Château de Chinon
Château de Chinon is a château located on the bank of the river Vienne in Chinon, France. It was founded by Theobald I, Count of Blois. In the 11th century the castle became the property of the counts of Anjou. In 1156 Henry II of England, a member of the House of Anjou, took the castle from his brother Geoffrey, Count of Nantes, after Geoffrey rebelled for a second time. Henry favoured the Château de Chinon as a residence. Most of the standing structure can be attributed to his reign; he died there in 1189.
Early in the 13th century, King Philip II of France harassed the English lands in France, and in 1205 he captured Chinon after a siege that lasted several months. Thereafter, the castle remained under French control. When King Philip IV accused the Knights Templar of heresy during the first decade of the 14th century, several leading members of the order were imprisoned there.
Used as a residence by
History
Background
The settlement of Chinon is on the bank of the river Vienne about 10 kilometres (6 mi) from where it joins the
Counts of Anjou
According to contemporaneous chronicler
In 1173 Henry II betrothed his youngest son, Prince
After the revolt ended in 1174, relations between Henry II and his sons continued to be strained. By 1187 Henry the Young King was dead, Richard was in line to inherit, and Henry II was on the brink of war with Philip II. In June that year Richard travelled to Paris with Philip II and struck up a friendship with the French king. Concerned his son might turn against him, Henry II asked him to return. Richard went to Chinon and raided the castle's treasury so he could fund the repair of his own castles in Aquitaine.[18] In 1189 Richard and Philip were wreaking havoc in Maine and Toulouse, capturing Henry II's castles; the king was ill and went to Château de Chinon. He left briefly in July to meet with Richard and Philip II and agree a truce, and died at Chinon on 6 July. The king's body was taken to Fontevraud Abbey and Richard became king.[19]
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Château de Chinon - Slab on the ground at the site of St Melaine's chapel in which Henry II of England died
In 1199, John succeeded his brother as King of England. By 1202 his lands in France were under threat from
French rule
For a time in the 14th century the Château de Chinon was used as a prison.
The Hundred Years' War in the 14th and 15th centuries was fought between the kings of England and France over the succession to the French throne. The war ended in 1453 when the English were finally ejected from France, but in the early 15th century the English under King Henry V made significant territorial gains.[31] The Treaty of Troyes in 1420 made Henry V the heir apparent to the French throne but when the French king, Charles VI, and Henry V died in the space of two months in 1422 the issue of succession was again uncertain. The English supported Henry V's son, Henry VI who was still a child, while the French supported recognised Charles VII, the Dauphin of France.[32] Between 1427 and 1450 Château de Chinon was the residence of Charles,[33] when Touraine was virtually the only territory left to him in France, the rest being occupied by the Burgundians or the English.
On 6 March 1429
In 1562 the château came briefly into the possession of the
The 19th century saw increasing public interest in France's heritage and efforts were undertaken to preserve historic buildings. In 1830 the newly crowned
Description
Standing on a rocky outcrop above the river Vienne, Château de Chinon has natural defences on three sides and a ditch dug along the fourth.[39] Writing in the 12th century, the chronicler William of Newburgh commented that even before Château de Chinon came under the control of Henry II "its strength was such that nature seemed to vie with human art in fortifying and defending it".[40] That said, in the 12th century Henry II undertook a project of rebuilding the castle and much of the extant remains date from this period.[11] The stone used to build the castle was quarried on the site.[41]
The castle is divided, along its length, into three enclosures, each separated by a deep dry
The easternmost enclosure is known as Fort St-Georges, the central is the Château du Milieu (the middle castle), while the westernmost is known as the Fort du Coudray. The Fort St-George was built under Henry II and contained a chapel dedicated to
See also
References
Notes
- ^ Pérouse de Montclos (1997), p. 178
- ^ Clark (1952), p. 282
- ^ Garrett (2011), p. xv
- ^ Wheeler (1983), p. 14
- ^ a b History of the fortress, Fortresse Royale de Chinon, archived from the original on 2012-07-05, retrieved 2012-02-20
- ^ Bachrach (1993), pp. 239–240
- ^ Bradbury (2007), p. 102
- ^ Warren (1973), pp. 45–47
- ^ Warren (1973), p. 65
- ^ Warren (1973), p. 591
- ^ a b Stokstad (2005), p. 37
- ^ Warren (1973), pp. 117–118
- ^ Warren (1973), p. 118
- ^ Gillingham (2002), p. 42
- ^ Flori (1999), p. 33
- ^ Warren (1973), p. 132
- ^ a b Stokstad (2005), p. 38
- ^ Gillingham (2002), pp. 82–85
- ^ Gillingham (2002), p. 99
- ^ Warren (1978), pp. 84–86
- ^ Powicke (1999), p. 160
- ^ Warren (1978), p. 116
- ^ West (2004)
- ^ Powicke (1999), p. 264
- ^ a b Thompson (1991), p. 43
- ^ King (1983), p. xvii
- ^ Barber (1993), pp. 1–2
- ^ Ralls (2007), p. 183
- ^ Barber (1993), pp. 107, 111
- ^ Barber (1993), p. 3
- ^ Neillands (2001), pp. 1–4
- ^ Neillands (2001), p. 236
- ^ Stokstad (2005), p. xxxv
- ^ a b Neillands (2001), pp. 253–258
- ^ Gies (1981), pp. 45, 52
- ^ Chirol & Seydoux (1992), p. 83
- ^ Watts (2007), pp.39–40
- ^ History of a construction site, Fortresse Royale de Chinon, archived from the original on 2012-07-11, retrieved 2012-02-20
- ^ a b Larned (1895), p. 147
- ^ Quoted in Warren (1973), p. 231
- ^ Erlande-Brandenburg (1995), p. 104
- ^ Stokstad (2005), pp. 37–38
- ^ Henneman (1995), p. 218
- ^ Dunlop (1969), p. 14
Bibliography
- ISBN 978-0-520-07996-0
- ISBN 978-0-521-45727-9
- ISBN 978-1-85285-528-4
- Chirol, Serge; Seydoux, Philippe (1992), Chateaux of the Val de Loire, Vendome Press, ISBN 978-0-86565-134-0
- Clark, J. G. D. (1952), Prehistoric Europe: the economic basis, Stanford University Press
- ISBN 978-0-500-30052-7
- Dunlop, Ian (1969), Châteaux of the Loire, Hamilton
- ISBN 978-0-7486-2047-0
- Garrett, Martin (2011), The Loire: A Cultural History, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-976839-4
- ISBN 978-0-690-01942-1
- ISBN 0-300-09404-3
- Henneman, John Bell Jr. (1995), "Chinon", in William W. Kibler; Grover A. Zinn (eds.), Medieval France: an encyclopedia, Routledge, ISBN 978-0-8240-4444-2
- King, David James Cathcart (1988), The Castle in England and Wales: an Interpretative History, London: Croom Helm, ISBN 0-918400-08-2
- Larned, Walter Cranston (1895), Churches and Castles of Mediaeval France, Charles Scribner's Sons
- Neillands, Robin (2001), The Hundred Years War, Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-26131-9
- Pérouse de Montclos, Jean-Marie (1997), Châteaux of the Loire Valley, Könemann, ISBN 978-3-89508-598-7
- ISBN 978-0-7190-5740-3
- Ralls, Karen (2007), Knights Templar Encyclopedia, Career Press, ISBN 978-1-56414-926-8
- ISBN 978-0-313-32525-0
- Thompson, Michael (1991), The Rise of the Castle, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-37544-3
- ISBN 978-0-520-02282-9
- Warren, W. L. (1978), King John, English Monarchs Series, University of California Press, ISBN 978-0-520-03494-5
- Watts, Andrew (2007), Preserving the provinces: small town and countryside in the work of Honoré de Balzac, French Studies of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, vol. 28, Peter Lang, ISBN 978-3-03910-583-0
- West, F. J. (2004). "Burgh, Hubert de, earl of Kent". doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/3991. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- Wheeler, Daniel (1983), The Chateaux of France, Vendome Press, ISBN 978-0-86565-036-7
Further reading
- Mesqui, Jean (1997), Chateaux-forts et fortifications en France (in French), Paris: Flammarion, ISBN 2-08-012271-1
External links
- Royal Fortress of Chinon – Web archive of the official site through December 2015.
- Official website of the Royal Fortress of Chinon, added January 2019