Moudon Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

Moudon Castle stands atop the upper town, on a spur of molasse bounded by the Broye and the Mérine, in the canton of Vaud. A castrum was built there by the Count of Geneva, then probably conquered around 1190 by the Dukes of Zähringen and around 1207 by Count Thomas of Savoy; under the House of Savoy, Moudon became around 1263 the seat of the bailiwick of Vaud. Its principal feature is an imposing Romanesque tower of the twelfth century, which is sometimes called, wrongly, the "tour de Broye" or the "tour de la reine Berthe". Of elongated plan, measuring about 24 x 16 m, it had walls 3.40 m thick and about 25 m high, faced with large-scale ashlar of tuff. The "tour du château" is mentioned in 1233; the outer enceinte was largely rebuilt between 1417 and 1436. After the Bernese conquest of 1536, the bailiff settled in Lucens; the tower served as a prison, then was levelled to about half its height in the seventeenth century. An earthquake in 1817 worsened the state of the ruin, and a demolition begun in 1884 was halted thanks to the archaeologist Albert Naef. The site is classified as a cultural property of national importance.