Château Royal de Collioure

The Roussillon was conquered by the Romans around 120 BC and occupied by the Visigoths from 418. The first mention of a fortified site at Collioure comes in 673, when Wamba, king of the Visigoths, laid siege to the Castellum Caucolibéri to put down a rebellion.

In the 12th century Girard II, the last independent count of the Roussillon, bequeathed his lands to Alfons II, king of Aragon and count of Barcelona. Concerned for the prosperity of Collioure, the kings of Aragon granted the town privileges and tax exemptions; an annual fair was established and substantial works were undertaken on the castle, the port and the town. The Knights Templar built the castle around 1207, and in 1276 it was taken into the royal castle. What stands at Collioure is the juxtaposition of at least four castles.

A second castle was built on the site by the kings of Majorca during the 13th and 14th centuries. In the 13th century the castle was annexed to the kingdom of Majorca, which took in the lordship of Montpellier, the counties of Roussillon and Cerdanya, the Conflent and the Vallespir, and the Balearic Islands. Those kings were itinerant, moving with their court between Maguelonne near Montpellier, Perpignan, Palma de Majorca and Collioure.

In the 16th century, after a brief occupation by Louis XI, the Spanish Habsburgs held Collioure again, beginning with Charles Quint. He and his son Philip II turned the castle into a modern fortress of the 16th century: the defences and their surroundings were considerably reinforced to keep pace with advances in artillery.

In the 17th century Collioure was at stake in the wars between the Spanish Habsburgs and the French Bourbons. In 1642 the troops of Louis XIII besieged the town and the Château Royal. Ten thousand men, among them Turenne, d'Artagnan and the king's musketeers, held the hills above Collioure while the French fleet closed the port; deprived of water by the destruction of their wells, the Spanish garrison had to surrender.

In 1659 France annexed the Roussillon and Collioure, and the castle passed definitively into French hands. Vauban built the bastions, reinforced the structure and upgraded Fort Saint-Elme.

In 1793 the Spanish besieged and occupied Collioure once more. General Dugommier took it back the following year, capturing Fort Saint-Elme on 25 May and forcing the Spanish general Eugenio Navarro to surrender the next day. Fort Saint-Elme was sold at auction in August 1913, and the castle was designated a historic monument in 1922.

In March 1939 the castle was turned into a men's prison and became the first disciplinary camp for the Spanish refugees of the Retirada, the exile from the Spanish Civil War; many others were sent to the camps of Argelès-sur-Mer and Rivesaltes. The prison received men sentenced for indiscipline, attempted escape and incitement to rebellion from the camps of Argelès-sur-Mer, Saint-Cyprien and Le Barcarès. The detainees passed through Collioure before being sent on to North Africa. After 1941 French detainees held there were prisoners of the Vichy regime.

The castle has been the property of the departmental council of the Pyrénées-Orientales since 1951, and is one of the major tourist sites in northern Catalonia.