TOURS CIVITAS

Tours has been selected by Roberto Amati in relation to the real history of european integration, then enlisted in the CITY OR CIVITAS category, accompanied by own fact SHEET useful to the comprehension, completed of historical MAPS AND IMAGES or with a direct linking to the related Blog contents dedicated to the entire history of european integration and the future of Europe.

Tours is one of the most ancient cities of the history of European integration, signed in great part by Christianity. The Civitas Tours was founded centuries BC during the "La tène culture" age by Celts Aquitani or Andevigi tribe on the grave of the ancient hero Turonus son of Brutus, descendant of Enea and the greek goddess Aprhodite. In the I century AD Tours was conqured and by Romans who built a castra on the Loire river and named Cesarodunum, inhabited by Celts together with Italics, at the crossing point of the Aquitania way, starting in Cologne and passing through the civitas of Reims, Paris, Bordeaux and Narbonne to end in Toulouse, with the Gallica way starting in starting in Vannes and passing through the civitas of Nantes to end in Autun.

Within the reform of Augustus (see Roman Empire), Tours was included into the Gallia Lugdunensis province and obtained many public building as the big amphitheatre still existing, because it was one of the first christian community of Europe thanks to its patron Saint Martin and the monastir of Marmoutier, built on the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela. With the reform of Constantine I (see Christian Empire), Tours became part of the Galliarum Diocesi starting the evangelization of the Loire Valley and Brittany regions under the bishopric founded in IV century AD. At the falling of Western Roman Empire, the city was conquered by Franks and included into the Neustria Reign founded in 511 AD and Tours received support from the Merovingian dinasty, especially when Saint Gregory was bishop of the city and could restore the cathedral and the abbey.

With the renovatio imperii of Charlemagne Tours was honoured by the Carolingian dinasty and with the 843 AD Treaty of Verdun elevated archibishop of the France reign ruled by the emperor's families for more than a century: in that period the ancient Abbey of Marmoutier became the thinking centre of the "carolingian rebirth" and was defended many times from the sacks of Vikings and Arabs on the city. From X century AD Tours developed as political and religious centre in the ancient roman castrum that was seat of the cathedral and the castle, owned by the Counts of Tours and Anjou of the Anjou-Plantagenet dinasty until 1204 AD when it passed to the Capetingian family and followed the history and destiny of the France kingdom, becoming its capital from 1461 AD with king Louis XI settled and died in the castle of Plessis-les-Tours. On the other bank of the Loire, the still existing ancient Marmoutier abbey became centre of the enclosure called Châteauneuf and economic power of all Touraine, controlling all the Tours and Touraine private mansions and castles and their countrysides today famous as "Châteaux of the Loire". During the French religious war in XVI century AD, Tours was a catholic stronghold but avoided the massacre of protestants and lose its political power when the Court of France came back to Paris, starting its decline.

In Modern age, Tours remained the principle bischopric in the northern France and a strategic centre of communications, thanks to the arrival of the railway in the XIX century AD and the dynamic conurbation, economically oriented towards the service sector. During the World Wars Tours became seat of the American and Nazis troups, destroyed by bombings in 1940 AD and water severated, then the city was rebuilt from Fifties and Seventies thanks to a "conservation area" policy for the safeguarding of historic city centres, that provided the university so that Tours today is a main universitarian city in Europe. Tours is known as "White and Blue city" and its historical centre called "the Vieux-Tours" is enlisted in the UNESCO Wordl Heritage. Nowadays, Tours is a medium size town in the north-east of France and included in the Centre-Val de Loire region, whose patron is Saint Martin an ancient bishop of the city who founded the most ancient monastir of France at Marmoutier and whose cape relics was conserved by Merovingian kings and gave the name to Capetingian dinasty.

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