Originally
Ucetia or
Eutica in Latin, Uzès was a small
Gallo-Roman oppidum, or administrative settlement. The town lies at the source of the
Alzon river, at Fontaine d'Eure, from where a
Roman aqueduct was built in the first century AD, to supply water to the city of
Nîmes, away. The most famous stretch of the
aqueduct is the
Pont du Gard, now a
UNESCO World Heritage Site, which carried fresh water over splendid arches across the
Gardon river.
Jews were apparently settled there as early as the 5th century.
Saint Ferréol, Bishop of Uzès, was said to have admitted them to his table. Complaints were made of him to King
Childebert I for this issue, whereupon the bishop was required to turn against them, expelling those Jews from Uzès who would not convert to Christianity. After his death (581), many of the converts who had been baptised returned to Judaism. In 614 the Christian government expelled Jews from the region. In early 8th century, Uzès was a fortified
civitas and bishopric under the Archbishop of Narbonne. During the
Umayyad conquest of Gothic Septimania, Uzès became the northernmost stronghold of
Muslim Spain circa 725. Charles Martel laid siege to the stronghold in 736, but it remained in Gothic-Andalusian hands up to 752. That year counts loyal to
Ansemund of Nîmes ceded numerous of strongholds to the Frankish
Pepin the Short. In 753 the stronghold rebelled against the Franks after Ansemund's assassination, but the uprising was suppressed and a Frankish trustee of Pepin imposed. In the 13th century, Uzès hosted a small community of Jewish scholars, as well as a community of
Cathars. Like many cloth-manufacturing centers (Uzès was known for its
serges), residents of the city and the surrounding countryside had become strongly Protestant during the 16th century, and religious and class conflicts played out in the Wars of Religion. The Languedoc region suffered considerable violence: Protestants trashed and burned many of the city's churches. Only two have survived to the 21st century.
Saint-Étienne was reconstructed after the violence.
Ucetia Ucetia is the name of a
Gallo-Roman oppidum in the Roman province of
Occitania. Its existence was recorded on a list of eleven other settlements on a
stela in
Nîmes (ancient Nemausus) on which its name appears as "VCETIAE". It was under the administration of Nemausus, to which it provided water via a
Roman aqueduct. Ucetia was also known as
Castrum Uceciense, which is in the
Notitia of the provinces of Gallia. For many European cultures, deer represented deities of the woodlands, and the owl was a symbol of the goddess
Athena. Together with the animals, decorations represented water, geometric shapes, colors, and patterns, including a design with ancient
swastika-like elements. Ucetia was inhabited from at least the 1st century B.C. until the 7th century A.D.
Ucetia and Pont du Gard Ucetia was known to have been a source of water carried via
aqueduct to many communities, especially ancient Nemausus (Nîmes), which grew to a population of about 30,000. The aqueduct system included the
Pont du Gard. Construction of the aqueduct led to a "classic Roman tragedy" of greed in the nearby cities and towns that affected Ucetia and other communities.
Second World War From September 1940 to 9 November 1942, PC
Cadix operated at Château des Fouzes near Uzès, in
Vichy France. It was a cryptographer team organized by French major
Gustave Bertrand, comprising 15 Polish men from the
Polish Cipher Bureau, 9 Frenchmen and 7
Republican Spanish refugees. From there, they worked against
Axis ciphers including the
Enigma machine. ==Geography==