Chateau de Foix

Built on an older 7th century fortification, the castle is known from 987. In 1002, it was mentioned in the will of Roger I, Count of Carcassonne, who bequeathed the fortress to his youngest child, Bernard.

In effect, the family ruling over the region were installed here which allowed them to control access to the upper Ariège valley and to keep surveillance from this strategic point over the lower land, protected behind impregnable walls.

In 1034, the castle became capital of the County of Foix and played a decisive role in mediaeval military history.

During the two following centuries, the castle was home to Counts with shining personalities who became the soul of the Occitan resistance during the crusade against the Albigensians. The county became a privileged refuge for persecuted Cathars.

The castle, often besieged (notably by Simon de Montfort in 1211 and 1212), resisted assault and was only taken once, in 1486, thanks to treachery during the war between two branches of the Foix family.

From the 14th century, the Counts of Foix spent less and less time in the uncomfortable castle, preferring the Governors' Palace (Palais des gouverneurs).

From 1479, the Counts of Foix became Kings of Navarre and the last of them, made Henri IV of France, annexed his Pyrrenean lands to France.

As seat of the Governor of the Foix region from the 15th century, the castle continued to ensure the defence of the area, notably during the Wars of Religion.

Alone of all the castles in the region, it was exempted from the destruction orders of Richelieu (1632-1638).

Until the Revolution, the fortress remained a garrison. Its life was brightened with grand receptions for its governors, including the Count of

Tréville, captain of musketeers under Louis XIII and Marshal Philippe Henri de Ségur, one of Louis XVI's ministers. The Round Tower, built in the 15th century, is the most recent, the two square towers having been built before the 11th century.

They served as a political and civil prison for four centuries until 1862.

Since 1930, the castle has housed the collections of the Ariège départemental museum. Sections on prehistory, Gallo-Roman and mediaeval archaeology tell the history of Ariège from ancient times. Currently, the museum is rearranging exhibits to concentrate on the history of the castle site so as to recreate the life of Foix at the time of the Counts.

Chateau de Miglos

Miglos is a village and commune in the Ariège département in southern France.




It is located in the former High Ariege in the High County Foix, Sabarthès.


The valley opens to the northwest Vicdessos valley at Capoulet, and to the south it forms a large bowl.



The valley has an average altitude of 810 meters.



The limits of the Barony under the former regime were almost the same as those of today.

During the revolutionary period the municipality escaped fragmentation.

Chateau de Carcassonne

Carcassonne became strategically identified when Romans fortified the hilltop around 100 BC and eventually made it the colonia of Julia Carsaco, later Carcasum (the process of swapping consonant is a metathesis). The main part of the lower courses of the northern ramparts dates from Gallo-Roman times. In 462 the Romans officially ceded Septimania to the Visigothic king Theodoric II who had held Carcassonne since 453; he built more fortifications at Carcassonne, which was a frontier post on the northern marches: traces of them still stand. Theodoric is thought to have begun the predecessor of the basilica that is now dedicated to Saint Nazaire.

In 508 the Visigoths successfully foiled attacks by the Frankish king Clovis. Saracens from Barcelona took Carcassonne in 725, but King Pippin the Younger drove them away in 759-60; though he took most of the south of France, he was unable to penetrate the impregnable fortress of Carcassonne.

A medieval fiefdom, the county of Carcassonne, controlled the city and its environs. It was often united with the County of Razès. The origins of Carcassonne as a county probably lie in local representatives of the Visigoths, but the first count known by name is Bello of the time of Charlemagne. Bello founded a dynasty, the Bellonids, which would rule many honores in Septimania and Catalonia for three centuries.

In 1067 Carcassonne became the property of Raimond Bernard Trencavel, viscount of Albi and Nîmes, through his marriage with Ermengard, sister of the last count of Carcassonne. In the following centuries the Trencavel family allied in succession either with the counts of Barcelona or of Toulouse. They built the Château Comtal and the Basilica of Saint-Nazaire. In 1096 Pope Urban II blessed the foundation stones of the new cathedral, a Catholic bastion against the Cathar heretics.

Carcassonne became famous in its role in the Albigensian Crusades, when the city was a stronghold of occitan cathars. In August 1209 the crusading army of Simon de Montfort forced its citizens to surrender. After capturing Raymond-Roger de Trencavel and imprisoning and allowing him to die, Montfort made himself the new viscount. He added to the fortifications. Carcassonne became a border citadel between France and the kingdom of Aragon (Spain).

In 1240 Trencavel's son tried to reconquer his old domain but in vain. The city submitted to the rule of kingdom of France in 1247, and King Louis IX founded the new part of the town across the river. He and his successor Philip III built the outer ramparts.

Contemporary opinion still considered the fortress impregnable. During the Hundred Years' War, Edward the Black Prince failed to take the city in 1355, although his troops destroyed the Lower Town.

In 1659, the Treaty of Pyrenees transferred the border province of Roussillon to France, and Carcassonne's military significance was reduced.

Fortifications were abandoned, and the city became mainly an economic center that concentrated on the woollen textile industry, for which a 1723 source quoted by Fernand Braudel found it “the manufacturing center of Languedoc”

Chateau de Queribus

The Château de Quéribus (in Occitan Castèl de Queribús) is a ruined castle in the commune of Cucugnan in the Aude département of France. It has been listed as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture since 1907.

Queribus is one of the "Five Sons of Carcassonne", along with Aguilar, Peyrepertuse, Termes and Puilaurens: five castles strategically placed to defend the new (1659) French border against the Spanish.

It is sometimes regarded as the last Cathar stronghold. After the fall of Montségur in 1244 surviving Cathars gathered together in another mountain-top stronghold on the border of Aragon (the present border between the Aude and the Pyrénées-Orientales).

In 1255 a French army was dispatched to deal with these remaining Cathars, but they slipped away without a fight, probably to Aragon or Piedmont - both regions where Cathar beliefs were still common, and where the Occitan language was spoken.

Quéribus is high and isolated. It stands on top of the highest peak for miles around. In 1951 restoration work on the turret began, and between 1998-2002 a complete restoration of the castle was undertaken: the castle is now accessible to visitors.

Rennes le Chateau

Rennes-le-Château (Rènnas del Castèl in Occitan) is a small medieval castle village and a commune in the Aude département in Languedoc in southwestern France. It is known internationally, and receives tens of thousands of visitors per year, for being at the center of various conspiracy theories.

Starting in the 1950s, a local restaurant owner, in order to increase business, had spread rumors of a hidden treasure found by a 19th century priest. The story achieved national fame in France, and was then enhanced and expanded by various hoaxsters, who claimed that the priest, Father Bérenger Saunière, had found proof of a secret society known as the Priory of Sion.

The story and society were later proven to be a hoax, but became the origin for hypotheses in documentaries and bestselling books such as Holy Blood Holy Grail and the fiction thriller The Da Vinci Code.

The village is still considered by tourists to be packed with clues to an alternate view of religious history which has long existed in the area.

Mountains frame both ends of the region — the Cevennes to the northeast and the Pyrenees to the south. The area is known for beautiful scenery, with jagged ridges, deep river canyons and rocky limestop e plateaus, with large caves underneath. Like many European villages, it has a complex history.

It is the site of a prehistoric encampment, and later a Roman colony (possibly an oppida, but no traces have been found of ramparts, and it is thought more likely to have been a Roman villa or even a wayside temple, such as is confirmed to have been built at Fa, no more than 5 km (3.1 mi) west of Couiza).

Rennes-le-Château was a Visigoth site during the 6th and 7th centuries, during the trying period when the Visigoths had been defeated by the Frankish King Clovis I and had been reduced to Septimania. However, the claim that Rennes-le-Château was the capital of the Visigoths is an exaggeration: it was Narbonne that held that position.

This claim can be traced back to an anonymous document - actually written by Nöel Corbu - entitled L'histoire de Rennes-le-Château, which was deposited at the Departmental Archives at Carcassonne, on 14 June 1962. The assertion of Visigothic importance of Rennes-le-Château is drawn from one source: A monograph by Louis Fédié, entitled "Rhedae", La Cité des Chariots, which was published in 1876. Monsieur Fédié's assertions concerning the population and importance of Rennes-le-Château have been contradicted by archaeology and the work of more recent historians.

It was the site of a medieval castle which was definitely in existence by 1002. (Nothing remains above ground of this medieval structure - the present ruin is from the 17th or 18th century.) Some authors maintain that Rennes was an important site during the era of Charlemagne, but historians disagree as there is no basis in primary sources to confirm this. Archaeological results suggest that this site was a small settlement of no more than 300 inhabitants at most.

Several castles situated in the surrounding region in the Languedoc were central to the battle between the Catholic church and the Cathars at the beginning of the 13th century. Other castles guarded the volatile border with Spain.

Whole communities were wiped out during the campaigns of the Catholic authorities to rid the area of the Cathar heretics during the Albigensian Crusades and again when Protestants fought for religious freedom against the French monarchy during the French Revolution.

Stokesay Castle

Stokesay Castle is quite simply the finest and best preserved fortified medieval manor house in England. Set in peaceful countryside near the Welsh border, the castle, timber-framed gatehouse and parish church form an unforgettably picturesque group.

Lawrence of Ludlow, a wealthy local wool-merchant wishing to set up as a country gentleman, bought the property in 1281, when the long Anglo-Welsh wars were ending. So it was safe to raise here one of the first fortified manor houses in England, 'builded like a castle' for effect but lit by large domestic-style windows.



Extensive recent tree-ring dating confirms that Lawrence had completed virtually the whole of the still-surviving house by 1291, using the same team of carpenters throughout: more remarkably, the dating also revealed that it has scarcely been altered since.


Stokesay's magnificent open- hearthed great hall displays a fine timber roof, shuttered gable windows and a precipitous staircase, its treads cut from whole tree-trunks. It is flanked by the north tower, with an original medieval tiled floor and remains of wall painting, and a 'solar' or private apartment block, and beyond this the tall south tower - the most castle-like part of the house, self-contained and reached by a defensible stairway.

The solar block contains one of the few post-medieval alterations to the house, a fine panelled chamber. Its dominating feature is a fireplace with richly carved overmantel, still bearing clear traces of original painting in five colours. This was added in about 1641, at the same time as the truly delightful gatehouse: an outstanding example of the Marches style of lavishly showy timber-framing, bedecked with charming carvings of Adam and Eve.

A few years later, in 1645, Stokesay experienced its only known military encounter, surrendering without fighting to a Parliamentarian force. So the house remained undamaged, and sensitive conservation by Victorian owners and English Heritage have left it the medieval jewel which survives today.

Ludlow Castle

Ludlow Castle is first referred to by chroniclers in 1138, but its date of origin is not certain. The architecture suggests that the curtain wall of the inner bailey, its flanking towers and parts of the gatehouse-keep date from the late 11th century.

The site of Ludlow was in a corner of the important manor of Stanton, held since 1066 by the de Lacy family. The level building surface and the steep slopes to the north and west made this a fine defensive position. The rivers Teme and Corve gave further protection.

Most of the castle was built of chunky Silurian limestone quarried from its own site. It was one of a line of Norman castles along the Marches, built to pacify the countryside and hold back the unconquered Welsh.

The de Lacys and their heirs retained the lordship until the late 13th century, but in the civil wars of King Stephen's reign it was held by their enemy, Joce de Dinan. In 1139 Stephen himself besieged the castle and showed great bravery by rescuing his ally, young Prince Henry of Scotland, from a grappling iron. The de Lacy's spent much of their time in Ireland, where they won great estates; but Ludlow remained a major power base. At times it was taken into royal hands, as in 1177 and afterwards, when the Pipe Rolls record regular payments 'to the keeper of Ludlow Castle'.

Many meetings were held here, as in 1224, when Henry III made a treaty with the Welsh prince Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, with Archbishop Langton as mediator.

When the last male de Lacy died about 1240, the family estates were divided between his two daughters. The castle eventually came into the possession of Geoffrey de Geneville, a French baron from Champagne who was a distant relative of Eleanor, queen to Edward I. Geoffrey spent most of his time in Ireland and in 1283 he gave his lands at Ludlow to his son Peter.

The refurbished castle made a useful base for Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, who married a daughter of Peter de Geneville. He was the leader of a group of barons who dethroned the unpopular Edward II in 1326. Mortimer was created earl of March but he over-reached himself and was deposed and executed by rivals in 1330. Later the family regained power and royal favor and their activities brought Ludlow into the mainstream of national politics.

The last male Mortimer died in 1425 but Ludlow castle passed to his sister's son Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, who was the leader of the Yorkists in the War of the Roses. This affiliation brought new importance to Ludlow - but also resulted in the castle being taken and sacked by the rival Lancastrians in 1459.

When Edward IV, son of the Duke of York, became king in 1461, Ludlow Castle became Crown property. It remained a royal castle for the next 350 years except during the Civil War and the Commonwealth. In 1473 the king sent his son Edward to be brought up at Ludlow, away from the plagues and intrigues of London. The nobles and gentlemen who accompanied him formed a Prince's Council, under the presidency of Bishop Alcock, the prince's tutor.

This council gradually assumed responsibility for the government of Wales and the border counties. Until the 1530s, however, its control was limited. The authority of this council, the Council of the Marches, increased after 1534, when Bishop Rowland Lee was appointed Lord President. The reorganization of Wales into shires with the infamous 'Acts of Union' was part of this process.

For more than a century Ludlow was virtually the capital of Wales and its courts were busy with criminal, ecclesiastical and civil cases. This resulted in much new building at the castle, especially in the 1550s and in 1581. The castle was now primarily a center for administration, though it also had many of the features of an Elizabethan stately home.

The Council of the March was dissolved in 1641 but was revived with limited powers from 1660 until its abolition in 1689.

During the Civil War of 1642-46 Ludlow Castle was a Royalist stronghold. In 1646 the town and castle were besieged by a strong Parliamentary force under Colonel Birch. Though there was fighting on the outskirts of town and parts of the suburbs were burnt, the castle itself was surrendered after negotiation. The kind of demolition carried out elsewhere was therefore avoided.

After 1669 the castle was quickly abandoned, as part of the policy of the new government of William and Mary, to centralize control of the whole of England and Wales in London. In 1722 Daniel Defoe described it as 'the very perfection of decay'.

The people of the town looted the castle for principal materials and rooms were soon roof-less. In the 1760s the government considered demolition, but in view of the costs involved, preferred to lease it in 1771 to the earl of Powis. A later earl bought the castle in 1811. Since 1811 the care of successive earls of Powis and their agents has arrested further decline, while in recent years grants from English Heritage have enabled important repair work to be done. Over 50,000 visitors now come to the castle each year.