Château du Cuchet: A Medieval Hilltop Fortified Castle in France
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Unclassified
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page5 sections
History
Château du Cuchet is a ruined medieval fortified castle in Saint-Sorlin-en-Bugey, France, probably constructed in the thirteenth century as the center of the Lordship of Cuchet. A family using the name Cuchet appears in the records from 1213, while the castle and its dependent feudal territory were linked to the changing political powers of Bugey.
Origins and Savoyard Rule
The lordship was originally held as a dependent fief of the Castellany of Saint-Sorlin, a territorial and administrative district centered on a castle. Its first known holders were the lords of Coligny, followed by the Dauphins of Viennois, the hereditary rulers of Dauphiné. The Treaty of Paris transferred Cuchet to the Counts of Savoy in 1355.
Count Amadeus VI of Savoy then granted the lordship to Jean de Rougemont, a squire, who rendered homage for it on 17 May 1355. Cuchet continued to be held together with the Lordship of Saint-Sorlin. It was later granted as a fief to Odo de Villars, lord of Baux, and then to Gaspard, lord of Varax.
The La Forest and Mornieu Families
Toward the end of the fifteenth century, the Duke of Savoy transferred the fief to the La Forest family, a noble lineage that held feudal territories in the region. Hugues de La Forest was lord of Cuchet in 1480 and 1509. He was followed by his son Guillaume de La Forest and then by his grandson Philibert de La Forest, a knight who also held the titles of baron of La Bâtie-d’Albanais, lord of Grammont, and lord of Cuchet.
Amé-François de La Forest, lord of Grammont and Cuchet, died without issue. His widow, Lucresse de Chabeu, sold the lordship to Gaspard de Mornieu, a squire, lord of Vaux and Chessy, and royal councillor at the presidial court of Lyon. A presidial court was a royal court of justice in early modern France.
Later Ownership and Ruin
Gaspard de Mornieu’s son, also named Gaspard, later held the titles of lord of Grammont and La Forest. He was a royal councillor and treasurer general of France in the Lyon generality, an administrative and fiscal district of the French monarchy. On 23 August 1631, he sold the lordship to Balthazard Prost, a royal councillor and official in the Bugey and Gex electoral district.
Prost’s descendants sold Cuchet on 20 March 1748 to François Compagnon de Vareppe. The lordship remained with the Compagnon family in 1789, by which time the castle had already stood in ruins for several centuries.
Remains
Château du Cuchet survives as a ruined medieval hilltop fortified castle in the commune of Saint-Sorlin-en-Bugey, within the Ain department of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region and the former province of Bugey. Its position is defined by the summit of an isolated peak at an elevation of 324 metres.
The ruins occupy the eastern side of the commune. The elevated setting and the castle’s surviving ruined form express its organization as a fortified medieval site placed on a prominent natural summit.
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