Description : Nozay is a town West of France , in the department of Loire-Atlantique , in the region Loire Valley . Before the Revolution , it was part of historic Brittany and the ecclesiastical and civil district known as Archdeacon of La Mée . The occupation of the Nozean territory is attested from prehistoric times by the discovery of several polished stone axes , and by the erection of the menhir of Couëbrac 10 . In Roman times, between 6,000 and 9,000 tons of bronze were made near the mines and ancient cassiterite mines of Abbaretz and Nozay. Towards -1200, -725, men had already exploited this ground for the manufacture of bronze and towards -150, the Veneti, who came by the near Atlantic coasts made trade with the Greeks and the Carthaginians. The discovery in the xix th century a wreath gold Roman coins and claim the activity of Celtic and Gallo- Romans in ancient times, especially that of small workshops extraction and ore working of tin and iron 11 . Following the evangelization of the Nantes country at the beginning of the Middle Ages , a Christian community settled on a site which would become the town of Nozay (nowadays called the Old Town ), and where the graves of a Merovingian cemetery were discovered in the xix th century 12 . Nozay first appeared in 1123, under the name Noziacum . The parish has been part of the property of the bishops of Nantes since at least 986 13 . It was subsequently given, among many other lands, to the nobles of the Nantes region , in order to gain their support in the struggles between the bishops and the counts of Nantes . In the Middle Ages, most of the parish of Nozay belonged to several small lordships (including Croix-Merhan , Rozabonnet , Peret , la Touche , etc.), all vassals of the Lord of Nozay. The xii th to the xiv th century, the lords of Nozay are members of the family Le Boeuf and the xiv th to the xv th century the family of Rieux. In town, thrives a community of bourgeois and merchants, which is built many hotels in size 14 stone , while theSaint-Pierre-aux-Liens church in Vieux-Bourg grew successively, at the rate of the increase of the population.
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