#medieval miscellanea

Only three families have possessed Luynes since it was first built as a stronghold in the twelfth century: the lordship of Maillé, the dukedom of Laval, and the dukedom of Luynes. During the Middle Ages, the château welcomed numerous royals who were drawn to the estate by its plentiful game, from Philippe IV (the Fair) to Catherine de Medici.

The medieval town of Dinan, Brittany, in the fourteenth century home to Bertrand de Guesclin, Constable of France during the Hundred Years’ War. A medieval fair, the Fête des Remparts, takes place here every second year.

Dominated by a fortress that once protected the borders of the Duchy of Brittany, sheltered Huguenots during the Wars of Religion, and sided with the Royalists during the French Revolution, the town of Vitré has retained many picturesque medieval features including narrow, twisting streets lined by half-timbered buildings.

The Pink Bedroom in the Château de Roquetaillade, as seen in Edmond Duthoit’s watercolour from 1868 and as the chamber appears today. The neo-Gothic interiors of this early fourteenth-century fortress were designed during a major restoration in the 1860s. Carried out by the controversial architect-restorer Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, with Duthoit as his assistant, they remain some of the most sumptuous testimonies to nineteenth-century France’s fascination with its medieval heritage.

Fort La Latte, a coastal defence dating back to the fourteenth century, on Brittany’s Emerald Coast (France).

A glimpse of Château de Suscinio, one of the principal residences of the medieval rulers of the sovereign Duchy of Brittany, and an important base for the future Henry VII of England and other Lancastrian refugees in the late fifteenth century.

Oil on canvas by Prosper Lafaye.

View of Notre-Dame de Rouen, the French cathedral that enshrines the heart of Richard I of England (Lionheart). Photo by Sam Kolder via Rouen Tourisme