From the middle of the 14th century, the entire poultry yard became the noble house of the Commarques: they now have a defensive perimeter that greatly exceeds that of the Beynac castle. The Commarques take back the lands and the rights of the descendants of the other Castri militias, by purchase or by alliance. The Beynacs succeeded in constituting a veritable châtellenie around Commarque when they took over the justice of Marquay and Sireuil from the Cendrieux and imposed their suzerainty over Laussel's lair. Each tower house is made up of an enclosure, its own entrances and ditches.ĭuring the 14th century, the two major lineages carried out the first consolidation by successive acquisitions. This development is all the more imperative as more or less powerful neighbors soon joined them: noble families settled slightly below like the Gondrix and the Escars, another just outside the castrum, the family of the Chapel. Over time, the Knights of Commarque felt the need to strengthen their position. Commarque then became the seat of one of the commanderies of the Order, hence the name given to the chapel of Saint Jean de Commarque.Īfter the tragic disappearance of the order, the commandery mysteriously passed into the hands of the Beynacs, who thus inherited the decision-making power over the erection of the towers. This newly created Hospitaller Order (1113) takes its name from the founding of a first hospital near the Church of Saint John the Baptist in Jerusalem. of its goods to this order, reserving part of the patrimonial goods to the younger ones consisting of a fortress within the castrum. Very quickly in the 12th century, around 1116, Gérard de Commarque, Head of the eldest branch of "the House which had given its name to a considerable castle in Sarladais for all time," who had become a knight of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem. The first lord was a "castri milites" Commarque, a knight, dependent on the abbey of Sarlat. It is likely that we can attribute the foundation of a first dungeon, in wood, to one of the two abbots of the same name who succeeded each other on the abbey seat of Sarlat at the beginning of the 12th century: Garin or Randulphe de Commarque. It is also the most curious castral complex of southern Périgord with its complex defenses, its successive moats, its concentric ramparts and the vertiginous verticalism of its keep, 80 meters high, in a beautiful structure overlooking a natural setting preserved and protected in the Vézère valley. It was in fact a "co-seigneury": the seigneurial families lived in the various towers of this fortified village. In the heart of the Dordogne, in the Périgord Noir, the emotion that overwhelms the visitor who crosses the edge of the woods to advance into the valley and discover the Château de Commarque appearing outside time and space, belongs to the realm of the unreal.īuilt in the 12th and 14th centuries in the Dordogne, the fortified castle of Commarque is probably the most complex medieval ensemble in Périgord.
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