Brioude
Encyclopedia
Brioude is a commune in the Haute-Loire
department in the Auvergne
region in south-central France
. It lies on the banks of the River Allier
, a tributary of the Loire
.
and Ferréol, became its patron saints; according to the Chronicle of Moissac
, Euric of Toulouse
had the basilica built, in the fourteenth year of his reign (c. 480): it was wondrously decorated with columns. The emperor Avitus
(acclaimed at Toulouse, died 456) had already been buried at the shrine of Julien at Brivas (Brioude), according to Gregory of Tours
. Euric's basilica may have served to venerate both the saint and the Visigothic candidate for Roman Emperor.
Brioude was taken by the Franks
, then in turn besieged and captured by the Goths
(532), the Burgundians
, the Saracen
s (732) and the Normans
. Carolingian Brioude remained a place of some importance: William I of Aquitaine
minted denier
s at Brioude. When Louis V of France
married Adelaide of Anjou
there in 980 they were crowned King and Queen of Aquitaine; the couple was mismatched in age, and Adelaide fled Louis' house in 982, to Arles
. The feast of Saint Jullien, 28 August, drew such crowds to the saint's relics that in the mid-11th century the chapter was obliged to build a hostel to care for the indigent pilgrim and the sick. In 1181 the viscount of Polignac
, who had sacked the town two years previously, made public apology in front of the church, and established a body of twenty-five knights to defend the relics of St Jullien. Odilo
, later the reforming abbot of Cluny
began his vocation at St Jullien of Brioude, where fifty-four canons, all of noble birth, held a rank equivalent to bishop: Odilo's biographer reports that he fled. For some time after 1361 the town was the headquarters of Bérenger, lord of Castelnau, who was at the head of one of the bands of military adventurers which then devastated France. The knights (or canons, as they afterwards became) of St Julian bore the title of counts of Brioude, and for a long time opposed themselves to the civic liberties of the inhabitants.
The Franks Casket
is believed to have been looted from St Jullien of Brioude church during the French Revolution
The Almanach de Brioude published annually from 1919 has included many articles of local and broader interest.
, United Kingdom
, since 1972 Laufen
, Germany
, since 1982 Suzzara
, Italy
, since 1995 Gonzaga, Italy
, since 1995 Moreira da Maia, Portugal
, since 2007
Haute-Loire
Haute-Loire is a department in south-central France named after the Loire River.-History:Haute-Loire is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790...
department in the Auvergne
Auvergne (région)
Auvergne is one of the 27 administrative regions of France. It comprises the 4 departments of Allier, Puy de Dome, Cantal and Haute Loire.The current administrative region of Auvergne is larger than the historical province of Auvergne, and includes provinces and areas that historically were not...
region in south-central France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. It lies on the banks of the River Allier
Allier River
The Allier is a river in central France, and is the left tributary to the Loire River. Its source is in the Massif Central, in the Lozère département, east of Mende. It flows generally north...
, a tributary of the Loire
Loire
Loire is an administrative department in the east-central part of France occupying the River Loire's upper reaches.-History:Loire was created in 1793 when after just 3½ years the young Rhône-et-Loire department was split into two. This was a response to counter-Revolutionary activities in Lyon...
.
History
At Brioude, the ancient Brivas, its martyrs in the 4th century, JulienSt. Julian of Brioude
Saint Julian of Brioude was a 4th century martyr from the Auvergne region of France. Although the main focus of his worship was in the small village of Brioude, he was originally from the city of Vienne, and also associated with Clermont. He was most famous by his association to an aristocratic...
and Ferréol, became its patron saints; according to the Chronicle of Moissac
Chronicle of Moissac
The Chronicle of Moissac is an anonymous compilation that was discovered at the abbey of Moissac, but is now thought to have been compiled in the Catalan monastery of Ripoll in the end of the tenth century. Like most chronicles, it begins with Adam, but gains increasing interest for historians as...
, Euric of Toulouse
Euric
Euric, also known as Evaric, Erwig, or Eurico in Spanish and Portuguese , Son of Theodoric I and the younger brother of Theodoric II and ruled as king of the Visigoths, with his capital at Toulouse, from 466 until his death in 484.He inherited a large portion of the Visigothic possessions in the...
had the basilica built, in the fourteenth year of his reign (c. 480): it was wondrously decorated with columns. The emperor Avitus
Avitus
Eparchius Avitus was Western Roman Emperor from July 8 or July 9, 455 to October 17, 456. A Gallic-Roman aristocrat, he was a senator and a high-ranking officer both in the civil and military administration, as well as Bishop of Piacenza.A representative of the Gallic-Roman aristocracy, he...
(acclaimed at Toulouse, died 456) had already been buried at the shrine of Julien at Brivas (Brioude), according to Gregory of Tours
Gregory of Tours
Saint Gregory of Tours was a Gallo-Roman historian and Bishop of Tours, which made him a leading prelate of Gaul. He was born Georgius Florentius, later adding the name Gregorius in honour of his maternal great-grandfather...
. Euric's basilica may have served to venerate both the saint and the Visigothic candidate for Roman Emperor.
Brioude was taken by the Franks
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
, then in turn besieged and captured by the Goths
Goths
The Goths were an East Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin whose two branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe....
(532), the Burgundians
Burgundians
The Burgundians were an East Germanic tribe which may have emigrated from mainland Scandinavia to the island of Bornholm, whose old form in Old Norse still was Burgundarholmr , and from there to mainland Europe...
, the Saracen
Saracen
Saracen was a term used by the ancient Romans to refer to a people who lived in desert areas in and around the Roman province of Arabia, and who were distinguished from Arabs. In Europe during the Middle Ages the term was expanded to include Arabs, and then all who professed the religion of Islam...
s (732) and the Normans
Normans
The Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Norse Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock...
. Carolingian Brioude remained a place of some importance: William I of Aquitaine
William I of Aquitaine
William I , called the Pious, was the Count of Auvergne from 886 and Duke of Aquitaine from 893, succeeding the Poitevin ruler Ebalus Manser. He made numerous monastic foundations, most important among them the foundation of Cluny Abbey on 11 September 910.William was the son of Bernard II of...
minted denier
Denier
Denier may refer to:* Denier , a unit of linear mass density of fibers* Denier, Pas-de-Calais, France* French denier, a coin* The Deniers, a 2008 book by Canadian environmentalist Lawrence Solomon* C. Denier Warren, American TV and film actor...
s at Brioude. When Louis V of France
Louis V of France
Louis V , called the Indolent or the Sluggard , was the King of Western Francia from 986 until his early death...
married Adelaide of Anjou
Adelaide of Anjou
Adelaide , called the White, was the daughter of Fulk II of Anjou and Gerberga. She was therefore the sister of Geoffrey Greymantle. She was married five times to some of France's most important noblemen....
there in 980 they were crowned King and Queen of Aquitaine; the couple was mismatched in age, and Adelaide fled Louis' house in 982, to Arles
Arles
Arles is a city and commune in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the former province of Provence....
. The feast of Saint Jullien, 28 August, drew such crowds to the saint's relics that in the mid-11th century the chapter was obliged to build a hostel to care for the indigent pilgrim and the sick. In 1181 the viscount of Polignac
Polignac
Polignac is the name of several communes in France:* Polignac, Charente-Maritime* Polignac, Haute-Loire, in the Haute-Loire département, dominated by the fortress Château de Polignac with its square donjon tower, 32 m tall...
, who had sacked the town two years previously, made public apology in front of the church, and established a body of twenty-five knights to defend the relics of St Jullien. Odilo
Saint Odilo of Cluny
-Biography:Odilo was born c. 962. He was descended from the nobility of Auvergne. He early became a cleric in the seminary of St. Julien in Brioude. In 991 he entered Cluny and before the end of his year of probation was made coadjutor to Abbot Mayeul....
, later the reforming abbot of Cluny
Cluny Abbey
Cluny Abbey is a Benedictine monastery in Cluny, Saône-et-Loire, France. It was built in the Romanesque style, with three churches built in succession from the 10th to the early 12th centuries....
began his vocation at St Jullien of Brioude, where fifty-four canons, all of noble birth, held a rank equivalent to bishop: Odilo's biographer reports that he fled. For some time after 1361 the town was the headquarters of Bérenger, lord of Castelnau, who was at the head of one of the bands of military adventurers which then devastated France. The knights (or canons, as they afterwards became) of St Julian bore the title of counts of Brioude, and for a long time opposed themselves to the civic liberties of the inhabitants.
The Franks Casket
Franks Casket
The Franks Casket is a small Anglo-Saxon whalebone chest from the seventh century, now in the British Museum. The casket is densely decorated with knife-cut narrative scenes in flat two-dimensional low-relief and with inscriptions mostly in Anglo-Saxon runes...
is believed to have been looted from St Jullien of Brioude church during the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
The Almanach de Brioude published annually from 1919 has included many articles of local and broader interest.
Main sights
- Basilica of St. Julien, the largest Christian church in Auvergne. Built in the 11th-14th centuries, it has notable polychrome frescoes.
- Hôtel de la Dentelle .
- Maison du Saumon et de la Rivière, now an aquarium-museum.
People
- Monsieur de Sainte-ColombeMonsieur de Sainte-ColombeMonsieur de Sainte-Colombe was a French composer and violist.It is speculated by various scholars that Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe was of Lyonnais or Burgundian petty nobility; and also the selfsame 'Jean de Sainte-Colombe' noted as the father of 'Monsieur de Saint Colombe le fils.This assumption...
died in Brioude in 1688. - Pierre Vigouroux (born on 30 June 1983), rugby unionRugby unionRugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
player in the AS MontferrandaiseASM Clermont AuvergneAssociation Sportive Montferrandaise Clermont Auvergne are a French rugby union club from Clermont-Ferrand in Auvergne that currently competes in Top 14, the top level of the French league system, ASMCA are the were the 2010 France Top 14 Champions. It is the rugby section of the multi-sport club...
and till 2004 with the French U-21 team for the U-21 World Championships in Scotland. - Emmanuel MouretEmmanuel MouretEmmanuel Mouret is a French actor, director and screenwriter.-Biography:He was born on 30 June 1970 in Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France...
, director, filmwriter and actor
Twin towns
CardiganCardigan, Ceredigion
Cardigan is a town in the county of Ceredigion in Mid Wales. It lies on the estuary of the River Teifi at the point where Ceredigion meets Pembrokeshire. It was the county town of the pre-1974 county of Cardiganshire. It is the second largest town in Ceredigion. The town's population was 4,203...
, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, since 1972 Laufen
Durach
Durach is a municipality in the district of Oberallgäu in Bavaria in Germany.The village came into international media attention in August 2008 when a light aircraft hit power lines in its vicinity and the pilot and passenger, who had survived inside the plane dangling on high-tension power cables,...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, since 1982 Suzzara
Suzzara
Suzzara is a comune in the Province of Mantua in the Italian region Lombardy, located about 130 km southeast of Milan and about 20 km south of Mantua...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, since 1995 Gonzaga, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, since 1995 Moreira da Maia, Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, since 2007