France · Ruin
Château de Lusignan
Château de Lusignan was a large medieval fortress in Lusignan, Vienne, France, and the ancestral seat of the House of Lusignan. Built from the 10th century and repeatedly rebuilt, it reached its height in the early 15th century and was largely dismantled in the 18th century; only foundations, parts of the keep and the base of the Tour Poitevine survive today. It is depicted at full strength in the Très Riches Heures of John, Duke of Berry.
Its prime
1416
Today
Ruin
As it stood in 1416
What Château de Lusignan looked like in its prime.
Perched on a narrow promontory above steep valleys, the castle presents a long, crenellated curtain wall pierced by a barbican at the left and a sequence of round and polygonal towers, a prominent central keep, a distinct clock tower with an external garderobe chute to its right, and the taller cylindrical Tour Poitevine at the right with conical roofs and steep slate rooflines; the walls and towers are pale stone, enclosing an inner ward and overlooking the town enclosed by a lower enceinte.
Its story
The story of Château de Lusignan.
Hugh II and the Seat of the Lusignans
Construction began in the second half of the 10th century under Hugh II of Lusignan, who died in 967. The site was a natural strongpoint in Poitou, a narrow promontory overlooking steep valleys on either side, and the castle raised there was probably among the largest built in France. First a village and then the town of Lusignan grew up beneath the castle gates along the slope, and when the town was itself walled it formed a further enceinte around the fortress.
This was the ancestral seat of the House of Lusignan, Poitevin marcher lords and counts of La Marche who distinguished themselves in the First Crusade and went on to furnish the royal houses of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Kingdom of Cyprus and the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. Among the kings the family gave Cyprus was Aimery II of Lusignan, who died on 1 April 1205.
Henry II's Demolition, John of Berry, and a Prison for Jacques Cœur
Henry II Plantagenet partly dismantled the castle in 1168; Hugh VIII of Lusignan and his sons rebuilt it soon after, in 1171. It was rebuilt again in the 13th century and modernised at the end of the 14th by John, Duke of Berry, brother of Charles V, for whom Lusignan was a favourite residence until his death in 1416. It passed briefly to John, Dauphin of France, and on his death in May 1417 to his brother Charles, the future Charles VII. The castle also served as a prison to Jacques Cœur and to the future Louis XII.
The Fairy Mélusine and the Gilded Dragon
The castle was already so impressive in the 12th century that a legend grew up around its founding: that the water spirit Mélusine had raised it and its church by her arts, as a gift to her mortal husband Raymondin. The monk Pierre Bersuire, born in the region around 1300, collected the local tales and set one down in his Reductorium morale about 1342 to 1350. In his country of Poitou, he wrote, they said the very strong castle of Lusignan had been built by a knight and his wife who was a fairy; that she gave birth to a multitude of nobles and great men; and that from them came the kings of Jerusalem and Cyprus and the counts of La Marche and Parthenay. The fairy was seen naked by her husband and turned into a serpent, and the report still ran in his day that the serpent showed itself in the castle whenever it changed lord.
The tradition holds that Mélusine, cursed to take a serpent's form below the navel every Saturday, was surprised at her bath, escaped through a castle window as a winged dragon and vanished for good. That final scene is what the March miniature of the Très Riches Heures of John, Duke of Berry, shows. Lusignan appears at its early-15th-century height, drawn in perspective with the barbican tower at the left, the clock tower and the exterior chute of its garderobe in the middle and the Tour Poitevine at the right, and above that tower the gilded dragon, Mélusine as protective spirit.
Montpensier's Siege, 1574 to 1575
Lusignan remained a strategically important place in Poitou, and in 1574 a plan of the castle's defences was drawn; the sketch, kept in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, is said to be the work of the captain commanding the siege. On 27 September 1574, during the fifth war of religion, the duc de Montpensier attacked the faubourgs of Lusignan, carried them, and then laid siege to the town and the castle. In a single sortie the besieged killed five captains, and the assault of 21 December was again very bloody. The garrison, commanded by the vicomte de Rohan and reduced to 500 men, asked to capitulate on 5 January 1575.
Henri III's Order and Blossac's Pleasure Ground
The regiment of Sarrieu took possession of town and castle, stayed some time in garrison and then set about demolishing it. The castle was dismantled on the order of Henri III in 1586, and the Mélusine tower alone survived until 1622. In the following century part of the site was refortified in the modern manner by Louis XIV's military architect Vauban, and that portion became in turn a prison, a primary school and the town's tourist office.
Long used as a local quarry of pre-cut stone, what remained was razed in the 18th century by Paul Esprit Marie de La Bourdonnaye, comte de Blossac, intendant of Poitou, to make a public pleasure ground for the town. Whole stretches of wall still cling to the cliffs, with foundations, part of the keep, the base of the Tour Poitevine, a cistern and cellars, and the entrance to a closed subterranean passage that probably once led to the church. The ruin has been inscribed as a monument historique since 1997.
Step inside
9 places to explore in 1416.
The record describes 9 distinct spots at Château de Lusignan, including 3 interiors: inner ward by the great keep, underground cisterns and cellars, mouth of the subterranean passage. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
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Clans who held Château de Lusignan.
The families that held Château de Lusignan for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
Lusignan
Ancestral seat of the House of Lusignan, Poitevin marcher lords and later kings of Jerusalem and Cyprus, from the 10th century.
