ABBEVILLE

This article appears in Volume V01, Page 11 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: A10-ADA

ABBEVILLE , a town of northern France,

capital

CAPITAL (i.e. capital stock or fund)
CAPITAL (Lat. caput, head)

of an arrondissement in the department of Somme, on the Somme, 12 M. from its mouth in the English Channel, and 28 m. N.W. of 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 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 building is the church of St Vulfran, erected in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. The

original

ORIGINAL

design was not completed. The nave has only two bays and the choir is insignificant. The facade is a magnificent specimen of the flamboyant 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,

dates

DATES

from the 16th century. There is a statue of Admiral Courbet (d. 1885) in the

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

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 industrial centre; in addition to its old-established manufacture of cloth, hemp-spinning, sugar-making, ship-building and locksmiths'

work

WORK

are carried on; there is active commerce in grain, but the port has little trade.
Abbeville, the

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

town of the

district

DISTRICT

of Ponthieu, first appears in history during the 9th century. At that time belonging to the abbey of St Riquier, it was afterwards governed by the counts of Ponthieu. Together with that county, it came into the possession of the Alencon and other French families, and after-
ABBEY I I
wards into that of the

house

of Castille, from whom by

marriage

MARRIAGE

it fell in 1272 to Edward I., king of England. French and English were its masters by turns till 1435 when, by the treaty of Arras, it was ceded to the duke of

Burgundy

BURGUNDY

. In 1477 it was annexed by Louis XI., king of France, and was held by two illegitimate branches of the royal family in the 16th and 17th centuries, being in 1696 reunited to the crown.

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