Najac Castle

Najac

The first castle at Najac is claimed to have been built around 1100 by Bertrand St Gilles (d.1112), the son of Count Raymond IV of Toulouse (1096-1105). A possible reason for the foundation of the castle was the incessant fighting that went on in the district. In 1096 Count Raymond passed his county of Toulouse into the hands of his son, Bertrand (d.1112) and then left on Crusade. In 1098 Bertrand's cousin, Philippa, and her husband, Count William IX of Poitiers (1086-1127), simply walked into Toulouse, ousting Bertrand. Two years later in October 1100 they sold Toulouse back to Bertrand to finance William's own crusade. Allegedly it was only now that Bertrand had Najac built, presumably to keep his pesky relatives of Poitiers at bay. This did not work and after his death in 1112, William IX with his wife Philippa, again invaded the county in 1114. Alphonse-Jordan St Giles, the half brother of Bertrand, recovered a part of the county in 1119, but was not in full control until 1123. No mention occurs of Najac during this period when the Poitevin troops repeatedly swept over the district. However in 1145, Alphonso was excommunicated for supporting heretics in his domains as complained of by St Bernard of Clairvaux. In reply Alphonso went crusading and died in 1148. Again there is no historical mention of a castle at this time. Neither is there any mention of Najac castle when King Henry II (1154-89) tried to annex Toulouse in 1159-60. However, the castle was certainly functional in 1185 when Richard the Lionheart (d.1199) occupied the castle for his father, Henry II, bringing the extant fortress into Plantagenet control. In 1196, Count Raymond VI of Toulouse (1194-1222) married Princess Joan (d.1199), the sister of King Richard (1189-99), regaining Najac castle as part of his wife's dower. The castle once again became part of the domain of the counts of Toulouse.

Najac castle apparently played no part in the early fighting of the Albigensian crusade, but William Bernard Najac came to the aid of Count Raymond VII (1222-49) against King Philip of France (1223-26) in 1226. The castle remained under the control of Count Raymond until 1237, when his daughter, Jeanne, married Alphonse Poitiers, the brother of King Louis IX (1226-70) as part of the peace treaty between the Valois kings of France and the counts of Toulouse. Once again the castle became a part of a lady's dower. In 1249, on the death of Count Raymond VII, the people of Najac revolted against French rule. In this they failed and Count Alfonso was back in possession of the castle by 3 January 1250. In 1253, Alfonso, who had become count of Toulouse in right of his wife, Jeanne, agreed plans by his seneschal to make Najac castle more formidable. That year Alfonso wrote to his seneschal that he had collected the materials necessary for the execution of castle building works and therefore building was to go ahead at Najac. This probably marked the building of the great round keep and the round towers to go with the earlier square keep. On Alfonso's death in 1271, the castle became part of the royal domain of King Louis' son, Philip III (1270-85).

As a royal French castle Najac saw the imprisonment of allegedly heretical Templar Knights from Larzac in 1309 and was later involved in fighting during the Hundred Years' War. It seems to have been abandoned after 1572 when the Huguenots seized and plundered it. Finally it was reported as a mere ruin in 1614.

Description
The castle is built at the summit of a hill 650' above a loop of the River Aveyron. The earliest part of the fortress would appear to be the 30' square keep, with walls about 8' thick. Presumably this was built by Count Bertrand (d.1112) after October 1100. Other early square keeps in the region include Bruniquel, Carcassonne, Foix, Lordat, Montaillou, Puilaurens, Queribus, Surdespine and Termes.

The Keep
The square keep was apparently originally 3 storeys high and had all its external lights, apparently 1 on each floor, facing the exterior to the south. The large second floor window appears Romanesque, possibly with a Byzantine style lintel. A definite ‘Byzantine' style doorway leads from the main ward courtyard into the well ward to the west. The tower is rubble built and has fine quoin work. At some stage an ashlar upper floor was added to this with a vaulted roof. This too had a rectangular window to the south. Access to the upper floors was gained by an external stair to the first floor and then further straight mural stairs up within the adjoining, thickened south curtain wall. The tower does not project beyond the main curtain, thus offering no flanking, unlike the other round towers of the castle.

Inner Ward
The inner bailey is trapezoid, being about 120' east to west by up to 70' deep with walls originally some 25' high. It seems to have been built after the square keep, but possibly in the same building phase which allowed access to the upper floor of the tower via the wall passageway in the south curtain. The bulk of the 4 curtain walls are built of coursed rubble, but they have been raised on at least 2 occasions. This is best seen in the junction of the west curtain to the square keep. Here the first 15' or so of the curtain can be seen to have been roughly meshed to the ashlar quoins of the keep. Above this level the ashlar quoins of the keep are undisturbed suggesting a change of build. The top 10' of the curtain is then built of ashlar, quite plainly in a later building phase. The rubble of keep and curtain appears of a similar build.

Boldly projecting, ashlar corner towers exist at the 2 northern angles of the ward, the northeast one being the larger of the 2 and containing a spiral stair curving up the inside wall. The tower appears to butt against the earlier curtain wall. In the longer bailey walls were 2 D shaped ashlar towers, while buildings lined the interior of the curtains. There are also traces of straight stairs giving access to the upper storeys of these chambers, built partially into the curtains. There were 2 entrance gateways, one to the north and one to the south, both protected by long barbicans, the main one to the south also having a drawbridge of which some traces remain.

Round Keep
Finally, in the southeast corner was a large round keep, some 38' in diameter and with walls nearly 10'. Presumably this fine ashlar tower was the work of Count Alphonso (d.1271) in the early 1250s. The tower was of at least 5 storeys and stands nearly 100' high, while the lower crossbow loops are an insane 23' long. These cover the lowest 2 storeys of the tower and are capped by a projecting moulded string course. The exterior of the tower is totally of a fine ashlar.

Internally the keep gorge is mostly straight with an ashlar facing to the north meshing perfectly with the interior of the ashlar west curtain. However, the tower 2 interior storeys consist of laid rubble, like the south curtain beside it and is therefore probably much older than the upper storeys. Similarly the external string course appears to mark the height of the original corner tower, before the upper storeys were constructed. The ground floor entrance doorway to the keep and the first floor one to a destroyed building along the south curtain, are both rounded, while the embrasures in both the west and south curtain walls of the bailey are shoulder headed, which makes them of a type that generally dates to 1250-1350. It is also noticeable that the upper half of the north curtain interior is ashlar while the lower section is a coursed rubble. The summit of the tower and its battlements are probably modern. Crease lines marking roofs above curtain level still exist on the tower.

Outer Ward
Surrounding the inner ward is an irregular outer bailey with a rectangular, apparently open backed tower to the southwest. Another smaller, squarer turret on the south front near this appears to have been solid. Internally the outer ward walls are low due to them revetting the hillside.

The main entrance was to the southeast, a simple internally projecting rectangular gatetower. This ward to the east was divided from the rest of the outer ward by a curtain stretching to the inner curtain by the west end of the round keep. The main gate of the inner ward was approached by following the exterior of the outer ward south curtain around and then dog legging back up to the drawbridge to the southern inner ward barbican. A postern led out of this barbican to the east to allow easier access from the eastern outer ward. There was also a postern in the north wall of the outer ward leading down to the river. The curtain continued from here to the central north tower in the inner ward, forming a barbican to the north gate in the inner ward.

Beyond the outer wards to the south was the town wall, the west gate of this being the best preserved part of this enceinte. The church is without the gates, in the head of the bend, west of the town walls.

Why not join me here and at other French castles? Information on this and other tours can be found at Scholarly Sojourns.

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