Château de Merpins, is a ruined castle in Merpins, Charente-Maritime, France. The castle is built atop rocky outcrop overlooking the double confluence of the Ne, Charente and Antenne.
Fortifications have existed since the Neolithic period. In the 10th century the manor belonged to the Taillefer, counts of Angoulême. In 1179, the castle was taken by Richard, Duke of Aquitaine and given to his illegitimate son Philippe de Falcombridge. Philippe sold the castle to King John of England in 1204. His son King Henry III of England gave the castle to Hugh X de Lusignan, lord of Cognac, husband of Isabelle d'Angouleme. In 1308 Merpins was united to the French crown, however under the Treaty of Brétigny of 1360, the castle returned to English hands.
After a siege lasting six years, led by Marshal Sancerre the castle was taken again in 1387. King Charles VI of France ordered the castles destruction. The castle was still a place of fighting during the wars of religion, occupied by Catholics and Protestants. It was the Duke of Mayenne who dislodged them in 1577.
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).