Déols

The Abbey of Déols

Coat of arms

Déols

Location within Centre-Val de Loire region

Déols

Coordinates: 46°49′51″N 1°42′24″E / 46.8308°N 1.7067°ECoordinates: 46°49′51″N 1°42′24″E / 46.8308°N 1.7067°E

Country

Châteauroux-Est

Government

• Mayor (2014–2020)

Michel Blondeau

Area¹

31.74 km² (12.25 sq mi)

Population (2013)²

7,889

• Density

250/km² (640/sq mi)

Time zone

CET (UTC+1)

• Summer (DST)

CEST (UTC+2)

INSEE/Postal code

36063 /36130

Elevation

140–165 m (459–541 ft)
(avg. 150 m or 490 ft)

¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

²Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once.

¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

Déols is a commune in the department of Indre in the Centre-Val de Loire Region of central France.

Déols is an ancient town with a famous Benedictine abbey, Abbaye Notre-Dame-du-Bourg-Dieu. Today it is somewhat overshadowed by the nearby city of Châteauroux, which faces it across the river Indre.

It preserves a fine Romanesque tower and other remains of the abbey church, once the most important in the duchy of Berry.

Toponyms revealing the presence of former Neolithic dolmens (Grandes and Petites Pierres Folles), near the place where a Gaulish village of the Bituriges was established on the plateau above the resurgent springs of the Montet and the river Indre, then nearby Gallo-Roman vestiges (fanum) confirm the age of Vicus Dolensis or Dolus, moved by the Romans next to the antique ford and later bridge over the river Indre of the road from Paris to Toulouse. In 469 or 470 the Visigoths defeated the army of the Briton king Riothamus at the battle of Déols, the victory carrying with it the supremacy over the district of Berry. But it was only during the Middle Ages that, through the pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint Ludre, whose marble carved sarcophagus brought from Rome in the late 3rd century stands with the limestone one of his father Saint Léocade in the crypts of the parish church of St Stephen built upon the graves of the Roman senator and his son, later, one of the steps on the route from Paris to Santiago de Compostela, then through the lords of Déols and Châteauroux that Déols acquired its significance.

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Wikipedia