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Guînes is a commune of northern France, chief town of the canton of Guînes, arrondissement of Calais, in the Pas-de-Calais département. Population (1999): 5,289 for the commune, and 14,577 for the canton.
Geography
Guînes is located on the declivity of the plate which separates the Boulonnais from the Calaisis, at the edge of the marshy plain, perfectly cleansed today, which extends to the shore from the sea.
History
Historically, Guînes was the capital of the county of Guînes, a county which was not without reputation in history. The origins of the town of Guînes are lost in the night of the Middle Ages. After the retirement of Romans in front of the push of the great invasions, the territory of Guînes became, according to the legend - because we do not have any precise document over this time - the property of Aigneric, mayor of the palate of Théodebert II, king of the Burgundians.
When Sifrid the Dane and his Normans seized, in 928, of the place where this charming rises today quoted, it was probably only a village without defense. It made there raise a mound that it surrounded by quickset hedges and that it girded of a double ditch to put itself safe from any attack at it. There is the origin of the castle of Guînes. The Count of Flanders, Arnulf I, gave up the counter-attack; but it "delivered" to the Norman pirate his Elstrude daughter in marriage; it invested Sifrid the Dane count de vassal Guînes but of the count of Flanders. Under the successors of Sifrid, Guînes and its surroundings acquired a considerable importance.
In the beginning of 11th century, the count Manassès founded in the area of its capital, an abbey of women of the order of Saint-Benoît. This monastery was placed under the patronage of Saint Léonard.
At that time, the town of Guînes contained inside its walls three parishes, whose churches were devoted to Saint Bertin, Saint Pierre and Saint Médard's Day. Outside, of the ramparts also existed, in addition to the abbey of Saint Léonard, the church of Saint-Blaise of the hamlet of Melleke, and the leper-house of Saint Quentin in the hamlet of Spelleke (in Tournepuits).
At the end of 11th century, Baudoin II made build out of stone of size, on the old keep of Sifrid, a circular palate of form to which it gave a very great rise. Moreover, it made close the town of Guînes of a stone wall, with turns of defense to each door.
Three years after the capture of Calais, in January 22, 1351, the castle of Guînes was delivered by treason to the English, and in 1360, the Treaty of Brétigny completely gave up with the King of England, the city and its county.