Tours, France: History
St. Martin of Tours is said to have torn his cloak in two and offered it to a beggar.
The city of Tours gets its name from the ancient Gallic tribe called the Turones. In Roman times Tours was known as Turonensis. In the mid-3rd century Gatianus (Saint Gatien) was sent from Rome to reorganize a small Christian community that was already established there.
Saint Martin of Tours was bishop of Tours at the end of the 4th century, and his tomb became a major pilgrimage site. The church of Saint Martin was one of the great Romanesque pilgrimage churches, like Saint-Sernin in Toulouse and Santiago de Compostela, and the powerful bishops of Tours, such as Gregory of Tours, were personages to be reckoned with for the Merovingian kings.
The Battle of Tours was fought on October 10, 732 between forces under the Frankish leader Charles Martel and an Islamic force led by Emir Abdul Rahman al-Ghafiq. The Franks defeated the Islamic army and stopped the northward advance of Islam from Spain.
The Touraine was a county at the time of the Carolingian rulers (751 to 987 AD). The Vikings pillaged the town in 853 and 903. By 1044 it was held by the counts of Anjou. During the reign of Philip II, the Livre Tournois (Tours Pound) was adopted as the international currency of France.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, Tours had a significant Huguenot population, many of which had been responsible for the building of a huge silk industry. With the Edict of Nantes rescinded in 1685 and the resulting slaughter of thousands of Protestants, the Huguenots fled the country and the once flourishing silk industry of Tours, vanished forever. Some of the Huguenots settled in Ireland where their weaving skills saw them establish some of the great Irish linen factories.
Today, with its extensive rail (including TGV) and autoroute links to the rest of the country, Tours is a jumping off point for tourist visits to the Loire Valley and the chateaux of the kings.
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