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Bastide (planned town)Gers

Bastide de Bassoues

Bassoues

Dimensions
A long market hall lined with covered arcades of timber framing on wooden posts occupies the main street. The 14th-century keep, of five levels and 43 metres high, is reinforced at the four angles by thick buttresses crowned with machicolations. In front of the church of the Nativité-Notre-Dame, of the 15th century, a monumental well. The basilica of Saint-Fris, of the 11th century, enlarged in 1520, holds the saint's relics. The castle, at the north-east angle of the enclosure, was altered in the 15th and 17th centuries.
Period
11th-century castrum (1020); bastide of the archbishops of Auch in the 13th century, customs of 1295; ramparts, castle and keep of 1356-1371; alterations in the 15th and 17th centuries.
What stands there
Five protected buildings: the keep, classified as early as 1840 (among the first monuments historiques in France); the vestiges of the former castle, inscribed in 1944; the market hall, inscribed in 2004; the basilica of Saint-Fris, inscribed in 2016, and the church of the Nativité-Notre-Dame, inscribed in 2018. The building accounts of the keep for 1370-1371 are preserved in the Vatican Archives.

Thirty-five kilometres west of Auch, Bassoues is one of the most striking bastides of the Gers: a long wooden market hall straddles the main street, and at the end of the street stands a keep 43 metres high, raised about 1370 by Archbishop Arnaud Aubert. A castrum already existed at the beginning of the 11th century, ceded in 1020 to the abbey of Saint-Michel de Pessan; in the 13th century the archbishops of Auch, owners of the land around a Benedictine convent, made it a bastide whose inhabitants received customs in 1295. The village also owes its renown to St Fris, nephew of Charles Martel, who died fighting the Saracens near the Pont-au-Chrétien and is honoured in an 11th-century basilica. Market hall, monumental well, church of the Nativity and castle complete an ensemble protected as a monument historique.

Further reading

Getting there : Free access to the village, to the market hall and to the surroundings of the keep. Visiting conditions for the keep not documented in the texts. No market documented.

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 de Bassoues
Marianne Casamance · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

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In the same department

All places — Gers (34).