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Montsoreau is a French commune located in the department of Maine-et-Loire, in the Pays de la Loire region, in the Loire Valley classified as World Heritage by UNESCO. Montsoreau is classified among The Most Beautiful Villages of France and competed in the 2012 edition of the French television show presented by Stéphane Bern: Le Village préfé des Français.
It was in the sixth century that the first texts
mention the Domaine de Restis. In 990 the count of Blois Eudes I
transformed it into a stronghold, 10 years before the count of
Anjou, Foulques Nerra, attached it to Anjou. We find a mention of
Montsoreau in 1086 in its Latinized form [Castrum] Monte Sorello.
The stronghold then belonged to Guillaume II de Montsoreau, vassal
of the Counts of Anjou and husband of Hersende de Champagné. It was
she who convinced her son-in-law, Gautier Ier de Montsoreau, to give
Robert d'Arbrissel the land which he used to found the Abbey of
Fontevraud. The forms Castellum Montsorelli, Mons Sorelli and
finally Mons Sorel (Montsoreau, Monts Soreaux, Mont Soreau), are
recurrent Latinizations that we find in charters, cartularies and
other documents written in medieval Latin. The castle passed into
the hands of the Savary family in 1213, (Renaud Savary 1325-1368,
lord of Montbazon (Indre-et-Loire), Villandry (Indre-et-Loire)),
Savonnières (Indre-et-Loire), Montsoreau (Maine-et-Loire) and
Moncontour (Vienne), then to the Craon viscounts of Châteaudun in
1374. It then belongs to the Chabot de La Grève family and becomes
the property of Jean II de Chambes during his marriage to the
heiress in 1445. It was the latter who razed the fortress and had
the current Château de Montsoreau built in 1450, in the Renaissance
style.
In the Middle Ages, the village was divided into two
parts: Rest and Mont Soreau (Monte Sorello). Rest corresponded to
the district now clustered around the port and the current parish
church, while Mont Soreau corresponded to the castrum fortified by
Foulques Nerra. In the 19th century, the Château de Montsoreau
became a warehouse where wheat from Loudunais, wines from Chinonais
and those from Poitou were brought. Important markets were held
there thanks to its very active port.
Montsoreau was, until
the seventeenth century, a center of jurisdiction and the seigneury
of Montsoreau extended from the Loire in the north, to
Seuilly-l'Abbaye and the castle of Coudray in the south.
Its
population of artisans, fishermen and small winegrowers had never
exceeded 600 inhabitants. Then a boom in the exploitation of a
building stone, the tufa, suddenly increased this number to more
than 1000 inhabitants, maintained during the first quarter of the
nineteenth century. This stone, easy to work, gradually ran out, and
the stone workers left the region. The population thus decreased to
stabilize again at around 600 people.
However, the galleries
opened for the exploitation of tufa then made it possible to shelter
cultures of mushrooms, known as "of Paris".
With the
construction of the road from Saumur to Candes-Saint-Martin in the
19th century, the appearance of the village of Montsoreau was
changed. Several white tufa houses, from the quarries on the
hillsides, were built in Rest and in the old town.