Combiers

Combiers ( Occitan: Combier ) is a municipality with 121 inhabitants (as of 1 January 2011) in the south of the western French département Charente in the Poitou-Charentes region on the border of the Périgord.

Location

Combiers lies at an altitude of about 100 meters above sea level. inst about 36 km ( driving distance ) south-east of Angoulême in the ancient cultural landscape of the Angoumois in the area of the Charente. The southern boundary of the municipality is the Lizonne.

Demographics

In the first half of the 19th century, the church had always between 600 and 700 inhabitants; due to the phylloxera crisis in the wine and the mechanization of agriculture, the population then dropped continuously from the lows of the past decades.

Economy

The residents of the community lived for centuries of agriculture; the bottoms of the community belong to the Bons Bois of the vineyard Cognac, but the paragraphs in expensive wine fires in recent decades tended to shrink, so that the wine industry plays any role. Revenue from tourism, especially the rental of apartments ( gîtes ), while since the 1960s play a not unimportant role in the revenue of the municipal treasury.

History

The Romanesque church suggests the existence of the place already in the Middle Ages. In the area of the hamlet Rauzet the Grammont Enser Medal founded a priory in the 12th century. In the early modern period there was on the territory of the present municipality of several iron smelting, in which, inter alia, cast iron stove plates were prepared.

Attractions

• The unadorned church of Combiers ( Église Saint -Fiacre ) dates from the 12th century; on the north side, a side aisle was added later. Originally designed by a triumphal arch scheme facade was cut laterally at this time; only the simple Archivolts portal remained intact. The crossing tower looks very stocky, the apse is decorated completely unadorned. The interior of the church interior is very rustic.

• The single priory of the former, about two kilometers north-west Grammont Enser priory in the hamlet Rauzet (45 ° 30 ' 41 "N, 0 ° 23' 39" O45.5113888888890.39416666666667 ) is a - the self-understanding of the Order appropriate - extremely simple building from the second half of the 12th century, whose apse collapsed in 1970 and was completely rebuilt. Both the Church and the ruins of the former Prioratsgebäude since 1987 and recognized in 1992 as a monument historiques.