Château de Besne: A Medieval Castle in France
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.1
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Modern
- Civilizations
- French
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Castle
On this page12 sections
History
Château de Besne is a medieval castle in France, located at Saint-Péreuse in the Nièvre department of Burgundy-Franche-Comté. Built in the fifteenth century after the destruction of an earlier feudal stronghold, it occupies a hill overlooking the broad panorama of the Bazois and developed as a seigneurial residence.
The earlier castle and fifteenth-century rebuilding
A feudal castle once stood west of the present château, near the village church. It was destroyed during the conflicts between Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy from 1467 to 1477, and Louis XI, king of France from 1461 to 1483. These rivalries led to warfare in Burgundy and surrounding regions. The earlier castle probably fell in 1474 or 1475, and two sections of its wall survive.
The present Château de Besne was commissioned after this destruction by Guillaume de Grandrye, a squire who received part of the barony of Saint-Péreuse, including the Besne estate. Although its principal rebuilding belongs to the fifteenth century, the construction history of the château extends broadly from that century to the nineteenth. The building also occupies the site of an earlier structure, whose vaulted cellars probably date from the thirteenth century.
The Grandrye family
In 1402, the fief of Besne, a landed holding granted within the feudal system in return for obligations, was united with the barony of Saint-Péreuse. The barony was then held by Jehan and Odot de Montaigu, lords of Couches. In 1468, Huguenin de Grandrye, lord of Besne, rendered homage, the formal declaration of allegiance to a superior lord, for the fief. Besne subsequently passed to his son Guillaume I de Grandrye.
Guillaume I held Besne and La Montagne in the early sixteenth century. His grandson, Guillaume II de Grandrye, later inherited the fief and the Château de La Montagne. Charles de Grandrye became proprietor of La Montagne and Besne in 1549 after his father’s death. He died without issue and left his property to his wife and two nephews.
Around 1571, Charles’s widow, Jeanne Bolacre, and his nephews Pierre de Grandrye and Guillaume II de Grandrye divided the inheritance. After returning from an embassy to Constantinople, Guillaume II found his château completely ruined. This episode formed part of the troubled history of the estate during the sixteenth century.
Later ownership
Around 1620, Elisabeth de Grandrye brought Château de Besne to her husband, Paul de Damas, Baron of La Clayette. He still possessed it in 1635. Their son, Antoine de Damas, Count of La Clayette, rendered homage for Besne in 1677 and died around 1699 without issue.
In 1680, Besne passed by inheritance to Jacques de Mesgrigny, Baron of Aulnay, who was the nephew of Antoine de Damas’s wife. In 1771, Charles Le Peletier d’Aunay made the formal declaration of Besne and later sold the lordships of Saint-Péreuse, Cœurty, and Besne.
In 1794, Pierre-François Tassin became lord of Saint-Péreuse, Besne, and Cœurty. The Tassin family traced its descent from Jehan Tassin, one of the defenders of Orléans in 1429. Louis XVI ennobled the family, which was permitted to add “de Saint-Péreuse” to its surname.
From the nineteenth century to the present
After the French Revolution, ownership passed through Pierre-Amédée Tassin de Saint-Péreuse in 1810, Eugène Tassin de Saint-Péreuse in 1857, Roger Tassin de Saint-Péreuse in 1908, Joseph Tassin de Saint-Péreuse in 1941, Pierre Tassin de Saint-Péreuse in 1951, and Élie Tassin de Saint-Péreuse from 2017.
The château began as a seigneurial residence and remains a private dwelling. Its facades, roofs, and vaulted cellars were entered on the French register of historic monuments in 1975. A further registration in 2002 extended protection to the dependencies, garden, boundary walls, and several features of the courtyard.
Remains
Château de Besne is formed by two residential wings set at right angles, with four towers giving the complex its medieval character. The buildings combine defensive features, later domestic spaces, vaulted interiors, and courtyard elevations with carved stone window surrounds. The protected estate also includes service buildings, enclosed grounds, and several features associated with the entrance and courtyard.
The residential buildings
The northern wing
The northern residential wing is the oldest part of the present château. Its eastern side carries a round tower equipped with gun ports and narrow sighting slits. Very thick walls contain tall, narrow openings, while one interior room has a barrel vault, a continuous semicircular or segmental ceiling. A projecting defensive platform occupies the centre of the facade above a doorway that once opened onto the inner courtyard.
On the courtyard side, the windows are divided by stone mullions. Two ground-floor rooms retain barrel vaults, exposed-beam ceilings, and monumental fireplaces dating from the fifteenth century. The building was extended eastward to accommodate a staircase serving the upper floors, and its ground floor contains two barrel-vaulted rooms. The Clock Tower projects partly from the building.
The later right-angled structure
A second structure, dating from the end of the fifteenth century, consists of two wings arranged at right angles to the original residence. One wing is flanked by two towers pierced with loopholes. Its ground floor contains a salon in the Restoration style, the architectural and decorative manner associated in France with the Bourbon Restoration, especially from 1814 to 1830. A vaulted corridor connects the salon with the other wing.
The courtyard facades of both wings have mullioned windows topped by accolade arches, whose profiles combine concave and convex curves. Dormer windows project from the sloping roof at attic level.
Cellars and estate buildings
Thirteenth-century cellars
Two older cellars lie beneath the château and probably belonged to a thirteenth-century predecessor building. Each has rib vaults, ceilings supported by intersecting stone ribs, carried on a central pillar. Together, the cellars occupy approximately one-third of the ground area of the present château.
Dependencies and enclosed grounds
The protected complex includes the stables and cowshed, the gatekeeper’s house, the kennel, and the dovecote. It also contains the courtyard wall with its turret, a well, the entrance portal and grille, the garden, and the enclosing walls.
