Hauts LieuxChapels, sanctuaries & legends

Hauts Lieux›All places›Aude

Bastide (planned town)Aude

Bastide d'Arques

Arques

Dimensions
The keep of the château d'Arques, a Gothic masterpiece standing outside the village, with its enclosure; the village of regular streets grouped around the church of Saint-Étienne (also called Saint-Jean-Baptiste or Sainte-Anne); the cross of Arques, inscribed as a monument historique in 1948; the house of Déodat Roché, now an exhibition devoted to Catharism.
Period
13th century (castle and bastide begun in 1280); lordship of the Voisins, then of the Joyeuse from 1518.
What stands there
Castle classified as a monument historique in 1887, village cross inscribed in 1948. The lords of Arques were hereditary barons of Languedoc and sat permanently in the Estates of Languedoc. Wikipedia's list of bastides dates the foundation to 1290, the commune's page to 1280.

In the heart of the Corbières, on the road from Couiza to Mouthoumet, Arques combines a village of regular plan with one of the most elegant Gothic keeps in Languedoc. After the Albigensian Crusade the lordship passed in 1231 to Pierre de Voisins, lieutenant of Simon de Montfort. His successor Gilles de Voisins began in 1280 the building of the castle and the laying out of the bastide, intended to fix a population around the new fortress. The house of Voisins died out in 1518 with the marriage of Françoise to a Joyeuse, and the castle was abandoned in favour of Couiza; Anne de Joyeuse, favourite of Henri III, would in fact bear the name of Arques at court. Today the village, its church and the village cross face the keep standing alone in the plain, classified as a monument historique as early as 1887.

Further reading

Getting there : Village with free access; the castle can be visited (information from the commune and from the tourist office of the Pyrénées audoises). No market documented in the texts.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

See it on the map OpenStreetMap Directions

Ambient sound

Bastide d'Arques
Krzysztof Golik · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Nearby

In the same department

All places — Aude (41).