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Founded: 13th centuryCategory: Castles and fortifications in France
Historical period: Late Capetians (France)
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The Vieux-Port (Old Harbour), is at the heart of La Rochelle. Enclosed by its mighty medieval towers (Saint Nicolas and La Chaîne), the picturesque harbour is now lined with seafood restaurants and bars.
Since the 13th century, the port of La Rochelle has occupied this site. It is likely that from the beginning it was fortified. The remaining towers date from the 14th and 15th centuries. They survived the destruction of the enclosure after the siege of 1628. On each side of the entrance, the Saint Nicolas tower, the highest, and the La Chaîne, and further on, linked to the latter by a curtain wall, the Lantern tower, both a lighthouse and a prison.
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).