En un regard
Le château en bref
The Château de Châteaubriant is a medieval fortified castle, heavily remodelled during the Renaissance, located in Châteaubriant in the French department of Loire-Atlantique, in the Pays de la Loire region.
The castle was established in the 11th century on the Marches of Brittany and, like those of Vitré, Fougères, Ancenis and Clisson, it was tasked with defending Brittany against the County of Anjou. It is, moreover, the Breton counterpart of the Château de Pouancé, located in Anjou.
Originally a simple keep, the castle was enlarged and fortified several times during the Middle Ages, and the town of Châteaubriant developed alongside it, eventually surrounding itself with ramparts. The lordship of Châteaubriant was raised to a barony in the 12th century, after which it passed to the families of Dinan and Montfort-Laval. In 1488, the castle was besieged by King Charles VIII, who wished to take control of Brittany. His marriage to Anne of Brittany three years later reduced the castle's strategic importance. The keep and the residential buildings, which had been damaged, were rebuilt and modernised with a view to comfort. Then, from 1500 until the 1540s, a “Château-Neuf” was built in the lower bailey, following Renaissance architecture.
The barony of Châteaubriant came under the House of Montmorency in the mid-16th century, and then under the House of Condé in the early 17th century. Witness to several sieges during the Wars of Religion, the castle was subsequently neglected by its owners, who came there very rarely. After the French Revolution, the castle changed hands several times, and it was finally converted into an administrative centre by the department of Loire-Inférieure, which acquired it in 1853. Since the closure of the court in 2009 and the departure of the sub-prefectural services in 2012, the castle has been devoted entirely to tourism.
