Wissant

Wissant (; from , "white sand") is a seaside commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Hauts-de-France region of France approximately north of Boulogne, west-southwest of Calais on the English Channel coast.

==History== Located at the eastern end of a lagoon formed by a storm-breach of the coastal dunes, probably in the mid-10th century, Wissant has been a fishing village for a millennium: along with Audresselles it is the last fishing village in France to use a traditional method of fishing using a wooden boat called a flobart and was in the Middle Ages a major port for embarkation for England: In a mid-11th century Life of St. Vulganius, Wissant was specified, probably anachronistically, as the natural disembarkation point for the early eighth-century Celtic saint in his evangelizing travels. Wissant was the embarkation port of Robert de Beaumont, 3rd Earl of Leicester, for his ill-fated invasion of England in 1173, with an army of 3000 Flemings. Henry III of England was stranded at Wissant for lack of cash. According to Matthew Paris (mid-13th century) its naucleri habitually interfered with English fishing fleets.