Forteresse de Blanquefort v0.1
The Forteresse de Blanquefort or Château de Blanquefort is a medieval fortress built between the eleventh and fifteenth century in the municipality of Blanquefort in the department of Gironde in France, and now in ruins.
The castle appears in the texts at the beginning of the 11th century, making it the oldest castle stone attested in Gironde.
Its name – and by extension that of the town – comes from ” Blanqua fortis “, the “white fort”, probably in reference to the whiteness of the limestone of its walls in the middle of the swamps – at a time when even the churches were still made of wood.
In the 13th century, the family of Blanquefort was one of the most powerful of Guyenne and its huge lordship stretched from the Garonne to the Atlantic Ocean and the Arcachon basin.
The family died around 1250 for lack of descendants. Henry III and Edward I, English kings and dukes of Aquitaine , purchased the castle and lands two purchases in 1254 and 1270 from Adelaide Blanquefort and her husband Bernard Trancaléon. They seek to control river access to their regional capital.
The Black Prince, Edward of Woodstock , son of the English king and in charge of commanding Aquitaine at the start of the Hundred Years War, stayed there. The fortress is also sometimes locally called “castle of the Black Prince” like several other medieval buildings in the region.
To deal with its debts, Edward II gives in June 1308 the Lordship of Blanquefort to Bertrand de Got, nephew of Pope Clement V. By inheritance, it returned in 1325 to the lord of Duras, Aymeri de Durfort.
The castle is still in the hands of Gaillard de Durfort, vassal of the King of England, a month before Bordeaux falls to the French on October 19, 1453. Antoine de Chabannes , count of Dammartin then receives the fortress as a donation.
The castle was returned in 1476 to Gaillard de Durfort after he had taken the oath of loyalty to the crown of France. The family keeps it until the French Revolution , but no longer used as a place of residence from the 17th century.
After the Fronde, the crenellations were razed by order of Cardinal Mazarin , prime minister of the young Louis XIV. The draining of the marshes at this time suppressed the main natural defense of the castle which, at the time of the citadels of Vauban, seemed obsolete. The castle was abandoned after a fire in the second half of the 17th century.
During the Revolution, the fortress was confiscated as national property before being sold to an entrepreneur who exploited it as a stone quarry. Hence its current state of ruins.
The fortress of Blanquefort presents a certain archaeological interest. It is one of the first French medieval monuments to have been classified as a Historic Monument in 1862, on the recommendation of Prosper Mérimée.
The fortress has been recreatead manually from various photos and videos found on the internet. It comes with its own POI.
This mod is not intended for sale or resale.
GPS Koordinaten: 44.90122906338047, -0.6301367045174527
