Place:Villefranche-de-Rouergue, Aveyron, France

Watchers


NameVillefranche-de-Rouergue
TypeCommune
Coordinates44.35°N 2.033°E
Located inAveyron, France
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names


the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Villefranche-de-Rouergue is a commune in the Aveyron department in southern France. Villefranche-de-Rouergue station has rail connections to Toulouse, Figeac and Aurillac.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

At the end of the Albigensian Crusade from the northern "barons" against the southern Occitania on a religious pretext (fighting the Cathar heresy), the Count of Toulouse was defeated and concluded the Treaty of Paris in 1229. With this, the Count gave the Rouergue county to his daughter. She married Alphonse de Poitiers, brother of Saint Louis, King of France. Alphonse founded Villefranche on the place of an old village called La Peyrade in 1252.

In 1348 it was so flourishing that sumptuary laws were passed. Soon afterwards the town fell into the hands of Edward the Black Prince, but was the first place in Guyenne to rise against the English. New privileges were granted to the town by Charles V, but these were taken away by Louis XI.[1]

In 1588 the inhabitants repulsed the forces of the Hanseatic League, and afterwards murdered a governor sent by Henry IV. The town was ravaged by plague in 1463, 1558 and 1628, and in 1643 a revolt was cruelly repressed.[1] . During World War II, while occupied by Nazi Germany, Villefranche received a large 13th Waffen SS Handschar (1st Croatian) division. Led by Ferid Džanić, Eduard Matutinović, Božo Jelinek and Nikola Vukelić, one battalion staged a rebellion against the Nazis on 17 September 1943, (Villefranche-de-Rouergue uprising) but were soon suppressed and mostly executed on site. The few that escaped inspired the French resistance in Aveyron that had not been formed until then. After the war, an avenue in Villefranche was named Avenue des Croates (Avenue of the Croats) in honour of the uprising.

Research Tips


This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Villefranche-de-Rouergue. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.