A prestigious Abbey:
Originally called Hubiliacum then Hubiliacus, the village took in the 10th century the name of Saint-Marcel, evangelizing the Chalon whose martyrdom took place in 177 AD to the present site of the church. In the 6th century, King of Burgundy Gontran (grand son of Clovis) established an abbey here richly endowed. The prestige and influence of this famous abbey of the High Middle Ages were exceptional, but the Great Invasions Saint-Marcel not spared during the centuries that followed. The abbey, partially destroyed, then called the Order of Cluny in the 10th century.
Cluniac priory became the monastery of Saint-Marcel where Abelard died in 1142, however, retained its prestige and power. The dispersion of Church property in 1789 will not erode the sense of unity that the radiation of the Abbey of Saint-Marcel generated by welding the early village communities.
The footprint of gardening:
Market gardening, which has developed Saint-Marcel from the late 19th century, marked the landscape and mentality of the town today. Favored by fertile soil and mild climate, the cultivation of vegetables Saint-Marcel has mostly benefited from the proximity of a market Chalon booming at the time of the Industrial Revolution. But production of Saint-Marcel, boosted by the inventiveness of gardeners ahead of their time will soon be exported further and further.
Market gardening is at its peak in the 1960s, when the powerful Union Maraîchère sells its products throughout France. But the aging farm population was then led to the decline of this activity. A high quality horticultural production (chrysanthemum) was completed in the 1970s, unable to halt the gradual disappearance of agriculture Saint-Marcel. The planning of the town, however, still bears the marks of this tradition that Saint-Marcel Garden City intends to preserve the face of changing business, now mostly related to services and industry.
Pierre Abelard and Heloise:
Who knows now the philosopher Peter Abelard? There are a street Saint-Marcel Abelard, intellectual property reference for a joint industrious. Yet it is here that there are over 800 years, the most literate man in his time, the keenest mind of his era, ended his days. At the end of his life, he is condemned by the pope for his innovative ideas too: he wants to go to Rome to plead his case directly to the Pope. But it is exhausted, physically and morally, by the misunderstanding he had suffered for so long. On the road to Rome, he stopped at Cluny. Peter the Venerable, Abbot of the abbey and great admirer of Abelard, offered him hospitality before sending it to rest at Saint-Marcel, where "the air is nice and mild climate.
Thence to the end, it will continue to write, study and meditate. He died in 1142 at the age of 63 years at his desk, as Peter the Venerable wrote to her who was his wife, Heloise, abbess of the Paraclete. This mythical couple, whose story has survived for centuries, had a son. And they better understood their independence of mind and scientific curiosity when they know that it was named "Astrolabe". Separated in life, Abelard and Heloise were reunited in death at Pere Lachaise cemetery. And at their feet, nine centuries later, there are still fresh roses ...
