dAf 32
POISSON Jean-Michel
Le château médiéval, forteresse habitée (XIe-XVIe s.)
Archéologie et histoire : perspectives de la recherche en Rhône-Alpes.
Who were the inhabitants of the castle, the main center of power during the Middle-Ages? What was their life? These are some of the many questions to which this collective study hopes to reply. Confronted by archaeological and written evidence, unusually treated here as sciences auxiliary to archaeology, we are offered here an unusual view of a sparsly inhabited castle. This study is centred on the region of the Rhône-Alpes, with several incursions for comparison in Alsace, Spain and in Poland, their objective goes far outside the regional limits and should provoke the interest of all archaeologists and medieval historians.
Abstract
Abstract
1 The contribution of documents
1.1 The inventories of castles : reflections on a source (M.-T. Lorcin)
The diversity of these documents, important by their size, by their date, and the situation of the castles that they concern, is also important for the descriptions of their contents. The listings, often very considerable, of furniture and domestic objects contribute to give precious information on the way of life of the owners.
1.2 Internal organisation of Bresse castles during the XIVth century : the contribution of the texts for the archaeologist (J.-M. Lescuyer, J.-M. Poisson)
In many cases, the medieval castles of Bresse were conceived as stone shells enclosing wooden buildings. The accounts of repairs help to understand the internal organisation of these structures. They are often limited to the essential elements such as the hall, the bedroom(s), the kitchen and the chapel.
1.3 Life in castles of the
This study presents jointly, originating from abundant documentary evidence the material organisation of a series of castles and the status of the persons who occupied them, The occupation of these fortresses by the large population of varying status and function can be judged here.
1.4 The sad fate of the medieval castles of the Counts of Forez (E.Viallard)
The author presents in this study, the destiny of the castles built during the Middle-Ages by the Counts of Forez, to the modern period. It is recorded that the majority of the se fortresses were, by the XVllth and XVllIth centuries abandoned, ruined, or lost. A series of statements following visits have permitted precise descriptions to be given 'on the present situation.
1.5 True or false ? The contribution of iconography to the study of medieval castles (D. Alexandre-Bidon)
Medieval figurative representations constitute a corpus of illustrations where the medieval castle is frequently represented. A critical study has permitted to draw from this particular source a large amount of information about internal and external appearance of castles.
1.6 The Mansion, an original system of temporal devolution of the castles belonging to the episcopat of
The primatial of the Gauls possessed a very important reserve of landed properties and controlled the almost totality of the castles in the
2 The seigneurial residence
2.1 Research on the evolution of the residential function of the castle keep in the
2.2 Forteresses and residences : the castles of Trévoux, Fallavler and
Saint-Georges d'Espéranche (J.-F. Reynaud)
With the help of three monuments chosen amongst the most important princely fortresses of the Middle:-Ages in the region, the author outlines elements which are orientated more specially towards a concern for comfort and symbolic aesthetics.
2.3 Castle sanctuaries: from the useful to the ostentatious (B.Mandy)
The chapel is a most important element in a castle in so much that it is a seat of power. Based on an inventory of places of worship situated in the castles of the Rhône-Alpes, the author studies the evolution of their function using such criteria as size, position, dedication and association with the parish.
2.4 The Keep of Bressieux : defensive of residential function? (Y. Harlé-Sambet)
By the use of detailed architectural and archaeological analysis, it is possible to evaluate to which measure the builders and possessors of the castle have conciliated the necessities of an effective , military defence system to that of seigniorial life-style adapted to a powerful aristocratic lineage.
2.5 Fortresses or residences? The castles of the Counts of Forez
from l'Armorial de Revel (F. Piponnier)
The study of castles in the Rhône-Alpes region has an exceptional source, a collection of illustrated representations of castles of the
2.6 From the motte to seigniorial residence: the example of Rochefort-en-Valdaine (Drôme), Xlth-XVlth centuries (M. Bois)
Archaeological enquiry has brought to light on the same site the evolution of technical solutions to a castle structure in relation to the different phases representing a long period of occupation. The determining point here is the passage from an elementary ditched defence to a complex stone built fortress.
2.7 From fortress to the
From medieval documents, archaeological excavations, and above ail inventories of the XVth and XVlllth centuries, the author outlines the spectacular changes affecting the fortress constructed by the Adhémar, transforming it into a palace which enchanted the comtesse de Sévigné and describes the radical changes in the manner in which it was occupied.
2.8 Lords and lordships of the Vuache (F. Raynaud)
The complementary nature of the written and archaeological sources for the complete study of a castle site is well illustrated by this example of rural lordship of the Savoie which has been analysed in ail its economic and architectural components.
2.9 Mountain castles during the Xlllth and XIVth centuries: territorial organisation after lordship accounts (E. Sirot-Chalmin)
Situated within the framework of the ancient
3 Comparisons : neighbouring and distant estates
3.1 The wooden fumiture of Savoyard castles of the former Pays de Vaudand and Chablais region between 1360 and 1450 (D. de Raemy) Certain series of medieval documentary sources such as accounts of lordships offer for study precise information on the residential function of castles. The example of furniture has been chosen here for which it has been possible to present the forms, material, function and position in the different rooms of the living quarters.
3.2
Outlined here is a detailed study of one of the most important castles of the Forez during the Middle-Ages. The architectural and archaeological analysis has permitted precisions to be made on the construction phases in which the organisation of the different improvements that witness the difficulties of reconciling the necessities of defence and residence.
3.3 Remarks on some elements conceming comfort in Alsacian castles (B. Metz, GAMA)
Chosen as an area of comparison,
3.4 The garrisons of rural castles at the beginning of the XIVth century (P. Guichard) Several documents of the aragon concern the concession of royal castles to the alcaides, where visits by royal officers show that rural fortresses of important size were not often occupied, several years after the reconquest of the kingdom of Valence, than by a garrison of several men.
3.5 The first residential castles of Great Poland (T. Poklewski)
The castles constructed in Great Poland during the XIVth century, either at royal , initiative or by powerful noble families, are constructed as a rational reply to the necessities of defence, administration of power, aristocratic residence and the administration of estates.
