- Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val
French commune
nomcommune=Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val
Old street in Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val
région=Midi-Pyrénées
département=Tarn-et-Garonne
arrondissement=Montauban
canton=Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val
insee=82155
cp=82140
maire=
mandat=2001 -2008
intercomm=
longitude=1.75583333333
latitude=44.1527777778
alt moy=300 m
alt mini=110 m
alt maxi=395 m
hectares=10,612
km²=106.12
sans=1,887
date-sans=1999
dens=17
date-dens=1999Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val is a commune of the
Tarn-et-Garonne "département", in southwesternFrance .History
Anciently known by its Celtic name of "Condate" (confluence), legend recounts that the
abbey of Saint-Antonin (Occitan: "Sant Antoní") was founded in the 9th century in honour of the saint who brought Christianity to the province ofRouergue , on the western edge of which the town now stands. Successful in this, he decided to convertPamiers , his hometown in thePyrenees . But resistance there resulted in his beheading, following which his body was thrown into theAriège River .Legend recounts that angels then descended from Heaven to collect the pieces and place them in a boat which, miraculously, floated downstream into the
Garonne and on to where the Tarn flows into it; then up the Tarn to its confluence with the Aveyron and up through theVallis Nobilis of the Aveyron Gorges to the confluence of the littleBonnette river at a point where the ancient lands and bishroprics of Rouergue, theAlbi geois, andQuercy meet. There the corpse was retrieved and reassembled byFestus , the Count of Noble-Val, who placed the relics in a reliquary-shrine, now lost.The
Benedictine s started rebuilding the abbey in the 11th century, and it was finished around1150 or later. By the end of the 12th century it passed into the control ofAugustinian Canons Regular . It must have been a very fine and prestigious building, perhaps - to judge from the quality of the carving and the stone of the surviving fragments - one to mention in the same breath asMoissac to the south of the same "département". The old town hall (even as controversially restored by Viollet-le-Duc) is also of very high quality - as shown by this exquisite carving of Adam, Eve, the Serpent and the Tree of Knowledge.The
troubadour Raimon Jordan was the viscount of Saint-Antonin in the late twelfth century, on the eve of theAlbigensian Crusade . The town, however, was taken by Simon de Montfort in1212 during the Crusade. The Albigensian castle of Penne a few kilometres downstream was burned by de Montfort and survives now only as a romantic ruin overlooking the river Aveyron. In1227 St Louis occupied Saint-Antonin which at this point enjoyed great wealth. The town was besieged and taken by the English in the 14th century, and subsequently suffered considerable damage in the Wars of Religion in the late 16th and again in the early 17th century (former Cathar lands tending towards a Protestantism which survives to this day, for there is a Protestant 'temple' in Saint-Antonin), when the collegiate church and the saintly relics were destroyed by anti-Catholic mobs. It was presumably after the restoration of Catholicism in the town that the corbels were placed on houses without risk of destruction. It was at this time that Louis XIV renamed the town Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val and financed important improvements.Movie location
The town was used as a location for the 2001 movie Charlotte Gray, starring
Cate Blanchett .External links
* http://www.saint-antonin-noble-val.com/
* [http://www.beyond-the-pale.org.uk/Saint-Antonin.htm Romanesque and medieval sculpture of Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val]
* [http://www.beyond-the-pale.org.uk/StADolmens.htm Megaliths around Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val and in the surrounding area]
* http://www.saintantoninnobleval.com
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