Nogent-sur-Marne (Municipality, Val-de-Marne, France)

Last modified: 2005-03-05 by ivan sache
Keywords: val-de-marne | nogent-sur-marne | towers: 2 (white) | fleurs-de-lys: 3 (yellow) | wheat: 2 (yellow) | grape (yellow) | reed |
Links: FOTW homepage | search | disclaimer and copyright | write us | mirrors

by Olivier Touzeau

by Olivier touzeau

• Presentation of Nogent-sur-Marne
  • History of Nogent-sur-Marne
  • The guinguettes in Nogent-sur-Marne
• Municipal flag of Nogent-sur-Marne

See also:

• France
• Val-de-Marne (Department, France)

Presentation of Nogent-sur-Marne

The city of Nogent-sur-Marne (28,000 inhabitants; 286 ha) is located 11 km east of the center of Paris, but the municipal territory of Nogent borders the municipal territory of Paris via the woods of Vincennes. The river Marne flows into the Seine in Alfortville, a few kilometers downstream from Nogent-sur-Marne.
There are several cities called Nogent (from Latin Novigentum, new settlement) in France, therefore the need of a longer name to distinguish them: Nogent-en-Othe, Nogent-l'Abbesse, Nogent-l'Artaud, Nogent-le-Bernard, Nogent-le-Phaye, Nogent-le-Roi, Nogent-le-Rotrou , Nogent-le-Sec, Nogent-les-Montbard, Nogent-sur-Aube, Nogent-sur-Eure, Nogent-sur-Loir, Nogent-sur-Marne, Nogent-sur-Oise, Nogent-sur-Seine, Nogent-sur-Vernisson, and ... Nogent.

History of Nogent-sur-Marne

Although Nogent is one of the oldest Gallo-Roman settlements around Paris, there is no trace of the name of the city before the VIth century. In his "History of the Franks", St. Grégoire de Tours (c. 538-594) writes that the Merovingian King Chilpéric I (539-584) met the Roman Eastern Emperor Tiberius in his royal villa in Nogent. Chilpéric's successors Clotaire II (584-629) and Dagobert I (? - 638) seems to have also stayed in Nogent. Not all historians believe that the king's residence was in Nogent, but a Merovingian cemetary found in the city proves that an early settlement existed there. In the Middle Ages, Nogent depended on the neighbouring abbey of Saint-Maur, whose monks cleared the area and planted grapevine on the hills of the river Marne.
The Saint-Saturnin's church was built in the XII-XIIIth century, starting with a bell-tower in Romanic style and ending with a nave in Gothic style, and revamped in the XVIIth and XXth centuries. Saint-Saturnin is one of the patron saints of the city of Toulouse, in the south-west of France, and his cult was probably brought back to Nogent by pilgrims. The first village of Nogent probably developed at that time around a main street.

Kings of France Philippe V (c. 1293-1322, King in 1316) and Charles IV (1295-1328, King in 1322) oft