Fresnes

Fresnes lies in the damp clay plain of the Woëvre, east of the heights of the Meuse. Once a possession of the Merovingian royal family, it was given to the church of Verdun in 635. Surviving leases reveal the farming landscape of later centuries: in 1685 the hospital of Sainte-Catherine at Verdun acquired an estate here with a house, fields, meadows and plots for growing hemp. The hospital continued to lease its lands at Fresnes throughout the eighteenth century.