Mayres-Savel () is a
commune in the
Isère
Isère ( , ; frp, Isera; oc, Isèra, ) is a landlocked department in the southeastern French region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. Named after the river Isère, it had a population of 1,271,166 in 2019.[department
Department may refer to:
* Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility
Government and military
*Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...]
in southeastern
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
. Its inhabitants are called ''Mayrants'' or ''Mayrantes'' in French. It borders the communes of
Marcieu to the west,
Saint-Arey to the east and
Prunières to the north.
The largest
alpine pasture in France, which is called
Senépy and is at an altitude of 1769m, is within the boundaries of the commune. It hosts a herd of around 1000 cattle.
Mayres-Savel is separated from
Saint-Arey by a large ravine. At the border with Saint-Arey, but within the borders of the commune of Mayres-Savel is an unusual rock formation called ''
'La Demoiselle' (''which is French for ''
'The Maiden'
''). ''
'Demoiselle coiffée is a French word for the rock formation called a
hoodoo in English.
History
The Chateau de Savel, at the centre of the eponymous
seigneurie In English law, seignory or seigniory, spelled ''signiory'' in Early Modern English (; french: seigneur, lit=lord; la, senior, lit=elder), is the lordship (authority) remaining to a grantor after the grant of an estate in fee simple.
''Nulle terre ...
( or fiefdom), was described as a
fortified house by Raymond del Sers in a census from 1399 who said "quod dictum castrum non nomiauitur castrum I sed domum fortem" which approximately translates to "as for the castle, it is not called a castle but a fortified house." The Lord of the castle at the time was Lantelme Eynard. The ruins of the Chateau are still within the bounds of Mayre-Savel.
The old bridge across the
Drac, the mountain tributary which marked out the limit of the fiefdom, was knocked down in 1720 to isolate the village and protect its inhabitants from the plague.
The commune of Savel was submerged when the
Monteynard Dam was built in 1962. To preserve the memory of Savel, its name was incorporated in that of the neighbouring commune of Mayres along with the remaining land from former Savel which was still above water.
Population
See also
*
Communes of the Isère department
The following is a list of the 512 Communes of France, communes in the French Departments of France, department of Isère.
The communes cooperate in the following Communes of France#Intercommunality, intercommunalities (as of 2020):
References
Communes of Isère
{{Isère-geo-stub