

One notices at the end of the borough and of same with dimensions of the road an old dwelling which would seem to go back to the time of the establishment of the templier or at least of the knights of Malta: it is called the Court. It is probable that it was manor of the order. In the continuation it became a noble house. Today it is disfigured a little but it exists in its totality (except a tower which was behind the manor and which still existed in 1917).

The hotel of the White Pigeon, which is not any more that one ruin now, was originally, undoubtedly, the only relay for the horses of station. It borders the old way. Unpaved way, badly maintained, which formed the limit of the parish mainly left the cross of the commander, circumvented the houses of the borough, passed to Pionnerie, shaving wood and skirting the Moret fountain. Road of Cordemais, it was going to join the current road with the top of the village of Mariaudais: It was that Maupertuis or bad passage of the XVII°, one gave up it and one traced in straight line broad a way in the cross-piece of the borough. The hotel of the White Pigeon was consequently forsaken. Also one built on the left dice the entry of the village, while coming from Nantes, the hotel of the Lion which was called later gold Lion; this house, for a long time unused, carries the date of 1602. It has great outdoors and is in withdrawal of the road, leaving in front of it a vast space for the travellers and the Diligence S. (the hotel of the “Furrow of Brittany”, built with the XIX°, masks this hurdy-gurdy house alas recently destroyed). With dimensions and in same alignment it is another which appears older, there hung says one the ensign of the Pelican.

There to make revive the village such as it could the being in these centuries spent, it would be necessary to tell a written account by a traveller of this time, Dubuisson Aubenay, this tourist of the XVII° which visited the province out of trunk posts and to horse passed certainly to the Temple. According to its route of Brittany (1636) while coming from Valves it made halt with Pontchâteau and in Coislin in Campbon and says to us that while crossing fitted pond of Malville, it took again with the Temple main road of Nantes, but it does not add anything, although it enjoys to describe the places or it passes. Jouvain, in its voyage in Brittany (1672), speaks about the way of Nantes with Brest by Vannes: he admires the country houses which surround the city and he continues: “It is necessary to pass a large plain which does not produce anything until Sotteron (Sauteron), parish with two miles and some, little wood with Moors where is the Temple; then we crossed a 5 mile campaign length which finishes in Pontchâteau” Here all that the travellers of formerly make known to us.

A point of history which it would have been pleasant to clear up, it is of knowing on which date the knights of Malta gave up their station of Maupertuis. Undoubtedly Templiers took there their establishment and certainly their heirs had to continue the safeguard of this dangerous passage. So for the beginning of the XVII° the manor of the court was not used any more that of residence to private individuals, it is that the station of police force did not exist any more and that the knights had made abandonment of part of their seigneuriaux rights, keeping only the incomes and the royalties. In 1656, Daniel de Mailly, knight of Malta, signs with the bottom of an act of Baptême on the register of Vigneux. It should not be concluded from it that it lived with the Temple, but rather than he was in round of visit, according to the regulations of the rule of Malta. (….)

Let us recall by finishing this monograph how the Maupertuis Temple became the Temple of Brittany. During the revolution, in the public acts, one removes the denomination of Maupertuis. Did one ask Convention to be legally authorized to do it?? We did not find a decree, and yet God knows which names odd one imposed on all the localities whose name pointed out the Ancien Mode or the Religion. What we know it is that the municipality in its meeting of the 10 messidor year VIII (June 28th 1800), decided that one would call the commune by this simple word: THE TEMPLE.

However one realized later that there could be confusion with good of other localities in France, old commandery which bore the same name. One have the idea to add " DE BRETAGNE" as that this made for the common neighbor of Fay. However, this denomination did not have anything official. At the time of the establishment of the network Télégraphique, the municipality declared at the commission charged to establish the services of correspondence that for a long time the commune was called the TEMPLE OF BRITTANY. According to this declaration of the August 24th 1887, under prefect of Saint-Nazaire inquired into the business, and in the next month, the September 11th, the council decided clearly to keep this nomination which was approved by the order in Council of the July 27th of the next year.

Maupertuis is thus today only one bad memory, and nothing could point out it. The inhabitant of the Temple, gracious and hospital made of their locality a place or one needs more for his safety of knights for Malta nor for brave man gendarme S.

Administration

|- | align=right| 1812 - 1821 || Jean Rebondin ||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1821 - 1829 || Remi Nicaise||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1829 - 1831 || Jean Rebondin ||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1831 - 1834 || Sengstack clown||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1834 - 1841 || Pierre Marand||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1841 - 1860 || Germain Raymond||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1860 - 1865 || Pierre Lebreton||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1865 - 1871 || Pierre Basket ||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1871 - 1874 || Pierre Marand ||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1874 - 1876 || Pierre Ripoche ||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1876 - 1878 || Sengstack clown||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1878 - 1884 || Pierre Marand ||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1884 - 1887 || Pierre Ripoche ||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1887 - 1892 || Jean Pouplard ||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1892 - 1895 || François Bernard ||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1895 - 1901 || Jean Pouplard||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1902 - 1903 || François Bernard||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1903 - 1904 || François Bousseau||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1904 - 1908 || Pierre Poujade||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1908 - 1912 || Joseph Bonnet ||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1912 - 1919 || François Bousseau||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1919 - 1934 || Arthur Bernard de Lajartre ||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1934 - 1965 || Joseph Bonnet ||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1965 - 1989 || Joseph Legoux||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1989 - 2001 || Alexandre Pellerin||align=" center" | || |- |}

Demography

Places and monuments

Site of the borough at the culminating point of the Furrow of Brittany (91 m)

Personalities related to the commune

Celebrates

Festival of the Cider 2nd Sunday of October

See too

Common of the Loire-Atlantique

External bonds

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

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