Château d’Avranches: A Medieval Castle and Urban Fortress in France
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Norman
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Wall
On this page13 sections
History
Château d’Avranches is a medieval castle and fortified urban site in Avranches, France, whose castle was erected around 950 as an early stone defence in Normandy. The site occupied a strategic promontory above the meeting of the Sée and Sélune rivers and the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel. Before the medieval fortress, the area was successively occupied by the Celtic Abrincates, the Romans, the Saxons, and the Franks, who held Avranches in 786.
Early medieval fortress
The castle arose under the influence of Onfroy le Dane, also known as Ansfroi le Dane, to protect Avranches from Breton incursions. Archaeology places it, alongside the towers of Rouen and Ivry-la-Bataille, among Normandy’s earliest stone fortifications. The surviving urban ramparts belong to the period of William, Duke of Normandy. The fortress was later visited by Richard I of Normandy, William the Red, Robert Curthose, and Henry I of England.
Sieges and royal rebuilding
In late 1203, Breton forces led by Guy de Thouars attacked the Avranchin and Mortainais in agreement with Philip Augustus of France. Ranulph de Blondeville, Fulk Paisnel, and barons from the Cotentin supported the attack. The castle resisted, although Avranches and its cathedral were sacked. Louis IX later purchased the town and rebuilt its fortress, turning Avranches into a royal military stronghold and town.
At the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War, the conflict between England and France and their allies, Avranches was a Navarrese stronghold held by Charles the Bad, Charles II of Navarre. During another phase of the war, Francis I, Duke of Brittany, and Arthur de Richemont besieged the castle. Its English garrison surrendered on 12 May 1450.
Later history and survival
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, René de Carbonnel, the king’s lieutenant in Normandy, governed the towns and castle of Avranches. The royal castle and its square keep disappeared during the nineteenth century, while important sections of the urban defences survived. The Arsenal Tower, also called the Saint-Louis Tower, is listed as a historic monument. The northern tower of the Ponts Gate was destroyed by bombing in 1944.
Remains
The medieval castrum, a fortified settlement or military stronghold, occupied the end of a promontory above Avranches. A powerful enclosing wall surrounded the town, while the castle and its square keep stood against the western rampart between the Arsenal Tower and the Promenoir Tower, behind the present town hall. Plans from 1775 and copies of paintings by Papillon preserve evidence for the appearance of the fortified town and its monuments.
Fortified town layout
Gates and outer defences
The fortified town had two principal entrances, the Baudange Gate and the Ponts Gate, together with a postern, or small secondary gate, near Saint-André Cathedral. A boulevard approached the Baudange Gate. An earlier defensive network stood outside the main enceinte, the enclosing defensive wall, and its lices, or outer fortified spaces, were still visible on the 1775 plan.
Castle and western rampart
The castle and keep occupied the western side of the enclosure, between the Arsenal and Promenoir towers. Neither structure survives. The curtain wall, a continuous fortified section between stronger points, remained connected to the former keep on the western side, preserving part of the castle’s relationship with the urban defences.
Surviving towers and walls
Arsenal or Saint-Louis Tower
The Arsenal Tower, also known as the Saint-Louis Tower, survives on Rue de la Belle Andrine behind the town hall. It formed part of the line of towers defending the more threatened side of the enceinte between the Baudange and Ponts gates.
Promenoir Tower
The Promenoir Tower survives along the western side of the former fortress. A section of curtain wall connects it with the area of the former keep, retaining a visible fragment of the western fortification line.
Geôle Tower
The Geôle Tower stands along Place d’Estouteville and forms another surviving element of the medieval defences. Together with the Arsenal and Promenoir towers, it belonged to the group that flanked the most threatened side of the fortified town.
Ponts Gate tower
The northern tower of the Ponts Gate survived until bombing in 1944. Other remains around the former site of Saint-André Cathedral include part of the southern curtain wall, adding to the surviving evidence of the fortified town’s enclosure.
Nearby sites
