The text in this post is my translation/adaptation
of a sign posted for visitors at the site of the ruins
of the Château de Domfront in Normandy.
The sign is hard to read because the text is
in all caps, there are no accents on letters,
and there are no spaces after punctuation marks.
As usual, you can enlarge the image for a better view.
Around the year 1010, at the western edge of his territories, Guillaume de Bellême built a wooden fort on top of a rocky outcropping on the southern edge of Normandy. Nothing remains of that structure.Lord of Domfront in 1092, then king of England (1100) and duke of Normandy (1106), Henri I Beauclerc, the third son of William the Conqueror, had a fortified stone tower built at the same site, along with the St. Symphorien chapel, a priory dependent on the Lonlay Abby. It was one of the biggest fortresses in France.
The château served as a residence for the Anglo-Norman kings in the 12th century and was used as such by king Henri II Plantagenêt and queen Eleanor of Aquitaine as well as by Richard the Lion-Hearted and John Lackland.
In August 1161 at Domfront, Eleanor gave birth to a daughter known as Eleanor of England, who was probably baptised in the chapel at the château. She was to be the mother of the French queen Blanche de Castille (wife of Louis VIII) and the grandmother of French king Louis IX, who was known as Saint Louis. In August 1169 in Domfront, Henri II Plantagenêt met with emissaries sent there by the Pope to try to work out a reconciliation between him and Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury.
When the French king Philippe-Auguste conquered Normandy in the year 1204, ownership of Domfront and its château was granted to various members of the French royal family over the course of the 13th and subsequent centuries.
During the Hundred Years’ War, the château was occupied by the English from 1336 until 1366, and again from 1414 (after a nine-month siege) until 1450. It was one of the last towns in Normandy that the French crown succeeded in taking back from the English after that long war.
In the late 15th century, the château was “modernized” to accommodate artillery weapons. In 1574, during the French wars of religion, the Protestant leader Gabriel de Mongomery was forced to surrender himself and Domfront to the Catholic commander of the Royal army, the Maréchal de Matignon, after a long siege.
Rendered obsolete, the château was demolished in 1608 by order of the French king Henri IV and Sully, his powerful minister. The first restorations on the site date back to the 1860s when it was turned into a park that replaced vegetable gardens the townspeople had planted on the property. The old fortifications were excavated and restored beginning in the 1980s.
This is fascinating. I knew about Domfront, but nothing about its history.
ReplyDeleteIf it were me, I would write to the Office de Tourisme to tell them that the individual who did that sign should be hanged haut et court, high and short.
I think it is Eleanor who was baptized in Domfront and not Louis (IX?) who was born in Frace at Poissy,
I'm sure you are right about the baptism. I didn't know that Louis IX (Saint Louis, originally known as Louis de France, I think) was born in Poissy.
DeleteThe chateau de Domfront, through Prosper Mérimée sent me visiting the set of six famous tapestries in the Musée de Cluny, la Dame à la Licorne. Isn't Internet amazing?
ReplyDeleteI love this! These are all of my Medieval unit (French 3) characters! I think the ridiculous all-caps lettering of the sign, caused it to look like that said, Henry II, but it was Henry I who was William the Conqueror's third son. He was grandfather to Henry II Plantagenet, husband of Eleanor of Aquitaine.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever read the book, or seen the excellent BBC miniseries (available through STARZ and NETFLIX in the U.S.), Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett? It is a rich interweaving of many kinds of characters of the era of the Anarchy -- the period after Henry I, when his daughter, Maude, and her cousin, Stephen, battled back and forth for the throne of England. That period ended with a treaty that allowed for Maude's son, Henry Plantagenet, to become the next ruler. I highly recommend :)
Thanks, Judy, I will check into it. I tried reading the book years ago but when it took the author more than 100 pages to get the protagonist across a bridge, I gave up.
DeleteThat was a typo. Sorry.
DeleteThanks for expanding my knowledge of French history!
ReplyDeleteDemolished in 1608? I guess historic preservation as a concept was still a couple centruies away. How interwoven the French and English royal families were in this part of France.
ReplyDeleteAt that time those fortresses were a menace to the royal government.
DeleteAh yes, makes sense!
DeleteWhen you think of it, all these people had to be multilingual. Eleanor of Aquitaine had to learn English. Her daughter, Eleanor of England had to learn Spanish and her granddaughter, Blanche de Castille had to go back to French.
ReplyDeleteThis made me think of a remarkable woman, Marguerite de Valois-Angoulême, sister of King Francis Ist of France, and grandmother of King Henri IV of France. I highly recommend her Wikipedia page.
I think I've read that Richard Cœur de Lion (king Richard 1 of England for 10 years [1189-1199]) didn't speak English, even though he was born in England and spent the first eight years of his life there. During his reign as king, he may well have spent no more than six months in England. Says Wikipedia.
DeleteNice angles on the ruins! I find places like this that are so heavy with history and personalities to be very romantic.
ReplyDeleteBlogger would not let me comment from my ipad yesterday, but I did want to say that your vegetable plot and lawn look great.