Thury, Yonne


Thury is a commune in the Yonne department in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in north-central France. Its inhabitants are called Thurycois and Thurycoises.

Name

Thury's is attested as Tauriacus in 578 ; Tauriacum in 913 ; of Thuraco in 1369 ; Thoriaco of the fourteenth century. Tauriacus originally referred to a field or property of one Taurus, possibly Taruos in Gaulish. The Gallo-Roman suffix -acus or -acum is of Gaulish origin and indicates a person's property. This suffix often evolved into -y in many French place names, in Thury's region and far beyond. An alternative etymology would be from the appellative turra, of pre-Latin and possibly Gaulish origin and the root of many toponyms.
Thury's hamlets include Colangette, Gémigny, Grangette, La Forêt, Le Boichet, Les Grands Moulins, Moulery, and Panny.

Geography and geology

The altitude of the village of Thury is 225m. The higher localities on Thury's territory are: Les Grands Moulins, at 327.5m; La Justice, at 327m; Le Moulin Buteau, at 325m; Le Roichat, at 303.6m; Le Bois de Mont, at 301.2m; and Marchat, at 292m.
Beyond Thury's boundaries, the highest points in the surroundings are at Taingy, 338m;, 373m; and the old mill of the Montagne des Alouettes on the territory of Sougères, 366.8m. A local belief that the latter's name is derived from the Roman Legio V Alaudae is no longer held true, and the name appears to stem from the locale's feudal history.
Chalk quarries near the settlement of Bois de Thury were exploited from 1850 to 1940.

History

Prehistoric traces of human presence in Thury, determined by finds of flint remains, go back to the Neanderthals about 40,000 years BCE. Neolithic objects discovered by Mr Creusard, including a polished stone pestle that was used to crush grain, are held in the small museum inside the church's tower. Burgundian palaeographer reported the finding in 1862 of bronze objects from the Bronze Age in Thury's hamlet of Gémigny.

Thury before the Hundred Years' War

The Roman road from Auxerre to Entrains-sur-Nohain forms part of the boundary between the respective territories of Sougères-en-Puisaye and Thury. Local tradition holds that the parish was created in 432 CE by Germanus of Auxerre.
In the late 6th century, Thury was mentioned among the thirty churches visited every January by Aunarius, bishop of Auxerre, coming just after Interannis and ahead of Livadiacus.
The land of Thury was part of the battlefield of the Battle of Fontenoy. Echoes of the battle survive in toponyms around the village to this day. For example, the name of the nearby hill and wood of Roichat refers to King Charles the Bald, who had established his temporary base camp there.
After 1000 CE, lordship over Thury alternated between the County of Auxerre, its Bishop, the Count of Champagne, the Count of Nevers, and occasionally the Duke of Burgundy.

Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Era

Like much of the surrounding region, Thury suffered greatly during the Hundred Years' War. Between 1404 and 1415, the region was in the hands of the Duke of Burgundy. Peace came back gradually in the second half of 15th century and Thury was repopulated by newcomers from other parts of the Kingdom of France. The village castle was rebuilt around that time. The church was rebuilt in the late 15th century and completed in 1503, with the portal sculpted in 1521. In 1542, Francis I granted Thury by letters patent the right to hold a weekly market and three fairs a year, which was reaffirmed by Henry III in 1576 and Louis XIV in 1669. The 16th century was arguably the high point of Thury's development, and population appears to have declined gradually in the following centuries.
The hamlets of Grangette and Colangette, despite being geographically very close to Thury, where under separate jurisdiction as lands of the Abbey of Saint-Germain d'Auxerre and were only reunited with the rest of the village in 1710.
In 1764, a fire ravaged much of Thury, even though the village castle and church were spared.

Lordship of Thury after the Hundred Years' War

It is not entirely clear whether Thury was included in the domains acquired around 1440 by Jacques Coeur from John Jacob, Marquis of Montferrat,, which included nearby Saint-Fargeau and Sainte-Colombe. In any case, following Jacques Coeur's downfall in 1451, became lord of Thury and was succeeded in 1488 by his son Jehan, whose sculpted arms are still visible on the church's tower. The lordship was then mostly transmitted through the female line, as was often the case in the early modern period:
The lordship of Thury fragmented in the mid-17th century and was eventually acquired in 1667-1668 by Louis du Deffand, a high-ranking military officer, Marquess of Lalande and lord of Sementron, Fontenoy, Saints, Lain, and other locales. His son Jean-Baptiste du Deffand completed the territorial consolidation in 1710 with the acquisition of Grangette, Colangette and Banny. Of his five children, one was the husband of Madame du Deffand; another, Jeanne Antoinette Louise, in 1716 married Joseph François de Castellane de Lauris des Gérards de Vassadel who thus acquired the lordship of Thury. Their son Louis Joseph Marie André Gabriel de Castellane, born in 1738, was the last lord of Thury.

Since 1800

As part of the Waterloo campaign, Thury was occupied by Austrian Hussars from July 29 to August 5, 1815, and then briefly by the Bavarian Army.
In 1840, the municipal council under mayor Edme Rouger decided to relocate the cemetery from the village square to its current location in the outskirts. The new cemetery enclosure was completed in 1844.
There was unrest in Thury following the 1851 French coup d'état, as in neighboring places in Nivernais and Puisaye. The leaders of the uprising against the coup were pardoned in 1852.
World War I took a heavy toll like in most French villages. 38 local casualties are listed on Thury's war monument.
Electrification was conducted in the 1920s, and running water was installed in the late 1930s with the construction of four reservoirs around Thury.
Thury was again occupied by German invaders in June 1940 during World War II. Because it had been equipped with running water ahead of the surrounding villages, a German company camped there, in the park of the Angilbert property. The Kommandantur was established in the former post office. An Avro Lancaster Allied bomber on its way to targets in Germany was downed by a Focke-Wulf fighter aircraft above Taingy in the night of 25-26 July 1944, leaving no survivors. Another British plane was downed above the hamlet of Colangette.
The main organised resistance in Thury's surroundings was the Maquis 3, which started in March-April 1944 in a wood north of Saint-Sauveur. This maquis then had to move east and was established near Thury on the Montagne des Alouettes in late July 1944. About 250-strong, the group had weapons parachuted by Allied planes. The village was liberated in August 1944.
Sewage was completed between 1959 and 1962.
Thury had a resident doctor during most of the 19th and 20th centuries. The last village doctor retired in 2011.

Local government

The municipality of Thury was created in 1793. It has always been part of the départment of Yonne. Initially it was the seat of its own canton, part of the arrondissement of Saint-Fargeau. In 1801, Thury became part of the canton of Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye and the arrondissement of Auxerre, as is still the case.

List of mayors of Thury

The local economy is predominantly agricultural. Thury also has several shops and services and several companies established on its territory as well as guest houses in the village and its hamlets of Grangette and Moulery. Thury retains a primary school.

Heritage

Church of Saint-Julien

Thury's church is dedicated to Julian of Brioude and was built around 1500, possibly the third or fourth on this location. It was designated a Monument historique by order of 4 August 1970. It is representative of the late Gothic architecture of the region.
The original contract for the sculpture of the front portal is preserved in the of Yonne in Auxerre. It was signed on 9 July 1521 between mason Anthony Cas and "ymageur" François Faulconnier at Auxerre. The wooden doors are from the 17th century and were restored in 1751. Three statues of St Peter, St Paul and Jesus Christ, by Parisian sculptor Jean-Georges Poutriquet, were added in 1975.
The relics of Saint Caradoc, known locally as Caradeuc or Caradeu, are attested since the early 17th century. They were locally believed to have been preserved in 1587 by inhabitants of Thury from the sacking of the church of Donzy, where they had been held since 1180; however, the veracity of this tradition has been questioned. Relics of the church patron Julian of Brioude were donated from Auxerre and Brioude in 1896.
The church's stained glass windows were created in the second half of the 19th century, some by Auguste Charlemagne of Toulouse in 1870 and others in the 1880s.
A small museum was opened in 2005 inside the church's tower. A major renovation of the church's tile roofing was conducted in 2015-2016.
The nearby clergy house was rebuilt several times, last in 1843.

Village castle

The village castle, or fortified mansion, was built around the mid-15th century as Thury was starting to recover from the Hundred Years' War. It remained the abode of the local lords of Thury until the 18th century, when absentee lords transformed it into a hostel., Bishop of Auxerre, stayed there in 1760 to signal his displeasure with the local priest, who was a Jansenist. In 1768 Louis Joseph Marie André Gabriel de Castellane, the last lord of Thury, took residence there again, but in 1786 moved permanently to his Parisian Hôtel particulier on. The property was sold in 1800 to the former lord of nearby Lainsecq. In 1849, the local Briot family purchased it from the family of former mayor Edme Rouger, and still owns and occupies it.
A separate property, on the road towards Saint-Sauveur, is also known locally as the Château de Thury. It was built in the late 19th century by Thury-born businessman Casimir Félix Angilbert, who was the village's mayor from 1893 to 1913. Angilbert also sponsored the creation in 1900 of a mall of chestnut trees on the other side of the road, leading to the house of his cousin Alix.

World War I Monument

The World War I monument stands in the middle of the village square. It was inaugurated in 1925 after six years of preparations. The statue of a resolute Poilu is a cast of Charles-Henri Pourquet's sculpture, La Résistance, manufactured by the and also adopted by hundreds of other French villages for the same purpose.

Old lavoir

The village lavoir, on the road towards Saint-Sauveur, was built in the early 19th century and is well preserved.

Local activities