Château de Ventadour

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Château de Ventadour, cradle of the troubadours, was built from 1059 onwards by a son of Count Archambaud II who had received Ventadour as his appanage. His grandson Ebles II, known as 'Lo Cantador', who became viscount in 1096, founded a genuine school of poetry there and befriended William IX of Aquitaine; it was at this court that the famous troubadour Bernard de Ventadour was born around 1125, the son of a servant, trained in the courtly art before leaving the castle in 1149. The fortress withstood the siege of Henry II of England in 1182, then fell for a decade into the hands of the brigand Geoffroy Tête-Noire during the Hundred Years' War (1374). The viscountcy became a county in 1350 and then a duchy in 1578 under Henry III. Sold as national property during the Revolution, the castle was dismantled before the commune acquired it in 1988 with an obligation to restore it; archaeological excavations took place there from 1965 to the 1980s. Listed as a historic monument since 1840 and as a protected site since 1946, it is now open to the public in the summer season (mid-June to mid-September) with hourly guided tours.