The Château de Castelnau-Bretenoux is a castle in the commune of Prudhomat, Lot department, France. One of the most impressive in the Quercy region, it has been listed as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture since 1862.
The ancestors of the barons of Castelnau only appear in written history in the 860s. In the cartulary of the Abbey of Beaulieu, mention is made of a donation from a man called Frotaire whose father, Frodin, administered lands in the viguerie of Exitensis from 840 on behalf of the Count of Quercy. Frodin married the daughter of the viscount of Turenne, which tied the families together several times over the next hundreds of years and brought conflict between the families.
It was Hugues I who built a new castle on a hill in Prudhomat and called himself the first Baron of Castelnau. He found himself in front of the Council of Limoges in 1031, having seized and ransacked the Abbey of Beaulieu. In 1070, Hugues built a new castle on the plateau and named it Chateauneuf. While his original castle may have been near Loubressac at Les Peyrières, it was probably constructed as a tower with a wooded palisade with a village next to it.
Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons
Written by Nicolo Ciampini
Discuss this with the author and others
No comments yet. Be the first to start the conversation.