Last modified: 2024-03-16 by olivier touzeau
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Flag of Lalinde - Image by Olivier Touzeau, 12 March 2022
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The municipality of Lalinde (2,881 inhabitants in 2021, 2,770 ha) is located on the right (northern) bank of river Dordogne, 30 km east of Bergerac and 50 km south of Périgueux. The Canal of Lalinde (15 km), was built from 1838 to 1843, as a substitute to river Dordogne, on which navigation was made hazardous by rapids; the canal includes three single and two triple locks.
Lalinde was first documented on 23 May 1242, when King of England Henry III invited the local lords to join in; Geoffroy de La Linde was among the listees, "with three knights". A Robert de La Linde had already been mentioned, as an outlaw, on an English document dated 1185. It is therefore believed that the domain of Lalinde was established around 1225. Geoffroy's son, Jean de La Linde, was appointed Seneschal of Gascony and represented the king of England during negotiation with the king of Castile; he also contributed to the establishment of the "perpetual peace" between France and England, signed in Paris in 1259.
Peace did not last long. Alphonse de Poitiers, Count of Toulouse and supporter of the king of France, increased the defence of the left bank of Dordogne, then the front line; five fortified bastides (Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, Montflanquin, Villefranche de Belvès, Villeréal, Eymet) were erected from 1255 to 1270. As expected, the king of England established his own bastides on the left bank of the river.
La Linde was the first English"bastide created in the area. Signed in 1267, the founding charter was confirmed on 27 November 1286 in Agen by Prince Edward. Jean de Grailly, Seneschal of Guyenne, was commissioned to organise the new settlement. Little has remained from the original "bastide", except the grid plan of the village, the fortified Bergerac gate and fragments of the ramparts.
Lalinde suffered various sieges during the Hundred Years'
War and, again, in 1562 and 1572 during the Wars of Religion.
Olivier Touzeau & Ivan Sache, 19 March 2017
The flag of Lalinde (photo) is white with the municipal logo, made of a stylized version of the coat of arms and the name of the municipality below.
The arms of Lalinde are "Gules a lion passant or three trees vert on a base of he same a chief azure a cross patty or surrounded by two fleurs-de-lis of the same".
The arms were ascribed in the Armorial Général (with a blue field, image). While the chief uses elements from the old flag of the town, the field must have been created from scratch by the designers of the Armorial, suing a generic template assigned to the region; the arms of Villefranche-du-Périgord features a very similar scene, the lion being represented climbing the hill on which stand the trees.
The modern design of the arms is credited to the arts designer Paul Vergez, who freely offered the modernized design to his birth village.
[Lalinde le mag, No. 2, December 2014]
Olivier Touzeau & Ivan Sache, 19 March 2017 and 12 March 2022
Former flag of Lalinde - Image by Olivier Touzeau, 18 February 2017
While the current version has now the name of the commune in Sans Serif, the former flag observed in 2017 had another font (photo).
Olivier Touzeau, 12 March 2022