Fenouillet (the Eastern Pyrenees)

Administration

Demography

Geography

Fenouillet is with the crossroads old routes transportation on a rock eminence of 530m of altitude, with the junction of two rivers, fixed on the side of a small valley opening on the collar of Ayguesbonnes which leads to Puilaurens, the collar del Mas towards the heart of Fenouillèdes, the collar of Tulla towards the valley of Boulzane and finally the collar of Saint-Louis towards the valley of the Aude.

Thanks to this strategic geographical location Fenouillet was very easily justifiable. Two wall lines protected the village surmounted from the viscontal castle Saint Pierre. The whole was defended by two secondary castles: Sabarda and Castel Fizel.

History

a history rich in events

It is into 842 that one finds the first mention of a territory bearing the name of Fenouillèdes, as for Fenouillet it is into 904 that one finds of them the first hard copies.

In 1011 a bubble of the Pope Serge IV indicates that a monastery devoted to Saint Pierre will be established in the county of Fenouillèdes. Probably this monastery was built inside the viscontal castle, from where the name of castle Saint Pierre.

The first known Viscount was Pierre, listed in 1017 in the constitutive instrument of évêché of Besalu (In Spain close to Figueres). At the time the county is under catalano-Aragonese domination, but at the end of the XII° century, Arnaud, the last Viscount in hot line, dies without male heir. After her death his/her daughter marries Pierre, a junior by Saissac, powerful family of the Black Mountain. The castle and the Viscount enter then the mobility of the Viscounts of Narbonne. Pierre de Saissac becomes by this alliance the Viscount Pierre de Fenouillet.

It is doubtless under this influence that the catharism reaches Fenouillèdes. Indeed, Saissac were manifestly related to the religion cathare and one supposes that the Viscount of Fenouillet very largely opened with religious dissidence. The registers of the enquiry make besides of it mention like “communities local heretics”.

In 1222, discredited by his support for the heresy cathare, the Viscount Pierre de Fenouillet is dispossessed of the Viscount of Fenouillèdes to the profit of the count of Roussillon Nunyo Sanche. Pierre de Fenouillet enters then in war with the count and they are only 7 years later that it decides to deposit the weapons. In compensation for this war, it yields to the count of Roussillon the castle of Fenouillet and the Viscount.

Pierre de Fenouillet does not disarm any less and wants to recover Fenouillèdes and his castle. From 1229 to 1242, it takes part in the great rebellions occitanes to shake the French yoke. Unfortunately, the historical failure of these attempts will put a final term at its hopes to reinstate its goods. He dies in 1243 in the commandery templière of the Farmhouse Deu, and in 1258 the Viscount of Fenouillèdes passes definitively in the French royal possessions.

Fenouillet becomes then, like all the large castles of the time, a fortified town of border under the authority of king de France. Because of this frontier situation, Fenouillèdes suffers from a permanent conflict between France, Aragon, then Spain. Throughout the XVI° century, the devastations of the Spaniards added to those of the Wars of religion cause a general misery. So much so that in 1536 and the 1544 inhabitants of Fenouillèdes are exempted of any tax during several years.

With final, in 1580 Fenouillet would have been taken and partly destroyed by the calvinists, then shaven in 1595, and finally definitively destroyed by the Spaniards in 1635.

Today

In 1994, the municipality of Fenouillet decided to launch a study to evaluate the historical, archaeological and architectural interest of the site. The first studies began modestly, followed since 2000 of triennial operations of intensive excavations.

Parallel to this study, he was undertaken the development of the site. Thanks to an original operating process, associating archeologists, masons of trade, building site of reintegration and the inhabitants of the village, several work of rehabilitation was completed while respecting the landscape interest scrupulously.

Thanks to this research, it in particular could be highlighted that certain parts of the site could be dated from the XI° even of X° century. Moreover, unlike its famous neighbors, the castles of Peyrepertuse and Puilaurens, the castle Saint Pierre was not re-used by the crown of France.

In the area, Fenouillet is thus one of the rare examples of military architecture seigneuriale which was not altered after the crusade against the heretics cathares. What makes all its value of it…

Places and monuments

the viscontal castle of Saint Pierre
ruins of the castle of Sabarda

Personalities related to the commune

See too

Common of the Eastern Pyrenees

External bonds

Official site of the commune of Fenouillet
Fenouillet on the site of the national geographical Institute
Fenouillet on the site of INSEE
Fenouillet on the site of Quid
Localization of Fenouillet on a chart of France and communes bordering
Plane on Fenouillet on Mapquest

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