Mont de Marsan, from where do come you?
The origin of the word Mont of Marsan excited the curiosity of a lot of researchers, but as a lot of old cities, it remains very dark.
For the word "Mont", the first idea was that Mont of Marsan was an elevated place but is not not rather this Saint Peter who is merely the neighboring township!
Even today, one doesn't know to explain always of where comes this word Mont.
As for the Marsan word, some see the memory of a temple of March there destroys by Caesar's lieutenant, of others a distortion of the Maressan word, country of swamp.
Today, many keep the explanation given by an archivist of the Moors. Marsan would come from " Ar ", calm water and of " Year ", country.
One says that once, the Montoises would have been called the Marsnaises.
The armoiries of Mont de Marsan
The armoiries of the city of Mont de Marsan has been recorded in the armorial General raised according to the edict of November 20, 1696 whose National Library possesses the original manuscript.
The patent has been delivered of it by order of Charles of Hozier, guard of the armorial General, February 21, 1698.
They blazon themselves: of azure to calm two keys of money in pal.
Symbolic of the composition: the origins of the blazon are controversial.
Some emit the hypothesis that the blazon recalls the situation of Mont de Marsan in the confluent. the Midouze - of two rivers: the Twelve and the Midou, symbolized each by a key, that opened to the Middle Ages sees it of the commercial prosperity of the city.
Of others. of which the Cabinet of the Medals to the National Library. believe that it is about evoking Saint Peter, boss of the city, because it is extremely frequent to meet the attributes of the Saint Boss in the armoiries of cities.
The origin would go back up thus to 1133, time to which the Lord Pierre of Lobaner, Viscount of the Marsan, founded the city on a dependent earth of Saint-Pierre-du-mont, dependent herself of the abbey of Saint-Sever. It would be what gave to the city the keys of his Saint Boss.
Finally, one could recover two other compositions, without one can express their symbolic :
- a document of 1640 of the Pierre oratorien of the Board represents the blazon" on field of muzzles two back to back and adjoining gold keys one to the other, hanging to a cord of money moving of the chief."
- the Quillet encyclopedia Edition 1958 gave this composition" of muzzles to two keys faced of gold put in pal the pannetons in chief ". To this topic he has been emitted the idea that these were the revolutionaries of 1789 that, without changing the drawing of the symbolic, had modified funds of color of it.
Mont de Marsan with the passing of the time.
Toward 1133, Pierre says Lobaner, viscount of Marsan, decided to build a castle in the oriental part of his earths, to the confluence of the Midou and the Twelve; but he wanted, at the same time, to establish a walled village (castelnau) close by: this is how is born Mont de Marsan.
If the will to control the passage of the Midou was at the origin of the initiative vicomtale, the choice of the site encouraged the development of the agglomeration that became a stage on the way jacobite of the small Moors. Indeed, the Twelve and the Midou delimit to their confluence a spur of 225-m large on close to 400-m long, cleaned of its sandy cover. Large of about twenty meters, deeply cashed, the 2 rivers that give birth to the Midouze affluent of right strand of the Adour, make spring the sources, clear benches of sandstone and confer thus to the site of the defensive advantages that was put extensively thereafter to profit.
The occupation of the site until the XIème century
The foundation of the Castelnau in the XIIème century
The evolution of the city to the Middle Ages
The Castelnau
The fortress enlarges in the XIVème century with the castle of Nolibos
The reasons of a success
The Borough
The development of the city at the end of the Middle Ages and in the beginning of the XVIème century
Two ephemeral aspects of the city: Mont de Marsan places strong (1560 - 1630) and city of convents (1580 - 1790)
New flight of the city in the XVIIèmes and XVIIIèmes centuries
The XIXème century or the apogee of the neoclassic
End XIXème - XXème beginning: place to the style Beautiful Time
