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Last modified: 2021-07-14 by ivan sache
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Flag of Beaumont-sur-Sarthe - Image by Olivier Touzeau, 11 April 2021
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The municipality of Beaumont-sur-Sarthe (1,964 inhabitants in 2018; 664 ha) is located half-distance (25 km) of Le Mans and Alençon.
Beaumont, located between Maine and Normandy, was fiercely disputed in the Middle Ages by their respective feudal lords.
In the 10th-11th centuries, the first lords of Beaumont were often known as
Raoul, Viscounts of Le Mans. They fought in particular against
William the Conqueror who took the town up to five
times between 1070 and 1084. Viscount Hubert, son of Raoul V, eventually managed to
impose an arrangement to William. In 1135, Geoffrey of Anjou, pursuing Viscount Rosselin, Hubert's grandson, into the walls of Beaumont, took and burned entirely the town, which
Philip I Augustus still had to besiege and take in 1189. Count Arthur of
Richemont, marching to help the Armagnacs, seized Beaumint in 1412: taken in 1417 by the
English, Beaumont was recaptured the same year by Ambroise de Loré the town was taken over over again by the English a few years later.
In 1562, after having evacuated Le Mans, the Calvinists entered Beaumont, breaking
the bridge with cannon fire, burning the churches and looting and burning the homes of Catholics. The town submitted to Henry IV, in 1589, after the seizure of Le Mans.
Around 1253, he marriage of Viscountess Agnes, last descendant of the first viscounts, with Louis of Akkro, third son of John of Brienne, King of Jerusalem and Emperor of
Constantinople, and of Berenguela of Castile and León, his second wife, offerred the Visounty of Beaumont to the house of Brienne after February 1253.
In 1371, the viscounty was given by marriage to the Count of Alenço;on. Françoise, sister and heiress of Charles, Duke of Alençon, and widow of Charles of Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme, obtained, in 1543, that the Viscounty of Beaumont and the Baronies of Saosnois, La Flèche and Château-Gontier were created a Duchy-peerage under the name of Beaumont, for her and her male and
female successors. Her son Antoine of Bourbon, King of Navarre, transmitted
the duchy to his son Henry IV. The Parliament refused to register the Royal Letters declaring the duchy of Beaumont the king's personal property, "stating that any particular domain of a prince crowned king shall be ipso jure reunited with the Crown".
Olivier Touzeau, 11 April 2021
The flag of Beaumont-sur-Sarthe (photo, photo) is white, charged in the center with the municipal coat of arms, "Azure semy of fleurs-de-lis or a lion of the same. The shield surmounted by a mural crown".
"Azure semy of fleurs-de-lis or a lion of the same" / "France a lion or" was the coat of arms of the Viscounts of Beaumont-Brienne, as reported by Philippe Labbe in Le Blazon royal des armoiries des roys, reynes, dauphins, fils et filles de la maison royale de France, accompagné d'un recueil des armoiries de plusieurs grandes et anciennes familles de ce royaume, & autres voisins, principalement de celles, qui ont eu l'honneur d'estre alliées avec la maison royale. le tout traitté d'une façon nouvelle, & fort aisée à comprendre (1664).
The recumbent statue of Louis de Beaumont, husband of Agnes de Beaumont, located "in a chapel adjacent to the abbey church of Estival" (the abbey of Notre-Dame d'Étival-en-Charnie, located in Chémiré-en-Charnie), as represented on a plate (image) released in 1695 by Louis Boudan, represents the count holding a shield "Azure semy of fleurs-de-lis or a lion of the same". The colors of the shield appear to have been added by the engraver. The recumbent statue of Agnes' son (photo), Jean de Brienne (d. 1305), was designed on the same model, holding the same shield.
"Azure a lion or" was the coat of arms of the house of Brienne.
Olivier Touzeau & Ivan Sache, 14 July 2021
