Last modified: 2010-11-13 by ivan sache
Keywords: meurthe-et-moselle | vandoeuvre-les-nancy | eagle (white) | alerion | staff (yellow) | acorns: 2 (yellow) | letter: v (white) |
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![[Flag of Vandoeuvre]](../images/f/fr-54-vn.gif)
Municipal flag of Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy - Image by Arnaud Leroy, 12 May 2005
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The municipality of Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy (32,473 inhabitants - Vandopériens) is located in the south of the city of Nancy, the former capital city of the Duchy of Lorraine.
Like every village in Lorraine and Belgium, Vandœuvre was successively settled in the Neolithic, Celtic, Gallo-Roman, German and Merovingian times. The etymology of Vandœuvre is still disputed. The Celtic name of the settlement could have been Vindobra or Vindobriga, Vindos' Mount; most historians accept this etymology, Vindos being a Celtic ruler. The Latin etymology Vandalorum opus (Vandals' work) is unanimuously rejected today. And there is a third possibility, found in a text dated 964: Vindopera, after which the inhabitants of the city were named, and which could refer to grapevine, grown in Vandœuvre at that time. Vindopera is indeed the Latinized form of an older name; the Xth century text mentions Berardus of Vinopera, Count of Toul.
In the Xth century, Vandœuvre became a parish with St. Mélaine as its
patron saint. A priory depending of the powerful order of Cluny was
built there near 1000.
Vandœuvre was then incorporated to the Duchy of Lorraine. In 1477,
Duke of Burgundy Charles le Téméraire attacked his local rival, Duke of
Lorraine René de Vaudémont, who was allied with King of France Louis XI and the
Swiss cantons. Charles was killed on 4 January in the east of
Vandœuvre. The chronicles say that his body was found in a frozen pond, partially eaten by wolves.
Source: Municipal website
Ivan Sache, 12 May 2005
The municipal flag of Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy, as seen there by Pascal Vagnat, is hoisted on the city hall, along with the flags of France, the European Union and Lorraine. The flag is vertically divided green-red with the municipal coat of arms in the middle.
The municipal coat of arms of Vandoeuvre was designed in 1952 by Pierre Dié Mallet. It is:
De sinople au bâton prieural d'or issant de la pointe de l'écu, accompagné de deux lettres gothiques V d'argent surmontées de deux glands d'or; au chef consu de gueules chargé d'un alérion d'argent.
GASO gives a similar blason:
...au bâton prioral d'or mouvant de la pointe, accosté de deux lettres V gothiques d'argent surmontées chacune d'un gland aussi d'or...
Brian Timms gives the following translation:
Vert a prior's staff in pale issuant from the base or between two capital Gothic letters V argent each ensigned by an acorn of the second a chief gules an alerion argent.
Gules represent the Bishopric of Toul, on which depended Vandœuvre;
green symbolizes the fields, the gardens and the vineyards. The prior's
staff recalls the Cluny priory; the V letters recall Vindos, the
probable founder of the settlement, and the acorns stand for the
neighbouring forest of Haye. The alerion in chief is the symbol of
Lorraine.
Timms says that the two Vs stand vor Vandœuvre and Villers-lès-Nancy.
Pascal Vagnat & Ivan Sache, 12 May 2005