1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Montdidier

MONTDIDIER, a town of northern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Somme, 23 m. S.E. of Amiens by rail. Pop. (1906), 4159. The town, situated on an eminence on the right bank of the Don, dates from the Merovingian period, and perhaps owes its name to the imprisonment of the Lombard king Didier in the 8th century. The church of St Pierre, dating chiefly from the 15th century, has a beautiful portal of the 16th century and contains the tomb of Raoul III., count of Crépy (12th century), fonts of the 11th century and other works of art. The church of St Sépulcre belongs, with the exception of the modern portal, to the 15th and 16th centuries. In the interior there is a well-known “ Holy Sepulchre ” of the latter period. The law-court, once the castle, partly dating from the 12th century, possesses fine tapestries of the 17th century. A statue commemorates the birth at Montdidier of Antoine Parmentier (1737–1813), with whose name are connected the beginnings of potato-culture in France. The town has a sub-prefecture and a tribunal of first instance; its industries include tanning and the manufacture of zinc-white.

Held first by its own lords, afterwards by the counts of Crépy and Valois, Montdidier passed to the Crown in the 12th century, at the end of which it was granted a charter of liberties. The town offered a brave and successful resistance to the Spanish troops in 1636.