The origins of Fontaine-Étoupefour date back to around 1000 years, which justified the proposed title for the June 1999 show, "Fountain, a thousand years under the stars".
From the previous period we only have clues: prehistoric axes, a Gallo-Roman villa occupied from the 1st to the 5th century according to archaeological excavations carried out near the current castle, finally, the path "raised", at the western border of the town, the only visible trace of this distant past.
Around the 11th-12th century, Fontaine-Étoupefour asserted itself with the construction of one or more castle mounds on the site of the castle. These fortified structures benefit from a reinforced defense thanks to wide moats fed by collected water. Further north, on the same source line, the village is established with its church dedicated to Saint Martin. The abbeys of Plessis Grimoult, Fontenay and Cordillon seem to have participated in its construction.
In the 13th century, a lord, Jean de Falaise, owned the lands of "Bananville" as a fiefdom, which apparently extended around the castle and over Eterville. A parchment details the charges of the peasants who lived there in 1285. It is surprising to find names like "Hervieu", "Gournay" "Escogues"… which still appear in the Fontaine today. There are also references to a mill and a common oven, the latter was located, according to the land register of 1826, at the intersection of rue du Moulin and… du Four!
A prestigious figure from Caen, Nicolas Le Valois d'Escoville: the magnificent hotel he had built, around 1530, opposite the Saint Pierre church bearing his name - acquired the seigneury of Fontaine. He withdrew there to, it seems, to indulge in alchemy experiments by using for that a furnace well "sealed", that is to say hermetically closed. His son, Louis, converted to Protestantism, undertook to complete the "châtelet" whose current entrance pavilion serves as home to the count and the countess Henry Jégou du Laz, descendants of Le Valois d'Escoville, by construction, in 1583, a large house leaning to the south against a corner turret which remains. This building was partially demolished a century and a half ago following a fire.
At the time of Louis Le Valois, in the years 1570-1585, Fontaine experienced, as everywhere in the kingdom, clashes of religious origin. The Reformation touched the University of Caen, and seduced certain aristocratic and bourgeois circles. More individualistic aspirations, sensitive even in the countryside, called into question social cohesion, shaking up ideas, even threatening the economic order. Verbal attacks, physical violence lead influential Catholics such as the Comte de Matignon, governor of the province or Charles de Bourguéville, magistrate from Caen, to moderate their ardor. The assassination of the leader of the Catholic League, François de Guise, then the accession to the throne of the Protestant Henri de Navarre, who became Catholic king under the name of Henri IV, will restore calm with the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes.
The situation is gradually improving. The church of Fontaine was enriched in 1621 with a superb painting representing a crucifixion surrounded by Saint Martin and Saint Sebastian. We honor the statues of Saint Laurent and the enigmatic Saint Hermes. During the reign of Louis XIV, the seigneury was transmitted by marriage to the Le Vicomte de Blangy family. A drawing from 1669 describes their home, an imposing fortified complex with a drawbridge and corner towers. Beyond, the outbuildings must have included a chapel, a dovecote and even, later, a refinement of the Age of Enlightenment, a cooler! The traces of these elements are no longer visible but their existence is attested by the name of plots listed in a survey of 1790.
At the end of the 18th century, the situation deteriorates again. A representative of the parish noted, not without emphasis, in October 1788 that "the inhabitants of this parish are poor, and there are few among them who are able to use more than an acre of land. Most of them are masons, roofers, carpenters and day laborers whose hand labor is not always enough to meet the needs of their large families. Notwithstanding the help that the Marquis de Blangy had given them and the care taken by the vigilant pastor who governs this parish, several of them perished there, leaving women and children, so to speak, without any resources and those who have escaped from the arms of death will not be able to work for a long time ".
