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Avallon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For information about the mythical island from the Arthurian legends, see Avalon.
| Commune of Avallon | |
| Location | |
| Longitude | 03° 54' 33" E |
| Latitude | 47° 29' 27" N |
| Administration | |
|---|---|
| Country | France |
| Region | Bourgogne |
| Department | Yonne (sous-préfecture) |
| Arrondissement | Avallon |
| Canton | Avallon (chief town) |
| Mayor | Jean-Yves Caullet (2001-2008) |
| Statistics | |
| Altitude | 163 m–369 m (avg. 254 m) |
| Land area¹ | 26.75 km² |
| Population² (1999) |
8,217 |
| - Density (1999) | 307/km² |
| Miscellaneous | |
| INSEE/Postal code | 89025/ 89200 |
| ¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 mi² or 247 acres) and river estuaries. | |
| ² Population sans doubles comptes: single count of residents of multiple communes (e.g. students and military personnel). | |
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Avallon is a town and commune of central France and is the capital of an arrondissement in the Yonne département.
Contents |
Avallon is located (34 m.) south-southeast of Auxerre, served by a branch of the Paris-Lyon railway. The town, with wide streets and picturesque promenades, is finely situated on a promontory, the base of which is washed on the south by the Cousin, on the east and west by small streams.
Chance finds of coins and pottery fragments and a fine head of Minerva are reminders of the Roman settlement carrying the Celtic name Aballo,[1] a mutatio or post where fresh horses could be obtained.[2] Two pink marble columns in the church of St-Martin du Bourg have been reused from an unknown temple (Princeton Encyclopedia). The Roman citadel, on a rocky spur overlooking the Cousin valley, has been Christianized as Montmartre ("Mount of the Martyrs").
In the year 470, the Romano-British king, Riothamus, disappeared (and presumably died) in Avallon after being defeated by the Goths, against whom the Western Roman Emperor Anthemius had hired him to fight. This, and other aspects of his reign, has made him a candidate for the historical King Arthur.
Avallon (Aballo) was in the Middle Ages the seat of a viscounty dependent on the duchy of Burgundy; on the death of Charles the Bold in 1477, it passed under the royal authority.
Its chief building, the church of St Lazare, dates from the twelfth century. The two western portals are adorned with sculpture in the ornate Romanesque style; the tower on the left of the facade was rebuilt in the seventeenth century. The Tour de L'Horloge, pierced by a gateway through which passes the Grande Rue, is an eleventh century structure containing a museum on its second floor. Remains of the ancient fortifications, including seven of the flanking towers, are still to be seen. Avallon has a statue of Vauban, the military engineer of Louis XIV.
The manufacture of biscuits and gingerbread, and of leather and farm implements supports the economy of Avallon, and there is considerable traffic in wood, wine, and the live-stock and agricultural produce of the surrounding country.
The public institutions include the subprefecture, a tribunal of first instance, and a communal college.
Avallon is twinned with:
- ^ Celtic, "Apple-tree" ([1])
- ^ Aballo appears on the Antonine Itinerary and in the Tabula Peutingeriana. ([2])
- Official Website in French
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
- Richard Stillwell, ed. Princeton Encyclopaedia of Classical Sites, 1976: "Aballo (Avallon), Yonne, France"
- rappe, A. H."Avallon" Speculum 18.3 (July 1943), pp 303-322.