Tours de Merle

The Tours de Merle

The Tours de Merle (english Towers of Merle) are a set of fortified houses that makes a castrum (fortified places) from de XIIth and XVth century. They stand on the town of Saint-Geniez-ô-Merle in the Corrèze department, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, in France. They were the center of a co-seigniory and a castellany.

The remains of the castle are ranked as French Monument Historique (English: historical monument) by order of the 30th of July 1927.

Situation

The medieval remains of the Tours de Merle stand on a steep rocky outcrop, in a meander of the Maronne in the heart of Xaintrie, in the French county of Corrèze, in the town of Saint-Geniez-ô-Merle. The place that we can visit includes a 10 ha site.

History

Since the beginning, the place is named Merle, probably in reference to the bird that is naturally present, or to the merlon, which is a French term to describe the full part of a parapet located between two battlements in a context of defensive architecture.

Fortified in majority naturally, the site offers to the Lords a dominant position. He is build on a rocky spur of 30 meters high, 40 meters wide on 200 meters long, in a meander of the Maronne river. The 1^st time the site is mentioned date from 1219 (an eponym family is attested since the end of the XI^th century) and the castrum persist until the XV^th century.

Place of toll, the castrum is located at the border between the Duchy of Aquitaine, the county of Auvergne, the County of Toulouse and two dioceses. Seven seigniorial families get along with or one after the others in Merle. So many square plan towers are erected on the same site in order to avoid to each family to disperse and weaken. On this “peninsula”, we could find the Lords of Merle, Veyrac, Pesteils, Carbonnières (the most eminent), Noailles Saint Bauzile and Alboy.

From the XII^th to the XV^th century, the seigniorial lineage owners of the place erect towers, hostels, walls. Thus constituting a castrum, it will not fall before the use of the artillery because the site could easily be bombed from the surrounding heights. In 1350, the castrum counts more than a hundred of peasants and nobles in a town composed of about 30 thatched cottages with their gardens and orchards. Each social category is represented because there are lumberjacks, artisans, peasants, priests and lawyers. At the XIV^th century, Merle has got seven strongholds, two chapels and a town that are owned in undivision by seven Lords from the Merle’s, Carbonnières’s, Veyrac’s and Pestels’s families.

The English were present since 1357 in the Auvergne and Limousin basins of the Dordogne and in 1371 during the Hundred Year’s War, they besiege and occupy Merle by taking a tower and a castle, finally they give them back later.

In 1974, at the end of the Hundred Year’s War, a period of peace allows the beginning of a prosper area for the city. The French Wars of Religion caused later some deadly ravages. The Calvinists took the place and installed a garrison there in 1574, but two years later they are driven out by the co-lords.

However, the site is abandoned by the co-lords who preferred live in more pleasant and accessible places. At the end of the XVII^th century, the villagers decided to leave the place because they do not have any protection. So they disperse and the castelry is slowly being forgotten even if some inhabitants live in the town at the bottom of the rock until the beginning of the XX^th century.

See also

• List of castles in France
• Saint-Geniez-ô-Merle
• Medieval fortification

External links

• Château de Merle Template:Fr icon
• Château de Merle, Mérimée database Template:Fr icon
• http://www.lacorreze.com/chateaux/merle/accueil/les_tours.htm (name in French of each tower)
• http://www.lacorreze.com/chateaux/chateau_de_merle.htm (French website)
• http://www.toursdemerle.fr/en (English website)