Ménil-en-Xaintois is a commune in the Vosges department in Grand Est in northeastern France. Inhabitants are called Ménilois. Geography Ménil-en-Xaintois is a rural commune set on the Vosges Plain, crossed by the former National Road RN66, now declassified to RD 66 but still connecting Epinal to the east-south-east with Bar-le-Duc to the north-west. The village houses are mostly stretched along this road, in a setting of fields and pastures. Across the fields some to the south are Vittel and Contrexéville, though the minor roads connecting to them are not very direct. Surrounding communes include Dombasle-en-Xaintois to the east, Gironcourt-sur-Vraine to the west and Saint-Menge to the south-west. Adjacent communes with only an indirect road connection to Ménil are Biécourt and Totainville to the north, and Gemmelaincourt and Rouvres-en-Xaintois to the south. With these last two named, along with Dombasle-en-Xaintois, the Ménil commune shares the forest of "le Bois dessous Haye". History The Names Writing in the early eighteenth century, the historian of Lorraine, Dom Calmet believed that the village was the same as Ménil la Tour mentioned in ancient title records. The name has in any case been variously spelled over the years: Masnile in 1109, Masnille in 1130, Manile in 1148, Masnili in 1187, Mesnil in 1242, Manil en Sainctoris in 1251, Manilz on Santois in 1280, Mesgnil in 1287, Mesni en Sentois in 1309, Manil en Sainstois in 1330, Masnillo en Saintoix in 1332, Mennil en Saintoix or Menyl in 1380, Manillo in 1402, Manil en Saintoix in 1426, Mesnil en Sanctoix in 1459, Le Mesnil in 1656, Mesnil en Xaintois in 1711 Mansile in Sanctesio in 1768 and Ménil en Saintois in 1779. Gallo-Roman Thanks to extensive archeological work undertaken on the initiative of Canon Jean Colson in the 1980s, it is known that in the district of Seucherey in the south-west of the commune a former monastery was actually built on the site of a first-century Villa rustica (Rural villa) which would probably have been at the centre of an area of agricultural cultivation two thousand years ago. Medieval The village appears to have been destroyed and abandoned in the violence that followed the Gallo-Roman civilisation. Thereafter, it was initially subject to the Marquisate of Removille, and subsequently that of Baudricourt. The village is listed in a schedule confirming the assets of Deuilly Priory (now replaced by a hamlet in modern Serécourt) drawn up in 1118