VILLE DE MIRECOURT

Mirecourt a city of history and art.
The first certain mention of Mirecourt concerns a confirmation of a donation of land by an act of Otto I in 960: "Urso dedit praedium in Murici Curte". This is followed by a new confirmation in the same terms on June 2, 965.
In all the names of the locality, we always find the suffixes "court", "curia" which derive from the Latin "curtis", meaning "court". During the Lower Roman Empire (III-Vth centuries), it designated a farm and its dependencies. As for the prefix, it usually corresponds to the name of the owner of the curtis. The forms Moricurtis, Morucocurte and Modoricicurte are the oldest and shed light on the meaning of the prefix. It is probably the Germanic name Moricho. Thus, in the 10th century, Mirecourt would be a small agricultural entity, or more likely two or three farms scattered over the present-day territory of the town, which ended up concentrating around a central point, corresponding today to the faubourg Saint-Vincent, the embryo of the present-day town1. A small Romanesque chapel was built in the 11th century, the village then being dependent on Vroville.
The town developed from the 10th century on the left bank of the Madon, which was mastered (archaeological traces of posts). A castle and a castral town were built in the 12th century. The castle was located at the southern end of the upper street while the ramparts surrounded a small town, from the canal to beyond the market hall, with an almost quadrangular plan; excavations carried out in 2002 clearly indicate a right-angle layout in the lower town. The gate to the north of the city will become the clock tower when the city walls are moved. There are craftsmen's activities in this town. The ramparts were consolidated at the end of the 13th century. Mirecourt, chief town of the provostry at least since 1165, was first lorded by the Count of Toul who granted a charter to the town's citizens in 1234, then it gradually came under the domination of the Duke of Lorraine.

Mirecourt was enlarged in the 14th century, at the time of the Hundred Years War, with new ramparts to the north, along the canal; towers were built later. It became a town with a market, halls, ovens, a church and a monetary workshop. It includes the new church, houses in the lower street new craft districts, tanneries, pottery workshops, glass, forge ... and in the upper street houses of merchants and notables. Its surface area increased from two hectares to six, and did not change until the end of the 17th century. Outside the ramparts, three suburbs remained modest, including the Pont suburb on the other side of the Madon. The status of Mirecourt changed, it became the capital of the Vosges bailiwick at the end of the 13th century and a mayor assisted by aldermen administered the town.

The city flourished in the 15th and 16th centuries with the creation of the Cordeliers convent, a hospital in the lower street, the beautiful Renaissance hotel of Errard de Livron? Its prosperity is due to the importance of its crafts (drapery, lace, metals) and its local trade with the fairs and, at long distance, with Italy and the Spanish Netherlands. Wealthy merchants and clothiers built beautiful houses with courtyards, stairways and galleries with superb railings4. The population increased from 396 (fire, family) in 1578 to 659 in 1622, about 3000 inhabitants. The new stone halls, completed in 1617, are the symbol of this prosperity.

The Thirty Years' War and those led by Louis XIV ruined the city; the plague (1631-1633, 1636) and famines caused a collapse of the population. The city was besieged several times and the weakness of its ramparts did not allow it to resist. They are razed in 1670, the city undergoes military occupations, a French administration and the population gradually resumes: 262 conduits in 1667 (1200 inhabitants).

It is only with the peace of Ryswick and the advent of Duke Leopold that the city is reborn and rebuilt. The facades of almost all the houses were rebuilt in the fashion of the 18th century with rounded and unstructured windows, the interior courtyards were fitted with staircases with ramp after ramp, the suburb of Poussay was built with large sumptuous houses, the hospital wanted by Abbot Germiny was built there. Thanks to a strong demographic development, and despite epidemics and food shortages, the population of the city reached 3000 inhabitants in 1708 and 4700 in 1780. The economic prosperity is marked by a large number of craftsmen (half of the active population): spinners, weavers, drapers and lace makers, shoemakers, hatters and all the building trades, butchers, bakers and the food trades; around them gravitate a hundred or so laborers; ploughmen and wine growers populate the suburbs; in the center of the city, merchants and people of the cloth dominate society; the nobles and the ecclesiastics are few in number. Violin making became a major activity during this century, the number of violin makers increased from 4 to more than a hundred, and they specialized: bow makers, serinette makers and merchants. The influence of Mirecourt is strong in the surrounding villages, but in 1751 the bailliage of Vosges is strongly reduced in surface.

The Mirecurtians immediately joined the Revolution, but the town was not chosen to be the capital of the Vosges department. However, it obtained the departmental court, a commercial court and the administration of a district, then an arrondissement directed by a sub-prefect. As in the rest of France, moderates and montagnards clashed over the exercise of power and the implementation of public safety measures. The town was transformed with the disappearance of the conventual establishments and the sale of the clergy's property; the buildings of the Notre Dame congregation alone remained and became the headquarters of the gendarmerie, the college and a theater.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Mirecourt had a population of 5,000 and violin making made its reputation: in 1906, craftsmen and companies employed more than 600 violin makers, including Mattaincourt, Poussay and Juvaincourt. The products are sold in all France and the best violin makers go to Paris, while their wives make the art of lace bloom. The city underwent a strong expansion towards the west with the construction of public buildings, sub-prefecture, teacher training school, train station and girls' college, connected by new streets, the avenue of the station, the avenue Graillet, the street Estivant. The Republicans, then the Radicals, dominated political life and confronted the conservative forces; the local press was bipolarized between moderates and radicals9.

After the Second World War, Mirecourt experienced a very strong increase in population (8800 inhabitants in 1968) in connection with the creation of the psychiatric hospital in Ravenel. New working-class neighborhoods were created on the other side of the railroad tracks, to the north towards Poussay around the textile factory, and to the south the city joined Mattaincourt. But the industrial violin industry in crisis disappeared at the beginning of the 1970s and "la Cotonnière" closed its doors in 1967. The economic decline of the city is also reflected in the population which is 5772 in 2011.
Jean-Paul Rothiot
President of the association of the Friends of Old Mirecourt-Regain

DATAtourisme France