Vaudémont – Wikipedia

Vaudémont is a French commune located in the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, in Lorraine, in the Grand Est administrative region.

Situation [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Located in southern Meurthe-et-Moselle, near the Vosges department, Vaudémont dominates the vast plain of Saintois, about thirty kilometers south of Nancy.

Geology and relief [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Vaudémont is a medieval village perched on a long rocky spur called “Vaudémont signal” , at an altitude of 480 meters. The village is dominated by the former dungeon of the Counts of Vaudémont. On the other side of this rocky spur is the hill of Sion, hilltime of the ribs of Moselle. Halfway between Vaudémont and Saxon-Lion stands the monument paying tribute to Maurice Barrès.

Climate [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

The climate of Vaudémont is degraded oceanic type, with a fairly marked continental influence. Temperatures are contrasted, both during the day and between the seasons. The winters are cold, quite humid, but nevertheless dry in time of severe gels. The summers are not always sunny but hot. The fogs are common in the fall and the frequent and sometimes violent winds. At the local level, precipitation tends to be more abundant than on the neighboring Saintois. Because of the higher altitude, the temperatures are less temperate and the snowpack holds over a longer period.

The statements below come from the weather station in Nancy-Essey, around thirty kilometers from Vaudémont ^{[ first ]} .

Average statements in Nancy-Essey (1971-2000) ^{[ 3 ]} :

Typology [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Vaudémont is a rural commune, because it is one of the municipalities that are not very or very little dense, in the sense of the municipal gate of density of INSEE ^{[ Note 1 ] , [ 4 ] , [ 5 ] , [ 6 ]} .

In addition, the town is part of the Nancy attraction area, of which it is a town of the Crown ^{[ Note 2 ]} . This area, which brings together 353 municipalities, is categorized in the areas of 200,000 to 700,000 inhabitants ^{[ 7 ] , [ 8 ]} .

Land use [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Map of infrastructure and land use of the municipality in 2018 (CLC).

The land use of the municipality, as it emerges from the European Biophysical Occupation Database of Corine Land Cover (CLC), is marked by the importance of agricultural territories (83.9% in 2018) , a proportion identical to that of 1990 (83.8%). The detailed distribution in 2018 is as follows: meadows (56.4%), arable land (19.6%), forests (15.9%), heterogeneous agricultural areas (7.9%), media with shrub and// or herbaceous (0.1%) ^{[ 9 ]} .

The IGN also provides an online tool to compare the evolution over time of the soil occupation of the municipality (or territories to different scales). Several eras are accessible in the form of aerial cards or photos: the Cassini card ( XVIII ^{It is} century), the staff map (1820-1866) and the current period (1950 to today) ^{[ ten ]} .

The name of Vaudémont would come from the name of the Germanic God Wotan , or German surname “Drive (n)” and suffix -Mountain. ^{[ 11 ]}

Some clues suggest that the site was occupied from the IN ^{It is} Millennium before J.-C., in particular the so-called “Neolithic” rampart outside the village. On the other hand, no trace of occupation was found for the ancient period.

A hamlet probably appeared in the Merovingian era, depending on the parish of Sion.

At the beginning of XI ^{It is} Century, the strategic situation of the site on a rocky spur led the Duke of Lorraine or a vassal to build a dungeon there. At the end of XI ^{It is} century, the first count of Vaudémont, Gérard I ^is , enlarges the castle to make it its residence.

In the following centuries, powerful walls with towers are erected as the town develops. Besieged in 1635, the town remained fortified until the destruction of the walls by French troops at XVII ^{It is} A century, on the orders of Richelieu, France occupying militarily the Duchy of Lorraine during the Thirty Years War.

There are still a few traces in the village. Most of the houses rebuilt in XVII ^{It is} And XVIII ^{It is} centuries, moreover, reused elements prior to this destruction on the facade.

Demography [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

The evolution of the number of inhabitants is known through the population censuses made in the municipality since 1793. From 2006, the legal populations of the municipalities are published annually by INSEE. The census is now based on an annual information collection, successively concerning all the municipal territories during a period of five years. For municipalities with less than 10,000 inhabitants, a census survey relating to the entire population is carried out every five years, the legal populations of the intermediate years being estimated by interpolation or extrapolation ^{[ 13 ]} . For the municipality, the first exhaustive census falling within the framework of the new system was carried out in 2006 ^{[ 14 ]} .

In 2020, the town had 65 inhabitants ^{[ Note 3 ]} , in decrease of 7.14%compared to 2014 (Meurthe-et-Moselle: +0.06%, France excluding Mayotte: +1.9%).

Histogram of demographic evolution

Places and monuments [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Old well, rue du Puits.

Visible vestiges [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

The visible vestiges belong to three stages of development of the city: the primitive castle, barring the western end of the spur, the city then the suburb constituting the last stage of the extension of Vaudémont.

Brunehaut’s tower is the most visible part of the old castle. It is a rectangular section tower (24 × 16.5 meters), now fifteen meters high. The walls are exceptionally thick, 4.5 meters in part lower than 4 meters in the upper part. Carbon 14 analyzes carried out in 2007 ^{[ 20 ]} On the binder of the structure of the building suggests that its construction is in the first quarter of the XI ^{It is} century ^{[Ref. necessary]} . For Nicolas Mengus, the tower would be dated to X ^{It is} century following an analysis of wooden coals trapped in the lime mortar ^{[ 21 ]} . This tower constituted the southeast angle of the castle of Vaudémont. Over the centuries, she had various destinations, alone or assistant to a house. On the Sion hill have recognized stone extraction zones used for the construction of the castle ^{[ 17 ]} .

Its dilapidation is however old since the texts report in 1493 stone falls damaging the adjacent buildings of the castle ^{[ 20 ]} (especially the kitchen roof ^{[ 22 ]} ). The tower will then be partially leveled in 1497, then in 1529. The east side of the tower is well preserved, only the northern angle is missing, collapsed after 1840. This facade has five small openings placed in height on two levels, the drill In the center of this wall, at the current ground level is recent. The north wall, today high at most at most than ten meters is much more degraded, it has been reinforced recently by a metallic structure placed on its inner face which has lost any facing. West and southern walls, there is almost nothing left.

The tower was extended to the north by a long building slightly offset to the east whose remains are currently buried under a lifting of the earth. The dimensions of this building could be around 40 × 8 meters. An engraving of 1835 shows on a wall of this building a chevron construction technique which recalls that used on the tower itself ^{[ 23 ]} .

These two buildings left, the castle gardens is today occupied by vegetable gardens. Part of the courtyards of the city side south remain, on the other hand, the very extensive castle defenses, including several barbacasians, are now completely indistinguishable.

In the center of the Faubourg, the lower part of a 7.5 meter diameter tower is preserved, it is traditionally named La Tour du Guet. Its location, more than 100 meters However, the faubourg ditch is not ideal for such a destination. The deep gap of the suburb which still constitute the southeast limit of the village with more than 200 meters length and a width of 20 meters , he protected an artillery boulevard. It has not been filled and is now fallow.

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  Brunehaut Tour; facade is.

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  Brunehaut tour; North facade.

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  Location of vestiges on the cadastre.

Religious buildings [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

• Collegiate church of regular canons of Saint-Jean-Baptiste founded in 1326 on the initiative of the count Henri III Vaudémont with the authorization of the Saint-Gengoult collegiate chapter in Toul, construction undoubtedly completed before 1352; The building, built on the site of the current cemetery, served as a funeral chapel in the counts of Vaudémont; represented on the County Grury map (1743); destroyed in 1762 after the attachment of his chapter to that of Bouxières-aux-Dames in 1760.
• Saint-Gengoult parish church, rebuilt in 1748, date brought, following a request for reconstruction of 1742 at the site of the old one, documented by a canonical visit of 1687. It was a building then in poor condition , perhaps from Romanesque period (the church was cited in 1195), in Nef Grange, choir vaulted of warheads and a bell tower on the choir; Tower bell tower repaired in 1836. Church restored from 1862 to 1864, then in 1947 and 1990.

Personalities linked to the municipality [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Heraldry [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

	Coat of arms	Coupé: at first is bure of silver and sand, at 2 It is Silver in the mountain isolated from Sinople.
	Details	The chief part represents the coat of arms of the counts of Vaudémont, while the point mountain represents the hill of Sion. The official status of the coat of arms remains to be determined.

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