Français

Welcome History Useful information What to do & What to see

 

History

The owners

The Château de Montaigut was named in 996 in the "cartulaire"* of Gellone (Saint-Guilhem le Désert).

Between 1135 and 1167, a testimony of the gifts done by Raymond de Montaigut, his wife Jordane and their children Guillaume and Pierre, is found in the "cartulaire" of Sylvanès.

In 1192, the Montaigut lands are owned by Marie de Calus. In 1206, Déodat and Pierre, her children, are proclamed Lords of Montaigut.

In the 15th century, the De Blanc family owns the castle. The family will live there for 200 years, a period of great transformations. This presence is related to violence : all types of crimes, assassination of one of the lords by his own guards.

In 1596, after Jean d'Annat and Jeanne de Blanc got married, the castle is owned by this new family. In 1670, the fortress is no longer maintained and starts collapsing.

Months later, a man called Jean de Rouvellet becomes the new Lord. He decides to restore the castle and adds gypse ornaments (which look like stucco) in the apartments.

After belonging to his daughters, the castle is then owned by several lords : Pierre valéry in 1746, Pierre Liquier in 1776, André Charles de Lavit during the French Revolution. In the late 18th century, the castle is the property of the citizen Lavit de Bédarieux. She then passes it to her farmer, Joseph Olivier. This latter buys it in 1826 and his family owns it until 1946. Except between 1880 and 1918, period when one Olivier member (an uncle of America coming back from Brasilia) restores and lives in the castle, the fortress won't be well-maintained and will be deteriorating.

In 1946, it is owned by Mr Bousquet in order to be farmed. The deterioration is still running while the south-eastern wing collapses in 1965.

In 1968, "The Montaigut Castle's Friends" association owns the castle and starts its restoration, helped by the R.E.M.P.A.R.T. union.

 

The necropolis

The château de Montaigut is built on a necropolis which was identified in 1971. More than 40 burials were found in the castle's court and in the ground floor, whose walls encroach on some of them.

tombes

The fact that the castle was edified upon the necropolis lets us think that this latter was former to its building. The datings reveal that the burials are from the late 9th and the early 10th centuries.

The necropolis is composed of rupestral tombs, dug up in the rock, with a length between 17.32 inches and 77.56 inches. and a depth of 11.81 inches. The choice of the orientation of the burials could be justified by a desire of optimizing the space and the adjustment in order to gather some departed in the same area. The first excavation, started in the 1970's, enabled the discovery of bones in the castle's necropolis which represents about 60 bodies (half of them are children).

 

ossements

* cartulaire : register where the charters, the title deed and the donation certificates for the "temporal possessions" of a church or a monastery are written.

Welcome History Useful information What to do and what to see