Details
Founded: 12th centuryCategory: Castles and fortifications in France
Historical period: Birth of Capetian dynasty (France)
Interesting Sites Nearby
User Reviews
An early castle was built in the 10th century, or at the very beginning of the 11th. It was destroyed at the end of that same century during the Anjou-Touraine conflicts; rebuilt in the early 12th century, then refitted in the 13th when the lords of Maillé became barons.
There it consisted of an upper yard and lower yard: in the latter, below the former one, there were barns and stables. If big keep stood in the middle of the upper yard, whose ramparts were two storages higher than they are nowadays, and crowded with wooden galleries (hoardings), the material of which was given by Saint Louis. On the North, the castle was defended by a wide moat dug in the rock, a moat which became double on the east. Between these moats there was a fort which defended access to the castle with the drawbridges.
In the 15th century, the inside of the upper yard was transformed by the building of an elegant brick dwelling. In the 16th century, the dwellings were refitted in the west. In the 17th century, the second duke of Luynes had the keep demolished, and a vast classical wing was built that shut off the south side looking out on the valley. That wing was partly demolished in the next century. The Castle was partially restored in the 19th century; the drawbridges were replaced by fixed bridges, some towers were levelled down. The dukes of Luynes still own the Castle.
References:Saint-Georges de Boscherville Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey. It was founded in about 1113 by Guillaume de Tancarville on the site of an earlier establishment of secular canons and settled by monks from the Abbey of Saint-Evroul. The abbey church made of Caumont stone was erected from 1113 to 1140. The Norman builders aimed to have very well-lit naves and they did this by means of tall, large windows, initially made possible by a wooden ceiling, which prevented uplift, although this was replaced by a Gothic vault in the 13th century. The chapter room was built after the abbey church and dates from the last quarter of the 12th century.
The arrival of the Maurist monks in 1659, after the disasters of the Wars of Religion, helped to get the abbey back on a firmer spiritual, architectural and economic footing. They erected a large monastic building one wing of which fitted tightly around the chapter house (which was otherwise left as it was).