Aristocratic power over the towns and countryside: the beginning of the Middle Ages

From the sixth century, records state that Mâcon was an episcopal town, with a cathedral dedicated to Saint Vincent. From the eighth century, a new representative of the central Carolingian power established himself. He was a count who owned a residence in the town. From 843, a border that was physically marked by the Saône separated Mâcon and the Mâconnais region, under the control of West Francia, from the territories of Lotharingia.

Excavations carried out on the site of the former convent of the Minims in Mâcon painted a picture of a town that, from the second half of the ninth century, probably stretched beyond the castrum. The involvement of the powers of the bishop or the count appears to be confirmed by the raising of large-scale fortifications, made of earth and wood, around what could be considered to be a first urban development. In the countryside, the landscape was structured around seats of power. Characterised by fortified sites, they included a castle mound. On the boundaries of the pagus* of Mâcon, on the northern edge of the river Seille, the mounds of Loisy are a remarkable example of this type of installation. Analysis of the strata forming one of the mounds, excavated between 1966 and 1975, points to the presence of a seat of power before the end of the tenth century.

*Pagus: a territory under the authority of the count

Reconstruction of the forge, a residential building on slabs and Carolingian fortifications, discovered during excavations of the Îlot des Minimes in 2019