Yèvre-le-Châtel

Yèvre-le-Châtel is a common French (code INSEE: 45349), located in the Department of Loiret and the area Center.

Yèvre-le-Châtel is associated since 1973 with the commune of Yèvre-the-City. The geographical data (surface, altitudes, coordinates) as demographic are available on the page of Yèvre-the-City.

Geography

Localities and variations

Communes bordering

Yèvre-the-City, Dadonville, Givraines, Estouy

History

(Source: folder input of the castle)

Located on a spur, in extreme cases of old évêchés of Orleans and Direction, of which the the Essonne and the Rimarde marked the border, Yèvre-le-Châtel was very early strengthened.

As of the 10th century, Yèvre is one of the possessions of the Abbey of the Saint-Benoit-on-Loire. One knows that on several occasions the monks of Fleury complained with the King, Hugues Capet, of the exactions of the baron Arnoul de Yèvre. It is undoubtedly to make forget excesses of her husband whom his wife, Lucinde, founded in the enclosure of the castle an abbey under the invocation of Saint-Gault, one of the Saints of Brittany whose relics had been brought in the area by monks fleeing the invasion of the Norman ones. The vault of this abbey is today the parish church of Yèvre-le-Châtel.

After the death of the baron Arnoul, the King will intervene several times to subject his successors and to dismantle their castles which were to be only wood forts, built on a “mound”. The fastening of the castle to the crown of France is probably about 1112, when Louis VI the Large constrained the Foulques Viscount to yield Yèvre-le-Châtel to him of which it made powerful a châtellenie.

About 1200, on order of Philippe Auguste, the castle was rebuilt according to the last improvements of the military architecture brought back of the crusades, in particular the relieving arches increasing resistance to the work of Sape. It east seems it in Gilon of Tournel that one owes this ultimate rebuilding.

During the one hundred year old war, Yèvre remained, with Montargis, the only fortified town in the north of the Loire not to fall between the hands from English or the Burgundian ones.

At the end of the 15th century, because of extension of the royal field and progress of the artillery which made its defenses obsolete, Yèvre-le-Châtel lost of its importance and its role of fortified town. An inventory already indicates, in 1610, that the castle is in ruin.

In 1637, the constabulary will be transferred to Pithiviers, but royal justice will continue to sit at Yèvre until the Revolution.

Administration

Of 1926 with 1942, Yèvre-the-City and Yèvre-le-Châtel, like all the communes of the Canton of Pithiviers, dependant since 1800 (year VIII) on the District of Pithiviers, was attached to the Arrondissement of Orleans, during the temporary removal of the district. The reform of 1942 reconstituted this district within the limits and the cutting which were them his until 1926.

Demography

Inheritance

Yèvre-le-Châtel is classified since 2002 among the most beautiful villages of France.

Religious heritage

Yèvre-le-Châtel has two churches: the church Gault Saint, and the church Lubin Saint (unfinished and which does not have a roof - what is gènant).

Civil inheritance

Strong castle (see history above): currently in ruins but opened with the visit, it is about a Quadrilatère flanked of a round tower to each angle and surrounded by a dry ditch. The entry in the Basse-cour is protected by a postern with a Pont-levis. The entry in the castle him even is done by climbing a staircase which carries out, via a mobile footbridge, on the first floor.

See too

External bonds

Photographs of the castle of Yèvre-le-Châtel

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