Information AboutPoitiers |
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région= Poitou-Charentes |département= Vienne ('' Préfecture '') | arrondissement=Poitiers| canton=Chief town of 7 cantons| insee=86194|cp=86000|maire= Jacques Santrot |mandat= 2001 - 2008 | intercomm= Communauté d'agglomération de Poitiers | longitude=00° 20' 10" E |latitude=46° 34' 55" N |alt moy=75 m |alt mini=65 m |alt maxi=144 m | hectares=4,211 |km&2=42.11 |sans=85,800 |date-sans=2004|dens=2,037|date-dens=2004}} Poitiers is a town located in west central France . It is a Commune and the capital ('' Préfecture '') of the Vienne '' Département '' and of the Poitou-Charentes '' Région ''. Poitiers is situated on the Clain River. Geography Poitiers is strategically situated on the Seuil Du Poitou , a shallow zone joining the Armorican to the Central Massif and connecting the Aquitaine Basin to the Paris Basin . The site of Poitiers is a vast promontery between the valleys of Boivre and Clain. History Poitiers was founded before Roman influence by the Pictones tribe. Poitiers was the capital of Poitou , the region governed by the Counts Of Poitiers . The Battle Of Poitiers was fought at Poitiers on September 19 , 1356 , during the Hundred Years' War . An earlier battle, the first decisive Christian victory over Muslims was also fought here on October 10 , 732 — this battle is better known as Battle Of Tours . King Charles VII established the University Of Poitiers in 1432 . 1500's The type of political organisation existing in Poitiers during the late medieval / early modern period can be glimpsed through a speech given on 14 July 1595 by Maurice Roatin, the town's mayor. He compared it to the Roman state, which combined three types of government: monarchy (rule by one person), aristocracy (rule by a few), and democracy (rule by the many). He said the Roman consulate corresponded to Poitiers' mayor, the senate to the town's peers and ''échevins'', and the democratic element in Rome corresponded to the fact that most important matters "can not be decided except by the advice of the ''Mois et Cent'' council . The city government in Poitiers based its claims to legitimacy on the theory of government where the mayor and ''échevins'' held jurisdiction of the city's affairs In this era, the mayor of Poitiers was preceeded by sergeants wherever he went, consulted deliberative bodies, carried out their decisions, "heard civil and criminal suits in first instance", tried to insure that the food supply would be abequate, visited markets. 2 In the 1500's Poitiers impressed visitors because of its large size, and important features, including "royal courts, university, prolific printing shops, wealthy religious institutions, cathedral, numerous parishes, markets, impressive domestic architecture, extensive fortifications, and château." 3 Miscellaneous Poitiers was the birthplace of influential 20th Century French philosopher Michel Foucault . Many Acadians or Cajuns living in North America can trace ancestry to this region as their descendants left from here in the 17th Century . Twin Towns Poitiers is twinned with:
Notes # ''Archives communales de Poitiers'', reg. 54, pp.211-213; in Harry J. Bernstein, ''Between Crown and Community: Politics and Civic Culture in Sixteenth-Century Poitiers. 2004, Ithica N.Y., USA: Cornell University Press, p.22. # Harry J. Bernstein, ''Between Crown and Community: Politics and Civic Culture in Sixteenth-Century Poitiers. 2004, Ithica N.Y., USA: Cornell University Press, p.22-30. # ''ibid''., p.2. See also External links
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