I. A Little Toponymy
Lévignac would come from a personal name and would date from the Gallo-Roman period.
It is formed from the Latin surname Levinius, to which is added the suffix -acum which has a value of belonging,
to give Leviniacum, or “the domain of Levinius”.
Although the site of Lévignac was indeed occupied during the Celtic and Gallo-Roman periods, on the other hand no trace of a villa (a rural estate) has been found, and we know nothing about this Levinius.
The name Lévignac appears for the first time in a document from the end of the 13th century in the Latinized form Levinhaco.
In the 16th century, it was Frenchified as Levinhac, and we already began to use the spelling we know today.
In the 19th century, the commune was called Lévignac-de-Seyches and the current name was made official in 1929.
For further information
“L'origine du nom de Lévignac”, in On en parle sous la halle, n° 11, May 2004, p. 14
II. Levignac, English Bastide
Lévignac is part of the movement to create new towns or villages
called bastides in the South-West of France between 1230 and 1350.
In a document dated March 30, 1305, the King of England Edward I Plantagenet, Duke of Aquitaine, asked his Seneschal of Gascony to investigate a paréage project (a contract) between him and Guillaume Arnaud de Cogutsante (or Caussant), knight, and two brothers, Gérard and Amanieu de Levygnak, to found
a bastide in this place by including the neighboring parishes.
Construction was not long in coming. A castle was built to the north,
the dwellings, of the rampart house type, tall, tightly packed
and only accessible from inside the town, were built up to the end of the plateau,
and the main streets lead to the central square where the church, the market hall and the town hall stand.
The town is surrounded by ramparts and ditches that have disappeared or of which only rare vestiges remain. Access is via two gates, one to the north and the other to the south, perhaps demolished with
the ramparts during the Revolution or a little after.
Access to the south gate is still marked by a bent ramp, bordered by a rampart,
which crosses the difference in level on a bridge supported by two arches filled in after 1850.
For further information:
The Website of Aquitaine's Bastides Federation
III. Levignac Through History
Before the Revolution, the jurisdiction (this term then designated a territorial division in Agenais) of Lévignac included
five parishes which all had a church: Lévignac, Saint-Pierre, Saint-Brice, Sainte-Croix and Civert.
The existence of a lordship (it had the title of barony) is attested from the Middle Ages. Between 1500 and 1777, it belonged successively to the families of Pellegrue, Foix-Gurson and Gontaud-Biron.
In 1777, it was sold to an Irish nobleman, Count Justin de Mac Carthy, settled in Toulouse with his family, who was the last lord. One of his sons, Nicolas Tuite de Mac Carthy, a Jesuit and preacher famous under the Restoration,
also bore the name of "Abbé de Lévignac".
When the communes were created in 1789, that of Lévignac covered the territory of the former jurisdiction.
In 1791, Saint-Pierre and Saint-Brice joined forces to create the commune of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dropt.
Between 1790 and 1792, Lévignac became the capital of a canton that included Monteton, Caubon-Saint-Sauveur,
Saint-Géraud and Saint-Pierre, then the commune was attached to the canton of Duras,
to that of Seyches in 1803, and finally, since 2015, to that of Coteaux de Guyenne.
In the space of a century and a half, Lévignac has experienced a decline in its population, more or less significant depending on the period, a phenomenon that can be explained mainly by the rural exodus and a low birth rate, which is not compensated by the arrival of French and foreign migrants between the 1920s
and the immediate post-war period (Italians, Bretons and Normans).
In recent decades, the settlement of families from the United Kingdom, European Union countries
and other regions of France has revitalized the town, which benefits from a favorable position, which makes it very attractive. Several housing developments extend the town, and a diversified offer of services,
shops and facilities is offered to the population.
For several years, the municipality has wanted to transform the entire town into a garden village in order to make it attractive and highlight its heritage, which has resulted in the planting of flowers in public spaces, a project that is currently being rolled out.