Hauts LieuxChapels, sanctuaries & legends

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Bastide (planned town)Lot

Montcabrier

Montcabrier

Dimensions
A square lined with medieval façades with arcades and parallel streets; the church of Saint-Louis and its bell-gable with six arches, its Rayonnant doorway incorporating a rose window; the presbytery with its openwork chimney mitre; the house known as that of the court of justice with its bartizan of the 16th century; the former house of the jugerie with its Renaissance window; remains of the enclosure, ramparts, a fortified gate and a corner tower.
Period
Royal bastide founded in 1298; church of the 13th century partly rebuilt in the 14th; houses of the 16th century.
What stands there
The church of Saint-Louis is inscribed as a monument historique, in part in 1925 and then in its entirety in 2003; the façade of the house of the jugerie has been inscribed since 1925. Montcabrier is one of the bastides founded for Philip the Fair to face the English foundations of the Quercy.

Perched on a height in the west of the Quercy, on the borders of the Périgord and the Agenais, Montcabrier is a French royal bastide founded in 1298 by Guy de Caprary, seneschal of the Périgord and the Quercy, in the reign of Philip the Fair, and its name keeps that of the seneschal as much as the "goat pen" of the Occitan cabrièr. The bastide is well set out: its parallel streets are arranged around a square lined with medieval arcaded façades, dominated by the full height of the six-arched bell-gable of the church of Saint-Louis, built at the initiative of Philip IV in honour of the canonisation of Saint Louis and given a Rayonnant doorway with a rose window. Remains of the enclosure, a fortified gate, a corner tower, the house of the court of justice with its bartizan and the house of the jugerie with its Renaissance window make Montcabrier one of the most legible bastides of the Lot.

Further reading

Getting there : Free access to the village; the square, the church and the remains of the enclosure are discovered on foot. The village is on the via Arvernha, a road to Compostela.

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

Montcabrier
MOSSOT · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

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In the same department

All places — Lot (15).