Last modified: 2019-09-07 by ivan sache
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Flag of Noyers-sur-Serein - Image by Ivan Sache & Marc Almeras, 6 March 2010
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The municipality of Noyers-sur-Serein (741 inhabitants - Nucériens - in 2006; 3,566 ha; tourism website) is located 20 km south ot Tonnerre. A well-preserved medieval village, Noyers is one of the 151 members of the association Les Plus Beaux Villages de France.
Noyers is said, without the least evidence, to have been founded
either by a local Gaul king or, as Lucida, by a lord Lucidorius.
Anyway, a powerful feudal lineage emerged in Noyers in the 11th
century, whose oldest known member is Milon (d. after 1078). Guido of
Noyers (d. 1194), appointed Archbishop of Sens in 1177, attended on 1 November 1179 the first coronation of King Philip II Augustus in
Reims and consecrated himself the King on 29 May 1180 in Saint-Denis.
His brother Hugh of Noyers (d. 1206), appointed Bishop of Auxerre in
1183, built in the village "one of the proudest castles in France",
which was besieged in 1217 by Blanche of Castile, to no avail.
Milon X of Noyers (1271-1350), aka Miles the Great, was erected
Marshal of France in 1303 and Marshal of Burgundy in 1341. A refined
diplomat and a main councillor of King Philip IV, he recommended on 26
August 1346 the king to postpone the attack of the English camp at
Crécy; this was, however, too late to stop the troops and to avoid the
disastrous defeat of the French cavalry.
In 1419, Miles' lineage extincted and Noyers was incorporated into the
Duchy of Burgundy. Louis I, Prince of Condé (1530-1569), also Count of
Noyers, made of the village a Huguenot stronghold. After the failed
Tumult of Amboise (1560), the Prince entrenched himself in Noyers,
from which he was expelled by Catherine de' Medici in 1568.
For a while the den of Antoine Duprat, Baron of Vitteaux, and his band
of rascals, the castle was dismantled in 1599 by order of King Henry
IV, following the capitulation of the baron.
Nothing significant happened in the village until 1710, when Charles-
Philippe d'Albert (1695-1758), the fourth Duke of Luynes, married the
last Condé heiress, Louise-Léontine de Bourbon-Condé, and revamped the
village.
The flag of Noyers-sur-Serein (photo) is blue with a
yellow eagle surmounted by a mural crown.
The flag is a banner of the municipal arms, "Azure an eagle displayed or
surmounted by a mural crown of the same".
According to Étienne Patou, the ancient Noyers lineage bore "Azure an eagle displayed or".
Pascal Vagnat & Ivan Sache, 6 March 2010