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Bastide (planned town)Gers

Bastide de Monfort

Monfort

Dimensions
The chequerboard plan with its streets at right angles, the arcaded square with its old market hall (place de la Mairie), the girdle of ramparts in which at least three gates opened, the church of Saint-Clément of the 13th century with its octagonal bell-tower, single nave and polygonal choir, half-timbered houses of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, Renaissance houses including the birthplace of Guillaume du Bartas, remarkable for its carved mullioned windows. A walk follows the line of the former ditches.
Period
Founded about 1275; 13th-century church; sieges of 1371, 1580 and 1585; houses of the 14th to the 16th century.
What stands there
The church of Saint-Clément has been classified as a monument historique since 1964; the château d'Esclignac, in the commune, is inscribed. According to the town hall, the walls reached nine metres in height, and the inhabitants paid only two sols a year per inhabitant as their whole tax.

Monfort, in the Lomagne of the Gers, between Mauvezin and Fleurance, is a bastide of the Count of Armagnac Géraud V, founded about 1275 according to the town hall. The founding deed is not known, but it must have shortly preceded the granting of customs by the count. It is claimed that this new town was intended to clean up a region infested with brigands. The village has kept a layout typical of a medieval bastide, with its chequerboard plan and its streets at right angles, an arcaded square with an old market hall, and it is still girdled by ramparts in which at least three gates opened. The church of Saint-Clément, of the 13th century, raises its octagonal bell-tower; half-timbered houses of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries and Renaissance residences, including the birthplace of the poet Guillaume du Bartas, line the streets.

Further reading

Getting there : Free access to the village.

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 Monfort
Traumrune · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

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In the same department

All places — Gers (34).