Bouzonville

French commune
nomcommune=Bouzonville
The Nied at Bouzonville
région=Lorraine
département=Moselle
arrondissement=Boulay-Moselle
canton=Bouzonville
insee=57106
cp=57320
maire= Gilbert Philipp
mandat= 2001-2008
intercomm= Communauté de Communes du Bouzonvillois
longitude=6.535
latitude=49.2925
alt moy=190 m
alt mini=192 m
alt maxi=310 m
hectares=1,390
km²=13.9
sans=4,117
date-sans=1999
dens=296
date-dens=1999

Bouzonville ( _de. Busendorf) is a town and commune in the Moselle "département", Lorraine in northeastern France. [Another Bouzonville is Bouzonville-en-Beauce (Loiret). "Bosonis Villa" was also render Bea] It lies 35 km from Metz and the same distance from Thionville.

Built on the "salt road" between the Rhine and the Moselle, at the site of an easy ford of the Nied, the site's traces of Celtic La Tène culture are most vividly represented by the "Bouzonville flagon", in which Scythian influence on Celtic craftsmenship is clearly represented in the animal that forms its handle and in the nature of coral inlays, with enamels of similar colour supplementing it, that form bands around the base and rim of the high-shouldered vessel; the beak-flagon was among a group of bronze objects from Bouzonville acquired by the British Museum in 1928. [There were two flagions, and bronze "wine jars" among other utensils. Reginald A. Smith, in "British Museum Quarterly" 4 (1929) and in "Archaeologia" 79 (1929) pp 1-12, with 14 illustrations; Josef Strzygowski, "Amerasiatic and Indogermanic Art" "The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs" 68 No. 394 (January 1936), pp. 46-51, illustrated.] A minor Roman "vicus" represented by tiles that the plough turns up, complements the few signs of prehistory, though essentially pre-historic is the mute Merovingian necropolis of more than a hundred graves, holding twice as many women as men, 0.5 km east of the town; there is no trace of their habitations, which apparently supplied the "villa" attached to the "-ville" toponym. There is no agreement on the identity of the other element, apparently of one of the numerous Frankish magnates named Boso. [ [http://www.mairie-bouzonville.fr/principal.html Bouzonville official website] ; see also Ernest de Bouteiller, "Dictionnaire topographique de l'ancienne département de Moselle", 1874, "Introduction" p. xl, which gives "Bouzonville, de "Bosonis villa".]

The village owes its real origins to the abbey founded here in 1033 by Adalbert, count of Metz and Juditha his wife; [Juditha of Öhningen was the daughter of Konrad, Duke of Swabia and his wife Richlint of Saxony. The "Notitiae Fundationis Monasterii Bosonis-Villæ", edited by Oswald Holder-Egger and Georg Waitz, in "MGH" SS XV.2, (1887) pp 977-980, notes that both were buried in the abbey church. "Bosonis Villa" became the seat of a line of counts. ( [http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/LOTHARINGIAN%20(UPPER)%20NOBILITY.htm "Upper Lotharingia, Nobility, ch. 7A] ). The Boso of "Bosonis Villa" is doubtless to be sought among his parentage.] he was the grandfather of Gebhard, Duke of Lorraine, the first hereditary duke of Lorraine. Migne [Migne, Index 3, "Index Monasteriorum", 1030, noted by M. Amelia Klenke, "Nicholas Bozon" "Modern Language Notes" 69.4 (April 1954, pp. 256-260) p. 257. ] lists "Bosonis Villa [de] S. Crucis S. Mariae, monast. ord. S. Bened. ann. 1033 a Juditha Adalberti comitio uxore"... ["Bosonis Villa, [dedicated to] the Holy Cross [and] Mary, a monastery of the Order of Saint Benedict [founded] in the year 1033 by Juditha wife of count Adalbert."] The "Bosonis villa" with its dependencies, is mentioned in a privilege granted to Galberga, abbess of Juviniacensis by Pope Urban II in 1096. [Migne, "Patrologiae cursus completus", "Urbanae II papae" cciii, col. 476. Today Juviniacum is Sainte-Euphémie; "Au XIe siècle, la terre Juviniacensis comprenait Ars et Saint Didier de Formans. Un puissant prieuré y était installé." (Valentin-Smith, quoted in [http://ladombes.free.fr/Villes_Dombes/Sainte_Euphemie_bis.htm La Dombes, une terre historique qui reste encore à découvrir] .] The church of the Benedictine Abbey de Sainte-Croix de Bouzonville serves today as the parish church. In the thirteenth century the dukes of Lorraine established a court of justice here, which increased the life of the town, which depended on the abbey, which was rebuilt on its eleventh-century foundations. The Abbey of Bouzonville remained very much in the gift of the dukes of Lorraine, who were in the habit of bestowing the post of abbot "in commendam" on their relations to the end of the seventeenth century. [In 1699 the theologian and historian Matthieu Petit-Didier was canonically elected Abbot of Bouzonville, but could not take possession because the Duke of Lorraine had given the abbey in commendam to his brother. ("Catholic Encyclopedia": "Matthieu Petit-Didier").]

The town suffered so severely during the Thirty Years War that at the end of the seventeenth century Bouzonville numbered few more than two dozen hearths. An "hôtel de ville", built in 1719 and enlarged in 1763 was symptomatic of the town's revival, as was a Jewish community, noted in 1726. The abbey was suppressed at the Revolution, the monks dispersed and the library sold. Tanneries and spinning mills developed the town's economy in the nineteenth century. The convent's buildings were restored sufficiently in 1893 to shelter a hospice. The First World War spared Bouzonville, but heavy fighting in the Second World War destroyed the bridge and 139 houses. Morte recently, Bouzonville has undergone a drain of its labour forces to German industry in Saar. [Documented in "Les frontaliers mosellans travaillant en Sarre" 1966.]

The renowned organ-builders Jean-Baptiste Stoltz and Georges Wenner were both born in Bouzonville in 1813 and 1819.

Notes

External links

* [http://www.mairie-bouzonville.fr/index.php?mod=bz_notreville&ac=resume_anglais Official website] (in English)
* [http://www.artfund.org/artwork/778/collection-of-three-bronze-vessels (Art Fund) British Museum: Collection of three bronze vessels: Bouzonville flagon illustrated, dated c. 450 BCE]
* [http://europa.perso.cegetel.net/abbaye/index.html The former Abbey de Sainte-Croix de Bouzonville] (in French)
* [http://europa.perso.cegetel.net/lorraine/abbaye/present.htm Notes on the Abbey of Bouzonville] (in French)