Une Vie de Château
@ Globe-Gate
A Site Referencing French Castles
We are not totally lacking in French châteaux sites. The problem
to
date is that there have been no attempts at a massive mobilization of
existing resources. The present site takes a very liberal view of the
"château", including buildings and ruins from the Middle Ages
through the nineteenth century. Our goal is to allow you to see as many
structures as possible. Therefore it is immaterial whether a physical
château is owned and maintained as a private residence, a hotel, a
boarding house or as a vineyard's symbol. It is of little consequence also,
whether or not it was built by a noble family or constructed in imitation
of
a noble home. Where there appears to be a duplicate link, there are likely
two sites with identical themes and titles, but different photos.
Many of us associate the château with the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance, even though most of the "chastels" built during these periods
are no longer extant, and many were built in later times, either imitating
medieval and sixteenth-century architecture or using architectural styles
contemporary to their own periods of construction. There are also
châteaux, where additions have produced a mixture of architectural
styles.
Whether we accept or reject Lynn White's theory, which puts the military
stirrup at the origins of the land tenuring system known as "feudalism"
and consequently a force in the creation of the château, it will not
change what is historically observable. The medieval "châteaux"
were, for the most part, built by powerful men of military stature, who
either owned the land or held it in fief from another, to whom they owed
homage and service. On these lands they were able to pasture the horses
used in battle, and raise the support forces to wage war.
Ironically, by tying themselves to land and agricultural wealth, the
descendants of Frankish warrior society departed from their origins,
creating some social stability and the potential for memory based on
something beyond warrior deeds. The first simple motte-and-bailey type
castles were most uncomfortable places with no privacy, where warriors,
trained for little other than fighting, probably spent many a restless and
bored hour. Until there were technological advances in siege warfare, the
well placed stone castle was defendable against most anything save
starvation tactics or a suicide assault from a vastly superior
force.
The massive late medieval stone châteaux were built for military
defense from attack, in a period when the technology of siege warfare was
rapidly making defense offered by walls a thing of the past. Battlefield
technologies and tactics were doing the same thing to the mounted, mailed
and armored knight. Witness the devastating effect from the concerted use
of long-bowmen and infantry pike-men at the Battle of Azincourt in
1413.
We may think of anyone living in a château as rich, and yet, from
fairly early times, the lord of the manor,with most of his wealth tied up
in
land ownership and maintenance, was losing ground in monetary
prosperity to the grand bourgeois in town and to the most entrepreneurial
of farmer freemen. Nevertheless according to Greimas, the word "riche"
in pre-French romance idiom, indicated "puissant, fort,
considérable, redoutable" and later, by connotation, "noble,
généreux" (related to class virtues). By reverse
association, the wealthy will sometimes build large houses in imitation
of
the "château", such as we see with the Vanderbilts in the United States.
The evolution of warfare, market capitalism and political systems have so
diminished the position of simple land holding that many châteaux
owners not engaged in successful viticulture often need other kinds of
support for the upkeep of the château.
What is the immediate fate of the French château? Among the
queries for which I can imagine using this fairly large representative
sample would be the following questions. How many châteaux are
privately owned and simply supported by the family, some tourism, some
government funding? How many are privately or corporately owned and
supported by financially healthy viticulture? How many have become
hotels or boarding houses? How many are currently for sale or for rent?
How many are medieval, Renaissance, baroque, or later? How many are
clearly of mixed architecture? Where do we find the greatest density of
châteaux? How does the average French person feel about his or
her neighborhood (city) château? Why are there so few wholly
preserved châteaux from before the fifteenth century?
The following pages present aspects of medieval château life,
society
and architecture, as well as actual French châteaux in a variety of
categories, and visually accessible through over 1200
photographic representations:
bobp@utm.edu
TennesseeBob Peckham
Director, The Globe-Gate Project
University of Tennessee-Martin