Fouday (; ; ) is a commune in the

Bas-Rhin Bas-Rhin () is a department in Alsace which is a part of the Grand Est region of France. The name means 'Lower Rhine', referring to its lower altitude among the two French Rhine departments: it is downstream of the Haut-Rhin (Upper Rhine) de ...

department in

Grand Est Grand Est (; ) is an Regions of France, administrative region in northeastern France. It superseded three former administrative regions, Alsace, Champagne-Ardenne and Lorraine, on 1 January 2016 under the provisional name of Alsace-Champagne-A ...

in north-eastern

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. At the start of 1975 Fouday was merged with the neighboring settlements of Waldersbach, Belmont and Bellefosse: the resulting aggregation was called ''Ban-de-la-Roche'', recalling the historical territory

Ban de la Roche Le Ban de la Roche () is the name of an ancient fief, seigneurie, later a county. It is situated in Alsace, France, Bas-Rhin (département), Département du Bas-Rhin. This small region is referred by its old Ancien régime name because of its stron ...

. The Vosgean mountain village recovered its independence at the start of 1992; it has been incorporated into various administrative structures in recent decades and is currently one of 26 communes included in the .

Geography

Fouday lies in the Bruche valley, on the right bank, at the river's confluence with the little river Chirgoutte (or Schirgoutte) surrounded by pastures and forests, and dominated by Mont Saint-Jean. The village is served by the National Road (Route nationale) 420 which connects

Strasbourg Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ...

with Saint-Dié. The town is also traversed by the

railway line Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport, next to road ...

- here just a single track - that connects these two urban centres. The mountain topography of the region keeps the road and railway running in close parallel along the Bruche Valley.

History

Fouday was part of the ancient lordship of

along with the surrounding settlements of Waldersbach, Solbach, Belmont and Bellefosse. The first surviving written record of the village dates from the fourteenth century, when it appeared in the records as Urbach. However, the village clearly existed by the end of the twelfth century, since the church building dates from that time. During the late medieval period, the village church was a stage along the pilgrim route to

Mont Sainte-Odile Mont Sainte-Odile ( or Ottilienberg; called Allitona in the 8th century) is a 764-metre-high peak in the Vosges Mountains in Alsace in France, immediately west of Barr, Bas-Rhin, Barr. The mountain is named after Saint Odile. It has a monaste ...

Lorraine Lorraine, also , ; ; Lorrain: ''Louréne''; Lorraine Franconian: ''Lottringe''; ; ; is a cultural and historical region in Eastern France, now located in the administrative region of Grand Est. Its name stems from the medieval kingdom of ...

across the

Vosges Mountains The Vosges ( , ; ; Franconian (linguistics), Franconian and ) is a range of medium mountains in Eastern France, near its France–Germany border, border with Germany. Together with the Palatine Forest to the north on the German side of the bor ...

to the west. Evidence for this comes from the fifteenth century depiction of St. James in the old choir of the church. The church also contains a carved head of

John the Baptist John the Baptist ( – ) was a Jewish preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the early first century AD. He is also known as Saint John the Forerunner in Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, John the Immerser in some Baptist ...

recalling the Baptist's demise: the carved head is the subject of a local pilgrimage tradition which still survives. Despite the endurance of the pilgrimage tradition, the village joined the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the papacy and ...

at the time of Pastor Marmet during the 1570s. Effectively all the villages within the Ban de la Roche became Protestant when the lands were sold by the Rathsamhausen family to the German

Count Palatine A count palatine (Latin ''comes palatinus''), also count of the palace or palsgrave (from German ''Pfalzgraf''), was originally an official attached to a royal or imperial palace or household and later a nobleman of a rank above that of an or ...

, George John of

Veldenz Veldenz is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Bernkastel-Wittlich district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the former main seat of the County of Veldenz, ...

in the sixteenth century. The village was the birthplace of Tommy Fallot (1844–1904), a Lutheran pastor who is considered the founder of Social Christianity in France.

Geography

History

See also