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Luxeuil-les-Bains (Municipality, Haute-Saône, France)

by Arnaud Leroy

Presentation of Luxeuil-les-Bains
Flag of Luxeuil-les-Bains

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Presentation of Luxeuil-les-Bains

The city of Luxeuil-les-Bains (9,000 inhabitants, Luxoviens) is a thermal spa located in the east of France, on the south-western border of the Vosges mountains. The city developed around an abbey founded by St. Columban in the VIth century.

In his Vita Colombani (Columban's Life), written in Luxeuil c. 640, the monk Jonas claims that Luxeuil was called Luxovium by the Romans, the name of Luxovium being linked to two Celtic words, lixo, the hot water, and liqchoul, the sun's water. After the conquest of Gaul, the Romans indeed built cities around thermal springs for the rest of soldiers, for instance, in eastern Gaul, Luxeuil, Plombières and Bourbonne. Luxovium was in the IInd century a significant city with at least three pottery workshops.
Luxovium was destroyed during the Great Invasions, since the city is no longer mentioned on administrative documents and maps dated from the IVth century.

At the end of the VIth century, the Irish monk St. Columban (c. 540-615) left the monastery of Bangore with 12 disciples and sailed to Gaul, where pagan cults had replaced the Christian religion. Columban reached Metz, the capital city of the Merovingian Kingdom of Austrasia, and asked King Gontran a place to build