Baume

Baume-les-Dames lies in the valley of the Doubs, where an abbey of noblewomen gave the town its name and much of its importance. Fortifications protected the settlement from the twelfth century. Its religious houses, hospital and merchants' homes reflected a prosperous local community in the county of Burgundy.

In 1505 Pierre de Cointet founded a hospital near the town gate of Sombevelle, and around 1540 Claude Pignet endowed a chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, with a sculpted Christ surrounded by mourners. War and disease later devastated Baume. Plague struck in 1636, and the following July the army of Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar besieged and plundered the town. Famine and the departure of many inhabitants followed, leaving the community to recover slowly from the destruction.