Athis-Val-de-Rouvre
Athis-Val-de-Rouvre is a commune in the department of Orne, northwestern France. The municipality was established on 1 January 2016 by merger of the former communes of Athis-de-l'Orne, Bréel, La Carneille, Notre-Dame-du-Rocher, Ronfeugerai, Ségrie-Fontaine and Les Tourailles. Communes of the Orne department
Coupe de France
The Coupe de France known as the Coupe Charles Simon, is the premier knockout cup competition in French football organized by the French Football Federation. It was first held in 1917 and is open to all amateur and professional football clubs in France, including clubs based in the overseas departments and territories. Between 1917 and 1919, the competition was called the Coupe Charles Simon, in tribute of Charles Simon, a French sportsman and the founder of the French Interfederal Committee, who died in 1915 while serving in World War I; the final is played at the Stade de France and the winner qualifies for the group stage of the UEFA Europa League and a place in the Trophée des Champions match. A concurrent women's tournament is held, the Coupe de France Féminine. Combined with random draws and one-off matches, the Coupe de France can be difficult for the bigger clubs to win; the competition is beneficial to the amateur clubs as it forces higher-ranked clubs professional clubs, to play as the away team when drawn against lower-league opposition if they are competing two levels below them.
Despite the advantages, only two amateur clubs have reached the final since professionalism was introduced in French football in 1932: Calais RUFC in 2000 and Les Herbiers VF in 2018. Two clubs from outside Ligue 1 have won the competition, Le Havre in 1959 and Guingamp in 2009; the reigning champions are Paris Saint-Germain who defeated Les Herbiers VF in the final of the 2017–18 competition. 8,506 clubs competed in the 2017-18 edition. The Coupe de France was created on 15 January 1917 by the French Interfederal Committee, an early predecessor of the French Football Federation; the idea was pushed by the federation's general secretary Henri Delaunay and under union sacrée, the competition was declared open to all clubs and professional, though professionalism in French football at the time was non-existent. The major clubs in France objected to the notion. However, the federation declared the competition would remain as is. Due to the minimal requirements to enter, the first competition featured 48 clubs.
By 1948, the number had increased to 1,000 and at present, the competition features more than 7,000 clubs. Due to the initial increase in clubs, the federation created preliminary rounds beginning with the 1919–20 season; the following season, they added a second preliminary round. As of today, the competition contains eight regional rounds with some regions containing as much as ten; the first Coupe de France victors were Olympique de Pantin who defeated FC Lyon 3–0 at the Stade de la Légion Saint-Michel in Paris in front of 2,000 spectators. The following year, the competition was shifted to the Parc des Princes and drew 10,000 supporters to the final that saw CASG Paris defeat Olympique de Paris 3–2; the competition alternated between many stadiums during its early years playing at the Stade Pershing from 1920–1924 before switching to the Stade Olympique Yves-du-Manoir in Colombes. The competition lasted a decade there before returning to the Parc des Princes in 1938. In 1941, the final was held at the Stade de Paris.
The following year, the final returned to Colombes and remained there until moving to the Parc des Princes permanently following its renovation, which made it the largest in terms of attendance in France. There are vastly more amateur than professional clubs in France, the competition produces surprises; the best performance by an amateur club in the competition is awarded the Petit Poucet Plaque. One of the competition's biggest upsets occurred in February 1957 when Algerian club SCU El Biar defeated Stade de Reims who had players such as Robert Jonquet, Michel Hidalgo, Léon Glovacki, Just Fontaine. One of the more recent successes of an amateur club occurred during the 1999–2000 competition when Championnat de France amateur club Calais RUFC reached the final. Calais, composed of doctors, dock workers, office clerks, started the competition in the 5th round and, after defeating fellow amateurs, beat clubs Lille, Langon-Castets, Cannes and Bordeaux to advance to the final. Calais' road to the final was a prime example of the major advantages amateur clubs had with the club playing all of its matches at home beginning with the Round of 64 match.
In the final the club lost to Nantes 2–1 despite scoring first. Professional clubs have continued to express their displeasure with the advantages amateur clubs receive in the competition with many of their complaints being directly associated with their hosting of matches. Coupe de France rules explicitly state that teams drawn first during the draw are granted hosting duties for the round, however, if the club drawn second is competing two levels below the club drawn first the hosting duties will be given to the second club drawn. Many clubs have subsequently complained that, due to the amateur clubs not having adequate funds, the stadiums they play in are unkempt; the resulting differences led to the clubs represented by the Ligue de Football Professionnel forming their own cup competition, the Coupe de la Ligue. More amateur clubs have begun to move to more established stadiums for their Coupe de France matches with their primary reason being to earn more money at the gate due to more established stadiums having the ability to carry more spectators.
The winner of the Coupe de France trophy holds on to the trophy for one year to put in on display at their headquarters before returning it to the French Football Federation. In the early 1980s, the cup was retrieved by the authorities quickly. Since 1927, the President of France has always attended the cup final and
Les Authieux-du-Puits
Les Authieux-du-Puits is a commune in the Orne department in northwestern France. Communes of the Orne department INSEE
Crypt
A crypt is a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or other building. It contains coffins, sarcophagi, or religious relics. Crypts were found below the main apse of a church, such as at the Abbey of Saint-Germain en Auxerre, but were located beneath chancel and transepts as well. Churches were raised high to accommodate a crypt at the ground level, such as St Michael's Church in Hildesheim, Germany. "Crypt" developed as an alternative form of the Latin "vault" as it was carried over into Late Latin, came to refer to the ritual rooms found underneath church buildings. It served as a vault for storing important and/or sacred items. "Crypta", however, is the female form of crypto "hidden". The earliest known origin of both is in the Ancient Greek κρύπτω, the first person singular indicative of the verb "to conceal, to hide". First known in the early Christian period, in particular North Africa at Chlef and Djemila in Algeria, Byzantium at Saint John Studio in Constantinople. Where Christian churches have been built over mithraea, the mithraeum has been adapted to serve as a crypt.
The famous crypt at Old St. Peter's Basilica, developed about the year 600, as a means of affording pilgrims a view of Saint Peter's tomb, which lay, according to the Roman fashion, directly below the high altar; the tomb was made accessible through an underground passageway beneath the sanctuary, where pilgrims could enter at one stair, pass by the tomb and exit, without interrupting the clerical community's service at the altar directly above. Crypts were introduced into Frankish church building in the mid-8th century, as a feature of its Romanization, their popularity spread more in western Europe under Charlemagne. Examples from this period are most common in the early medieval West, for example in Burgundy at Dijon and Tournus. After the 10th century the early medieval requirements of a crypt faded, as church officials permitted relics to be held in the main level of the church. By the Gothic period crypts were built, however burial vaults continued to be constructed beneath churches and referred to as crypts.
In more modern terms, a crypt is most a stone chambered burial vault used to store the deceased. Crypts are found in cemeteries and under public religious buildings, such as churches or cathedrals, but are occasionally found beneath mausolea or chapels on personal estates. Wealthy or prestigious families will have a'family crypt' or'vault' in which all members of the family are interred. Many royal families, for example, have vast crypts containing the bodies of dozens of former royalty. In some localities an above ground crypt is more called a mausoleum, which refers to any elaborate building intended as a burial place, for one or any number of people. There was a trend in the 19th century of building crypts on medium to large size family estates subtly placed on the edge of the grounds or more incorporated into the cellar. After a change of owner these are blocked up and the house deeds will not allow this area to be re-developed. Catacomb Mausoleum Tumulus Ossuary Tomb Cemetery Media related to Crypt at Wikimedia Commons Chisholm, Hugh, ed..
"Crypt". Encyclopædia Britannica. Cambridge University Press
Perche
Perche is a former province of France, best known for its forests and, for the past two centuries, for the Percheron draft horse breed. Until the Revolution, Perche was bounded by four ancient provinces of northwest France: Maine, Orléanais and Beauce. Since the Revolution, it has been located within the present-day departments of Orne and Eure-et-Loir, with small parts now in the neighboring departments of Eure, Loir-et-Cher and Sarthe. Perche is known by the following ancient Latin and French toponymic designations: saltus Particus, silva Perticus before the VIth century, pagus quem Pertensem vocant and pagus pertensis in the VIth century, pagus Perticus no date and c. 815, Particus saltus in the XIth century, silva Perticus in 1045, Perche in 1160 - 1174 and in 1308, Perche in 1238, foresta de Pertico in 1246, where the names Perticus, Pertensis and Pertico denote Perche, the terms silva and foresta mean forest, saltus designates a wooded mountainous region, wildlife refuge, pagus means country, silva pertica refers to a tall-treed forest.
Before the French Revolution, Perche was bounded by the following ancient provinces: Normandy to the north and west, Maine to the west and Orléanais to the east and south. The greater part of the district is nowadays occupied by a semicircle of heights, known as les collines du Perche, stretching from Moulins-la-Marche on the northwest to Montmirail on the south. Although not part of the Huisne River watershed and named Mortagne-sur-Huisne at the Revolution, Mortagne-au-Perche is now considered unofficial administrative capital of the Perche pays area; the Perche hills are the source of numerous small rivers that feed the watersheds of the Seine River. The following table lists the principal towns in Perche province along with the distance of any given town to Condé-sur-Huisne, situated near Perche's geographic center: Nearby towns in the four ancient provinces along the periphery of Perche province include: L'Aigle, Chartres, Châteaudun, Le Mans, Alençon and Sées. Agriculture and tourism constitute the economic focus of Perche's natural region, the largest parts of which are located within the departments of Orne and Eure-et-Loir, in the regions of Normandy and Centre-Val de Loire, respectively.
The Percheron breed of draft horses originated in Perche's Huisne river valley and is identified throughout the world as the Perche's most well known symbol. Apples and pears are grown throughout the district. Perche's prehistory is manifested by megaliths and prehistoric tools of flint and iron. See Lords and dukes of Perche Perche was a region between other regions: "... the Perche was not based on an existing administratative unit, such as its neighbors, the counties of Maine and Chartres, nor was it coterminous with an ecclesiastical jurisdiction. It grew up at the margins of several larger units, there was no major population focus nor great religious centre such as a cathedral or ancient abbey within it, it owed its existence to the ambition and energy of successive members of a lineage of warrior elite." The Romans found possession of the Perche forests was necessary for the conquest of the vast fr:Armorique and Normandie territories extending from the Loire estuary off the Atlantic coast to Dieppe off the English Channel.
Until the Viking or Norman invasions in the IXth century, Perche was a remote area bounded on all sides by the following Gaul-Roman territories and Celtic peoples: to the east and south the Carnutes people in Chartrain territory based in Chartres. These territories still have vestiges dating from Roman times to geographical limits of present day dioceses of Chartres, Evreux, Le Mans and Sées. In the Middle Ages, the County of Perche was situated between Normandy and Orléanais, it was controlled by an independent line of counts. By the 12th century, two large families contended for control of the Perche region: the Talvas of Bellême and the Rotrou of Nogent-le-Rotrou. In 1114, Rotrou III annexed Bellême. In 1226, Count Geoffroy V would have been a leader of the Fourth Crusade had he not died before its departure to the Near East; this end of the Rotrou dynasty led to the region's annexation to the Crown of France. At this time, the crown divided part of the region to create the county of Alençon.
After 1325, both counties were held by a member or members of a cadet branch of the House of Valois. During the Hundred Years War, partisans of England plundered Perche, destroyed its nobility, burned many castles and abbeys. In 1449, free from English domination, Perche began reconstruction. Upon the death of Alençon's last duke, rule returned to and remained under to the French crown, was granted only sporadically thereafter. In the three decades starting in 1632, a large proportion of immigrants to New France came from Perche, in what has been called the Percheron immigration movement. Many Percherons were thus recruited to work in seigneuries being establishing along the Saint
Orne
Orne is a department in the northwest of France, named after the river Orne. Orne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution, on 4 March 1790, it was created from parts of the former provinces of Perche. Birth place of Charlotte Corday and assassin of Jean-Paul Marat. Orne is in the region of Normandy neighbouring Eure, Eure-et-Loir, Manche and Calvados, it is the only department of Normandy to be landlocked. The largest town by a considerable margin is the prefecture, Alençon, an administrative and commercial centre for what is still an overwhelmingly rural department. There are no large industrial centres: agriculture remains the economic focus of Orne; the inhabitants of the department are called Ornais. The recorded population level peaked at 443,688 in 1836. Declining farm incomes and the lure of better prospects in the overseas empire led to a sustained reduction in population levels in many rural departments, by the time of the 1936 census the recorded population stood at just 269,331.
Once motor car ownership started to surge in the 1960s employment opportunities became less restricted and by 2008 the population level had recovered a little to 292,282. The two major cities in the Orne are Alençon, the prefecture, Flers. Alençon is the chief town of the Orne department. Camembert, the village where Camembert cheese is made, is located in Orne; the local dialect is known as Augeron. Cantons of the Orne department Communes of the Orne department Arrondissements of the Orne department Haras National du Pin, a French stud farm Prefecture website General Council website Orne at Curlie Orne Tourism Life in the Orne, WW1 with images
Defensive wall
A defensive wall is a fortification used to protect a city, town or other settlement from potential aggressors. In ancient to modern times, they were used to enclose settlements; these are referred to as city walls or town walls, although there were walls, such as the Great Wall of China, Walls of Benin, Hadrian's Wall, Anastasian Wall, the Cyclopean Wall Rajgir and the metaphorical Atlantic Wall, which extended far beyond the borders of a city and were used to enclose regions or mark territorial boundaries. In mountainous terrain, defensive walls such as letzis were used in combination with castles to seal valleys from potential attack. Beyond their defensive utility, many walls had important symbolic functions – representing the status and independence of the communities they embraced. Existing ancient walls are always masonry structures, although brick and timber-built variants are known. Depending on the topography of the area surrounding the city or the settlement the wall is intended to protect, elements of the terrain such as rivers or coastlines may be incorporated in order to make the wall more effective.
Walls may only be crossed by entering the appropriate city gate and are supplemented with towers. The practice of building these massive walls, though having its origins in prehistory, was refined during the rise of city-states, energetic wall-building continued into the medieval period and beyond in certain parts of Europe. Simpler defensive walls of earth or stone, thrown up around hillforts, early castles and the like, tend to be referred to as ramparts or banks. From early history to modern times, walls have been a near necessity for every city. Uruk in ancient Sumer is one of the world's oldest known walled cities. Before that, the proto-city of Jericho in the West Bank in Palestine had a wall surrounding it as early as the 8th millennium BC; the Assyrians deployed large labour forces to build new palaces and defensive walls. Some settlements in the Indus Valley Civilization were fortified. By about 3500 BC, hundreds of small farming villages dotted the Indus floodplain. Many of these settlements had planned streets.
The stone and mud brick houses of Kot Diji were clustered behind massive stone flood dykes and defensive walls, for neighboring communities quarreled about the control of prime agricultural land. Mundigak in present-day south-east Afghanistan has defensive walls and square bastions of sun dried bricks. Babylon was one of the most famous cities of the ancient world as a result of the building program of Nebuchadnezzar, who expanded the walls and built the Ishtar Gate. Exceptions were few, but neither ancient Sparta nor ancient Rome had walls for a long time, choosing to rely on their militaries for defense instead; these fortifications were simple constructions of wood and earth, which were replaced by mixed constructions of stones piled on top of each other without mortar. In Central Europe, the Celts built large fortified settlements which the Romans called oppida, whose walls seem influenced by those built in the Mediterranean; the fortifications were continuously improved. In ancient Greece, large stone walls had been built in Mycenaean Greece, such as the ancient site of Mycenae.
In classical era Greece, the city of Athens built a long set of parallel stone walls called the Long Walls that reached their guarded seaport at Piraeus. Large rammed earth walls were built in ancient China since the Shang Dynasty, as the capital at ancient Ao had enormous walls built in this fashion. Although stone walls were built in China during the Warring States, mass conversion to stone architecture did not begin in earnest until the Tang Dynasty. Sections of the Great Wall had been built prior to the Qin Dynasty and subsequently connected and fortified during the Qin dynasty, although its present form was an engineering feat and remodeling of the Ming Dynasty; the large walls of Pingyao serve as one example. The walls of the Forbidden City in Beijing were established in the early 15th century by the Yongle Emperor; the Romans fortified their cities with mortar-bound stone walls. Among these are the extant Aurelian Walls of Rome and the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople, together with partial remains elsewhere.
These are city gates, like the Porta Nigra in Trier or Newport Arch in Lincoln. Apart from these, the early Middle Ages saw the creation of some towns built around castles; these cities were only protected by simple stone walls and more by a combination of both walls and ditches. From the 12th century AD hundreds of settlements of all sizes were founded all across Europe, which often obtained the right of fortification soon afterwards; the founding of urban centers was an important means of territorial expansion and many cities in central and eastern Europe, were founded for this purpose during the period of Eastern settlement. These cities are easy to recognise due to their regular layout and large market spaces; the fortifications of these settlements were continuously improved to reflect the current level of military development. During the Renaissance era, the Venetians raised great walls around cities threatened by the Ottoman Empire. Examples include the walled cities of Nicosia and Famagusta in Cyprus and the fortifications of Candia and Chania in Crete, which still stand.
At its simplest, a defensive wall consists of its gates. For the most part, the top of the walls were accessible, with the outside of the walls ha
United Kingdom since 1979.
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