Castle of Auberoche

(Article drawn from a talk of License of History) .

Localization of the site

The châtellenie

The châtellenie of Auberoche is located in the north-eastern sector of the Aquitaine region. It occupies, in the central Périgord, an important territory, with ten kilometers in the east of the town of Périgueux, upstream of the junction of Isle and Auvézère.

This territory is superimposed, with that of fifteen communes, distributed on three cantons, pertaining to the district of Périgueux. The communal framework allows us an evaluation of the territorial influence of the châtellenie. An influence adding up 25 487 ha. Its vast territory spans the three valleys of Isle, Auvézère and Manoire. The valley of Auvézère constituting an main axis of East-West direction, true corridor on both sides whose seems to be organized the territorial plate of the châtellenie.

In the geographical plan, the latter draws a perimeter very representative of the aspect of central Périgord. Indeed, the territory of the châtellenie of Auberoche integrates part of the two structural fields which compose this area of Périgord. Those come into contact according to a line of fractures, of direction north-western, south-eastern, passing slightly to the east of the village of the Exchange. Thus on both sides this contact system two morphostructuraux fields are opposed.

Around Périgueux, extends an area built on the Calcaire S Crétacé S, platings of siderolithic and vast spreadings of quaternary colluviums. It is a " pays" timbered hills, intersected with innumerable dry small valleys and combes felted othernesses.
With about fifteen kilometers in the east of Périgueux beyond the village of the Exchange begins another " pays". It corresponds to the appearance of Jurassic limestones. The landscape is more uniform here. It is that of a plate, thin strap by an old hydrographic network, marked by the karstic and covered action of a thin vegetation of calcicole reconquest.

There the causse périgourdin begins. It constitutes the oriental party of the territory of the châtellenie of Auberoche.

The site of Auberoche

The castle of Auberoche is located on the commune of the Exchange, centered well in the middle same of the territory of this old parish. It occupies a site high and escarpé with the top of the valley of Auvézère, on the extreme edge of the causse périgourdin, with some steps of the contact with the cretaceous field.

The choice of the site seems to be guided by privileged natural conditions. The topography of the places offers possibilities likely to fulfill the requirements of an establishment castrale.

The valley becomes extensive here. Auvézère describes two large meanders. They circumvent successively three advanced interfluves levelled considerably by fluviatile erosion. Important scraps of the old terrace offer fertile grounds, with the shelter of the floods.

These particular conditions determine a vast low area, favourable with the agricultural development. With the height of the Exchange, Auvézère is deeply boxed in the calcareous substrate. The concave banks of the river come to rest against powerful precipice whose steep slopes dominate Auvézère a height from 50 to 80 Mr. These escarpments isolate the interfluves from the valley. Any access is difficult, if not by the tributary small valleys. The defensive possibilities and of control of the axis of passage determined by the valley are obvious.

The castle of Auberoche is camped on one of these escarpments. It was drawn up on Right Bank of Auvézère, in the curve of the first meander. It was built with the ridge of a rocky outcrop cut in limestones bathoniens by Auvézère and a network of affluents. In the east, the deep depression of Auvézère constitutes the principal precipice. It is stopped in the south by the opening of a small valley. This system is supplemented west coast, by the notch which determines on the southern face a modest tributary of a tributary. To north, a narrow passage connected the spur to the field of the plates.

The site in the history

Beginning of the One hundred Year old war with our days

The site of Auberoche in Périgord is well-known of all the historians of the Guerre One hundred Year old for the decisive combat which was held in October 1345 there. The battle of Auberoche is the victorious term of the first countryside in Guyenne of the English task force, placed under the command of the Count Derby, which had begin with the catch from Bergerac, in the valley of the the Dordogne in August of the same year.

Quoted many times following Froissard by the chroniclers then by the contemporary historians, this high place of the Franco-English armed struggle, in the South-west of the country, however never was the subject of a study, would not be this even of a simple monograph of local scholar at the 19th century, whose however almost all the other somewhat remarkable castles of Guyenne enjoy. The causes which made the fame of this place are, paradoxically, those which seem to have projected in the lapse of memory the structures which occupied it with the Moyen-âge.

Towards the end of this long conflict which afflicted the country périgourdin of 1345 to 1453, the population of the town of Périgueux exasperated by the crimes and the exactions without number made by soldiers of the garrison of the fortress of Alba Rocca, succeeds in with the favor of the economic situation dismantling stone by stone this fortified town which, during nearly one century, has made it suffer. In the year the 1430 castle truly shaven, was thus striped landscape by the middle-class men in anger in evil of revenge. The turns, except for one, are entirely cut down, as well as the internal buildings with the enclosure which, it also, is levelled low possible everywhere where that is realizable. Only, the vault castrale found grace in front of the pickaxe of the demolition contracters and remained proudly camped, at the end of the spur of white rock which dictated the name of the site.

Deprived of the castle which constituted the heart of it, the châtellenie of Auberoche was gradually dismembered until the 18th century. The ruins of the fortress gently grew blurred at the point not to be readable more, without having recourse to a detailed examination of the place. The lapse of memory of the site is total. At the 19th century, historians even come from there to locate it out it Périgord fault of having noticed on the rare charts the existence of a small locality still bearing the name in the commune of the Exchange in the east of Périgueux. It is necessary to await the study on the chronicles of Froissard of Mr Bertrandy (1870), so that the right localization of the châtellenie is restored, but this historian still seems to be unaware of the exact site of the castrum. On the other hand, the country population of the place kept the memory of it. Thus, the evening with taken care, in the houses grouped with the foot of the deserted site one told until the beginning of the century, the legend according to which an old woman guided English to take the castle by surprise.

Origin of the foundation castrale

As we have just seen it, it will be rather easy to reconstitute the history of the castrum of Auberoche, of the beginning of the One hundred Year old war with our days. The documents are abundant, reliable and precise.

On the other hand, it will not be the same when one wishes to treat periods former to the 14th century. The sources become much rarer, vague, fragmentary and of delicate use.

However, the inventory of the documents touching of near or by far Auberoche, enables us to start to establish a kind of screen, of chronological framework in which takes shape essential contours of the history of the castrum, of its origins at the 14th century.

While referring to anachronistic scriptuaires sources established about 1180, the rock relief of Auberoche would have been built in rocca fortis by the bishop of the diocese of Périgueux between 976 and 991. Auberoche then seems one of the major articulations of the episcopal strategy at the end of the 10th century, and constitutes with its counterparts (Castling St-Christophe, Agonac, Corniac, Bassillac), a component of this " coat of maille" woven by the episcopal temporal power of the center diocesan. One foresees some of the mobiles placed at the origin of this political structuring of episcopal space. It can result from the psychological shock caused by the incursions devastators and sporadic of the 9th-10th centuries which touched Périgord. Consequently that would explain the will of the bishops to make sure the control of the catchment area of central Périgord (course of Isle and its hairy of affluents, Beauronne, Auvézère, Vézère) and to exert an integral control of its natural corridors of circulation whose main trends determined very early the layout of the medieval road axes. In this context, the rock relief of Auberoche took all its value. It offered a naturally privileged defensive site, placed in immediate contact of the valley of Auvézère, in the circonvoisinage of the chief town of diocese. Perhaps to its function of observatory and bolt, that of refuge for the rural population of the parish of the Exchange was added, tallies of reception of the castrum. This parish seems of old origin and episcopal inspiration (7th-8th centuries).

The successor of the bishop Frotaire, founder of the castrum, would have proceeded to the infeodation of the place in favor of the Viscount of Limoges, probably towards 1037,1059, in order to acquire the protection of this laic potentate against his oppressors of the moment or potentials. The event-driven history of the area conceals the signs heralding this episcopal initiative. It brings back the latent competitions to us which opposed the count de Périgord and the bishop of the diocese resulting in two periods of friction as of the middle of the 11th century. These confrontations found their prolongation in the claims of the Viscount of Limoges, Archambaud the Bearded one, mû by the play of the concurrent expansionist concerns to those of the count de Périgord in a zone of walk badly defined and subjected still to fluctuations until the beginning of the 12th century. This economic situation gave once again to Auberoche and its soil a place important to strategic planning, policy and economic.

The Viscount of Limoges recognizes, for Auberoche, the bishop of Périgueux like his suzerain as of the last third of the 12th century (1154-1157). By the episcopal infeodation, the Viscount of Limoges extended his domination to the doors of the episcopal see and comtal Périgourdin. It is on this basis of support that was established a seigniory lady of the manor of first origin. That is established thus a metrological center of diffusion and from where was exerted and with the doors of Périgueux the political power and economic of the Viscounts of Limoges was maintained. The castle became the center of a feudal unit, at the same time as the generating element of the framework, landscape and space which surrounds it. The reality of the existence of the territorial unit generated by the castrum appears in the texts as from the 13th century, but it is not improbable that the châtellenie shaped at the previous century. It included in its spring 16 parishes in 1365 and controlled in its ends two large convergent currents of circulation towards the Périgueux city, by the valley of Auvézère and the valley of the Manor.

The judicial and administrative power was ensured on the extent of the district by an agent of the Viscount of Limoges, provost, was attested as of September 1257. The rocca castri became a chief-Iieu of district of weights and measures, attested since 1289 and the place of perception of a toll for salt at the 14th century. It also generated a village agglomeration towards the end of the 12th century or at the beginning of the 13th century, as start to indicate it the first archaeological excavations. The indigence of documentation does not make it possible to know the statute of this borough subcastral. It would seem that certain privileges were granted very tardily (2nd half of the 14th century) to the population. But the community does not seem to have crossed the embryonic stage of its stamping before the disappearance of the castrum at the beginning of the 15th century. The state of the residents and their qualities remain in the shade. The generic term of villa qualifying then in Périgord the conglomerates of habitats is not mentioned in the handwritten sources of the end of the Middle Ages for Auberoche; that seems surprising compared to its counterpart of the surroundings (castraux boroughs of Handle, Exideuïil, Montignac, Thiviers, Puy Saint-Face). When the texts quote these places, they distinguish their entities distinctly: castrum (castle); villa (city, settlement of borough castraI); castellenia (châtellenie). On the other hand, the documents mention in Auberoche a bipolar religious structure at the 13th century. There existed two vaults on the site, one castrale, the other apparently village. There was seems it, creation of a new parish, obtained by the dismemberment partial of the parish mother (of the Exchange), in which the fortress had been established. Indeed, in 1324, a domicellus is described as parochianus of Auberoche. In 1365 the parish is attached to that of the Exchange, and in 1524 the parish does not exist any more. The village occupation had to be relatively important so that a new parish cut out in the old one is formed.

The rocca castri also seems to have played a big role in the structuring of the surrounding country. It constituted a point of anchoring for a quota of miles whose presence inside its walls is announced at the beginning of the 12th century century. They are the probable ancestors of these chivalrous chalk-linings which will be at the origin of a blossoming of sowing of habitats, around their strong houses, in the spring of the châtellenie. The establishment of these residences the damoiseaux one or knights of parishes, undoubtedly results from a policy of concession of strongholds with load from homage-liege. These feudal tenures took a hereditary feature and were transmitted by the rule of primogeniture. They constituted the basic unit of the habitat and the development of the ground of the soil.

Description of the castle

The vault

It is a small Romance vault castrale. Its round apse is stressed buttress-columns. A good gate of the 12th century is still in place; on the other hand, the frescos which covered the apse and the half dome entirely disappeared.

The home seigneurial

Powerful the Logis seigneurial set up at the top of the tabular hillock which dominates the rocky outcrop was probably built in the current of the 12th century. The hillock which supports it east seems it partly anthropic origin. Perhaps it obliterates the traces of a former occupation whose existence, if one refers to the scriptuaires sources, can be considered. One can as consider as the absence of witnesses of occupations former to the 12th century, in surveys 2 and 3 tends to show that the anachronistic sources (1180) reporting that the foundation of the rocca forti would date from years 976,991, are in charge of errors. These origins were perhaps voluntarily out-of-date in goal to consolidate bishops of Périgueux in their rights of owners, when they wished to proceed to the infeodation of the place in favor of the Viscounts of Limoges whose interests were opposed to those of the count de Périgord, itself in conflict with the episcopal capacity périgourdin.

Several levels of occupation are succédé, today one sees the trace only old silo which was abandoned at the 12th century. Then a surface with fire was arranged, then the construction of a chimney before the home is demolished in 1430 (see survey 2 of sector II).

Cells of dwelling

The regrouping of the habitat located on the western slope in lower part of the castle, whose existence was proven by the discovery of cell 1 and 3 (see plane vestiges), would seem to extend on the unit from the artificial terraces created in this sloping sector from the site. The cells of dwelling can be rather numerous there according to structured surfaces - 2 to 3 tens -. The overlap structural of the various terraces lets also suppose that their installations was carried out more or less simultaneously. The contemporaneity of the construction of the cells 1 and 3 (shown by furniture present in their levels of base), distant one of the other of more than 70 m and located one in top of the slope, the other at its base would go in the direction of this assumption. The conquest of the slope of the slope at the end of the 12th century and at the beginning of the 13th century by a village habitat would have been rather fast. That as well as the possibility of a settlement of several tens of dwellings, seem to find confirmation in the fact that the village of Auberoche probably involved, as of the middle of the 13th century, the creation of a parish of which it was the chief town. Its church, now disappeared dedicated to Saint-Mathieu, certainly established on the western slope in edge of the way which crosses it, is quoted since 1279.

The 1, placé survey on a terrace which populates the western slope of the site, made it possible to note that the habitat grouped with the foot of the castle in this zone of the site was established at the end of the 12th century or first half of the next century. The abandonment, of the cell, was contemporary among that of the home seigneurial and the levelling of the enclosure. That would indicate a real subordination of this village habitat of first generation to the castle which was certainly the generating element.

The survey of sector 3, delivers the proof of a country occupation which re-occupied the site seigneurial after its desertion (thus subsequently to 1430), thanks to a succession of arranged levels. One can however add thanks to the ceramics found in these levels, that the final stage of the occupation does not overflow the end of the 15th century.

The origin of creation this small village occupation remains obscure: nothing for the moment indicates if it is a habitat grouped spontaneously around the castle, or if on the contrary the movement were more or less directed by the owners of the castrum.

The enclosure

The establishment of the enclosure which one can roughly follow the layout thanks to the assets of the land survey, appears contemporary first occupations of the home seigneurial which it encloses and protects. The homogeneity of the foundations of this wall testifies to its construction in only one shift. The limits of the space castral which one still perceives, seem to be inherited the installation of the Romance enclosure. The plate of the castle thus does not appear to have undergone enlarging or of contraction between 12th and the 15th century.

The survey of the home seigneurial and that practiced on the enclosure brought both of the elements confirming the destruction and the abandonment of the castle at the beginning of the 15th century, following the military events which marked the end of the One hundred Year old war.

Eugene Roy, in the popular song quoted in the mill of Frau , speaks about the tower of the keep which resists the bad weather still rather proudly:

the tower of Auberoche

Monte in the clouds

Pourtant I like better, certainly

the neck girds of a velvet

Of my crumb.

Random links: