Online Encyclopedia

ABBEVILLE

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V01, Page 11 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ABBEVILLE  , a

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town of
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northern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of
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Somme, on the Somme, 12 M. from its mouth in the
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English Channel, and 28 m . N.W. of
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Amiens on the Northern railway . Pop . (1901) 18,519; (1906) 18,971 . It lies in a pleasant and fertile valley, and is built partly on an island and partly on both sides of the
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river, which is canalized from this point to the estuary . The streets are narrow, and the houses are mostly picturesque old structures, built of wood, with many quaint gables and dark archways . The most remarkable
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building is the church of St Vulfran, erected in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries . The
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original design was not completed . The
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nave has only two bays and the choir is insignificant . The
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facade is a magnificent specimen of the flamboyant
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Gothic style, flanked by two Gothic towers . Abbeville has several other old churches and an hotel-de-ville, with a belfry of the 13th century . Among the numerous old houses, that known as the Maison de Francois Ie', which is the most remarkable,
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dates from the 16th century .

There is a statue of

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Admiral Courbet (d . 1885) in the chief square . The public institutions include tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, and a communal college . Abbeville is an important
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industrial centre; in addition to its old-established manufacture of
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cloth, hemp-spinning,
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sugar-making,
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ship-building and locksmiths'
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work are carried on; there is active commerce in grain, but the
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port has little trade . Abbeville, the chief town of the
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district of Ponthieu, first appears in
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history during the 9th century . At that time belonging to the abbey of St Riquier, it was afterwards governed by the
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counts of Ponthieu . Together with that county, it came into the possession of the
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Alencon and other French families, and after- ABBEY I I wards into that of the house of Castille, from whom by
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marriage it fell in 1272 to
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Edward I., king of England . French and English were its masters by turns till 1435 when, by the treaty of
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Arras, it was ceded to the duke of
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Burgundy . In 1477 it was annexed by Louis XI., king of France, and was held by two illegitimate branches of the royal
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family in the 16th and 17th centuries, being in 1696 reunited to the
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crown .

End of Article: ABBEVILLE
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ABBESS (Lat. abbatissa, fem. form of abbas, abbot)
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ABBEY (Lat. abbatia; from Syr. abba, father)

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