Château de Cherbourg: A Medieval Fortress in France
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Classical, Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- English, French, Kingdom of Navarre, Norman, Roman
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page13 sections
History
Château de Cherbourg was a fortified castle in Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, France, probably founded in the tenth century by the Normans and first recorded in 1026. It developed around a late Roman castrum, a fortified settlement or military stronghold, and occupied a place that had been settled since antiquity. The fortress became a ducal residence, a military objective during the Hundred Years’ War, and one of the principal fortified places of the Cotentin peninsula.
Roman and Early Medieval Foundations
The castle succeeded the ancient settlement of Coriallo and retained the late Roman stronghold as part of its structural basis. In the Frankish period and the early Middle Ages, Cherbourg was probably a center of power in the Cotentin. It functioned as a minting center in the seventh century, and the eighth-century Chronicle of Fontenelle identifies it as the chief place of the pagus Coriovallensi, a territorial district within a larger political division. Cherbourg was probably also the residence of Count Richwin. Archaeological soundings indicate that the Merovingian and Carolingian fortification included a substantial cemetery.
The castle’s name appears in several medieval forms. It was called Carusburg or Carusburc in 1026, Chiersburg, meaning “castle of the marshes,” around 1070, Kiares buhr in 1091, and Chieresborc in the twelfth century. Around 1026 or 1027, Richard III, duke of Normandy, granted the fortress to his fiancée, Duchess Adele, as part of her dower, together with properties at Le Homme and Brix.
Norman and Plantagenet Rule
Between 1063 and 1066, William, duke of Normandy, installed three canons from the church of Alderney to provide religious service at the castle chapel of Notre-Dame. Their support came with prebends, revenues assigned to maintain members of the clergy. Until the eleventh century, the chapel stood within the castle courtyard. William later ordered the construction of the Trinity church northwest of the fortress.
The castle was probably rebuilt during the second half of the twelfth century. Henry I of England, known as Henry Beauclerc, equipped the fortification with a new enclosing wall, completed around 1140. In 1143, forces commanded by Geoffrey Plantagenet besieged the castle, which was held by Stephen of Blois, during the civil conflict over the English succession. They captured it despite its numerous towers and closely spaced defenses.
Cherbourg served as a ducal residence, especially during the reign of Henry II Plantagenet. In 1158, Henry the Young King and Margaret of France spent Christmas at the castle. Henry II and his wife returned there for Christmas in 1170. On 4 December 1199, John, later known as John Lackland, stayed at Cherbourg to receive the homage of the barons of the Cotentin. He remained there from 18 to 20 February 1200 and sailed for England on 27 February.
French Royal Control and Fourteenth-Century Warfare
After continental Normandy was annexed to the French royal domain in 1204, Philip II entered Cherbourg and granted its inhabitants additional privileges. Philip III stayed at the castle in September 1278. English attacks in 1284 and 1295 ravaged the town and the Abbey of Notre-Dame du Vœu, but the castle resisted. During the 1295 siege, it served as a refuge for the inhabitants. Around 1300, Philip IV established a new urban enclosing wall, which resisted an English attack in 1314.
At the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War, a conflict between the English and French crowns and their allies, the fortifications built under Philip IV resisted Edward III in 1346. His troops nevertheless ravaged the suburbs and the Abbey of Notre-Dame du Vœu. The French king strengthened the castle and town walls again in 1347.
In 1354, following the Treaty of Mantes, Cherbourg was granted to Charles II of Navarre, also known as Charles the Bad. He replaced the earlier castle with a new one and strengthened the town’s defenses. The chroniclers Jean Froissart and Enguerrand de Monstrelet regarded Cherbourg as one of the strongest fortified places in Normandy. In 1370, the castle was described as the most powerful citadel of the Navarrese king, although its garrison comprised only three men-at-arms and forty-five servants.
Charles II later ceded Cherbourg to the English. In 1378, its defenders were increased to 600 when Bertrand du Guesclin, a leading French commander during the Hundred Years’ War, besieged the town and castle by land and sea. The attempt failed, and Olivier du Guesclin, Bertrand’s brother, was captured during an English sortie. Charles V of France then attempted to starve the English-held stronghold by cutting off supplies and ordering the evacuation of the northern Cotentin. Known as the Great Evacuation of the Cotentin, this policy aimed to deny the English local food and support. The siege was lifted in December 1378.
Later Transfers and the Return to France
Guillaume de Melun, count of Tancarville, was captain of the castles of Cherbourg and Rouen in 1380. The English later returned Cherbourg to Charles III of Navarre in exchange for money. Charles III in turn returned it to the French king for money in 1404.
After another English landing and a long siege, Cherbourg surrendered on 29 November 1418. Henry V appointed Guillaume Hungerfort captain of the town and castle, with authority to punish criminals. Cherbourg then became the last English possession in the duchy of Normandy. French forces bombarded the place with siege guns for a month, and it capitulated without conditions on 12 August 1450. An agreement between the constable of Richemont, the count of Clermont, and the English captain Thomas Glower returned the town and castle to the French king.
After 1450, the fortifications were repaired. A tower with three artillery batteries containing seventeen guns was erected on the seaward side, and Jean Dufou was captain of Cherbourg in 1470. During the Wars of Religion, the fortified place resisted attacks by both Catholic League and Protestant forces. Its recorded captains and governors included Osbert de La Heuze, Nicolas de Chiffrevast, Jean de La Haye-dit-Picquet, Guillaume de Campserveur, Jehan Pyquet, Guillaume du Fou, Richard Lucas de Couville, François Le Tellier de La Luthumière, Hervé II Le Berseur, and Henry Le Berseur.
Demolition and Archaeological Investigation
Louis XIV ordered the former royal fortress to be demolished in 1688 through his minister of war, Louvois. In the eighteenth century, the area was enclosed within a bastioned defensive wall constructed by Vauban, France’s foremost seventeenth-century military engineer. When Vauban inspected Cherbourg’s coastal defenses in 1686, the castle courtyard already contained only a few one-storey barracks along the walls. Some were partly collapsed or close to collapse, while the governor’s lodging was described as the best-preserved part. The keep was already in ruins.
Archaeological work later clarified the site’s earlier phases. Jacqueline Pilet-Lemière led excavations in 1970 that investigated the late Roman castrum. Excavations in 1977 and 1978 connected it with the Litus Saxonicum, a late Roman coastal defense system established along parts of the shores of Britain and Gaul. The work also exposed the levelled remains of two medieval towers. The castle itself has been demolished or destroyed, and its last surviving fortress feature, the Tower of the Church, was demolished in 1850 during construction of the Napoleonic Quay, now Quai de Caligny.
Remains
Fortress Layout and Defensive Enclosure
Château de Cherbourg occupied a sunken position at the head of the estuary formed by the Divette and Trottebec rivers, northeast of the medieval town. It covered approximately one-third of the medieval town’s area, within a zone broadly bounded by the modern streets of Fossés, Château, Maréchal-Foch, and Quai de Caligny, along the edge of the moat’s counterscarp, the outer slope of a defensive ditch.
Old plans, including Jacques Gomboust’s plan made under Louis XIII, show a southern defensive stronghold surrounded by about twelve towers, moats, and garrison housing. The irregular quadrilateral plan had diagonals of approximately 136 metres and 117 metres. Entry was through the Porte des Anglais. The medieval description of the castle emphasizes the density of its defenses, with towers placed so closely that the distance between neighboring towers was scarcely the length of a soldier’s spear.
The Keep
The quadrangular keep, the principal fortified tower, occupied the northern part of the stronghold facing the sea. Attached to the enclosing wall, it measured 55 by 15 metres and was reinforced by four round corner towers. A separate water-filled moat surrounded the keep. By the time of Vauban’s inspection in 1686, the keep stood in ruins.
The Enclosing Wall and Towers
The remaining enceinte, or enclosing defensive wall, formed the outer fortified area around the keep and was flanked by nine additional round towers. These towers stood only 10 to 12 metres apart. The town’s separate enclosing wall had about ten lower towers and bastions overlooking a broad moat, creating a defensive system distinct from the castle’s own enclosure.
Excavated Medieval Features
Western Towers
Work in 1977 uncovered the levelled remains of the two westernmost castle towers, known as the Clock Tower and the Longis Tower. They lay between the southern ends of the streets of Fossés and Notre-Dame, together with short sections of the curtain wall, the continuous wall linking defensive towers. The surviving masonry consisted of small-scale construction made from elongated blocks.
The Tower of the Church
The Tower of the Church was the last surviving element of the medieval fortress. It stood near the waterfront until its demolition in 1850 for the construction of Quai de Caligny. Its loss completed the physical disappearance of the medieval castle above ground, while excavations continued to reveal parts of the Roman and medieval fortifications beneath the later urban fabric.
