First, I must apologise for how long it has taken to resume this series on the ancient pays de Rays Le Retz. However, French not being my first language, I had first to translate his work, and then to take notes. All time consuming. Then when I came to writing the posts I discovered my original intent to feature the key women of la maison de Rays to be impractical: it required me, first, to write of the men. And so these last four posts of this series will feature the family in its entirety, not only the women.
But, of course, all this has required more work. Because from C11th Machecoul was the capital of Le Retz, and because as I said in the introduction to the series Le Retz le pays de Rays or de Rais is an area much overlooked by English speaking historians, despite its central position in the Plantagenet empire.
So this is to rectify. Today Machecoul sits some 35km 21 miles from the sea, separated by the Marais breton βa major region for saliculture, its 45, hectares stretch from Moutiers-en-Retz in the north to Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie in the south see map below. This is assumed to be the forerunner of Machecoul. As with many Roman settlements, it arose around a junction of important routes: north-west to the bay of Bourgneuf-en-Retz; north to Arthon-en-Retz; south to towards Varnes a ville important in Roman times, now a village north of La Garnache.
With the fall of the Western Roman Empire Germanic tribes swarmed the area. The region thereafter formed part of the kingdom of Neustria:. Of a noble family from Aquitaine, Saint Philibert arrived in the area in and proceeded to evangelise the machecoulaise. While the saint himself is credited with the foundation of the parish of Noirmoutier island of Her previously mentioned in this series of posts , his disciples are credited with the foundation of several other parish priories dating from this time.
Amongst these is the parish of Sancta Crux. By when Charlemagne died the machecoulaise had been annexed by Poitou as part of the much larger region of Aquitaine. Situated on the coastβand despite being defended by mudflats and marshesβSanta Crux the future Machecoul was particularly vulnerable to Viking attacks. Viking fleets invaded the harbour, plundered, destroyed and killed. The entire region became a battlefield with all piling in: the Vikings v. As part of Le Retz, the machecoulaise remained for centuries a buffer zone suffering depredations of every military incursion.
