Sélestat, France

 

Sélestat (name adopted in 1920, before 1871 Schlestadt or Schlettstadt; Alsatian: Schlettstàdt) is a French commune, in the department of Bas-Rhin, in Alsace (Grand Est region).

Chief town of district and canton, seat of the community of communes of Sélestat, it had 19,794 inhabitants at the last census in 2012 (legal population in force on January 1, 2015), which makes it the fifth municipality in the Lower Rhine and the eighth Alsatian municipality in terms of number of inhabitants. Its inhabitants are called the Sélestadiens and Sélestadiennes. The town is located in the Alsace plain, at the foot of the Vosges. It is crossed by the Ill and its territory is largely covered by the wetlands of Grand Ried. It is under the direct influence of the metropolis of Strasbourg, barely thirty kilometers away.

Selestat is mentioned for the first time in the 7th century. Free city of the Holy Empire, member of the Decapolis, Sélestat experienced very rapid development at the end of the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance. It also becomes a hotbed of humanism. It was then the third Alsatian city, with a port on the Ill and a belt of ramparts. She nevertheless suffered from the troubles linked to the Reformation, the Peasants 'War and then the Thirty Years' War, after which she became French.

During the French period, Sélestat was a military town, fortified by Vauban. It was besieged twice by the Coalition during the Napoleonic wars. The ramparts were destroyed in 1874, shortly after the annexation of Alsace-Moselle by Germany. Population growth is only really noticeable after World War II. Having become an industrial center, Sélestat is also a secondary commercial center, thirty kilometers from the metropolis of Strasbourg, seventy kilometers from Mulhouse and around twenty kilometers from Colmar.

Sélestat is the third largest city in Alsace for its rich heritage, behind Strasbourg and Colmar. The city has, for example, two large churches, a medieval urban complex, as well as a very rich collection of Renaissance works kept at the Humanist Library. Sélestat is also endowed with an important natural heritage since the municipal territory is largely included in the regional nature reserve of Illwald. Finally, the town is close to the Alsace wine route and the Haut-Kœnigsbourg castle.

Sélestat has been awarded the City of Art and History label since February 19, 2016.

 

Geographical location

The village is about 40 kilometers southwest of Strasbourg and about 40 kilometers northwest of Freiburg im Breisgau on the Ill, a left tributary of the Rhine, at 180 m above sea level. NHN.

 

History

middle Ages
Sélestat (Latin: Selestadium) was a royal property during the Carolingian period, where the later Emperor Charlemagne celebrated Christmas in 775. At that time, the place consisted of little more than a small settlement around a Carolingian royal palace. The first church, a central building on the site of today's St. George's Church, also dates from this period.

The medieval town history is closely linked to the Staufer. Hildegard von Büren, widow of the Staufer Friedrich von Büren and great-grandmother of Barbarossa, founded a Holy Sepulcher chapel here around 1087, which her sons donated to the Conques monastery in 1094. The monastery founded a provost in 1095 and brought the relic cult of St. Fides from Agen (Ste. Foy) to Alsace. The provost ruled the city until Frederick II, at whose behest a city wall was built in 1216, gave it the status of a free imperial city in a contract with the provost. The early Gothic parts of the parish church of St. George also date from this period. A new treaty with King Rudolf von Habsburg assigned city rule, which had previously been divided between the empire and the provost, to the empire alone. Sélestat prospered, became a member of the Ten-City League in 1354, expanded its fortifications, received monastic orders within its walls, and engaged in trade.

In two contracts in 1498 and 1503, ownership and rights of the provost passed to the Bishopric of Strasbourg. The provost, occupied by French monks throughout the Middle Ages, ceased to exist.

heyday of the imperial city
The Renaissance is the epoch in which the city became a capital of humanism. Her Latin school and her humanist college, whose library is still preserved today, were famous throughout Europe.

The Schlettstadt Latin school had existed since the High Middle Ages and, following the example of other schools such as those in Passau, Braunschweig or Heilbronn, prepared students for a clerical profession or later university studies. The achievements of students at a Latin or convent school brought fame and prestige to a city. From the second half of the 15th century, the reputation of the imperial city of Sélestat as an important training center for talented students and as a center of humanistic thinking spread far beyond the borders of the country. At that time, students who knew Latin and local scholars were in regular contact with one another and thus formed a talent factory for the rulers of the time, including the emperor or the city elite, in which they recruited their secretaries, advisers, lawyers, translators or treasurers.

Most of the students from Sélestat who continued their studies graduated from the universities of Basel, Heidelberg, Strasbourg or Freiburg, where some of them taught. Some students also studied outside of the Upper Rhine region, for example at the Universities of Paris or Kraków.

In his song of praise "Encomium selestadii carmine elegiaco" from 1514 to 1515, Erasmus of Rotterdam expresses his admiration for Sélestat as a place of training and a stimulating place of residence or meeting place for numerous well-known scholars and clever minds: "Tot pariter gemmas, tot lumina fundis in orbem. Quot multis aliis vix genuisse datum est".

The imperial city made a name for itself through these thinkers, pedagogues or theologians, some of whom were born or lived in Schlettstadt, as well as through the officials in the service of the imperial administration or the emperor himself. Some worked more or less in the background at some imperial diets, such as that at Worms in 1521. As secret secretaries or legal experts, former students of this Latin school had direct insight into what was happening in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation at that time.

The Reformation, the Peasants' War and finally the Thirty Years' War marked the decline of the city. The Swedes besieged and conquered it in 1632 and ceded it to the French in 1634, who ceded it back to the empire in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. In 1673, Louis XIV usurped the city and had the old city walls torn down; two years later he had more modern fortifications built here.