• 1 CARRAZ, Damien – “Templar and Hospitaller Establishments in Southern France: The State of Research (...)
• 2 MATTALIA, Yoan – “L’inscription du sacré dans l’espace templier. Piste de réflexion sur quelques to (...)

1What are the characteristics of the fortified architecture of the religious establishments founded by the brothers of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem in the Middle Ages in southwest France? This question raises all sorts of problems. Recent work on military religious orders in the West, in southern France in particular, has exposed the absence of true castles built to house these new Hospitaller or Templar regular communities, unlike what is observed for the same period in the Iberian Peninsula or in the Latin East, albeit in a different socio-political and military context1. We find traces of measures undertaken as early as the twelfth century to defend the houses of the Hospital in Languedoc. However, they are still difficult to apprehend due to the many problems greatly limiting their analysis. Most of them come from available sources, monumental or written, that were preserved, but they document the subject unequally. Indeed, their proliferation during the last two centuries of the Middle Ages sheds light on a general tendency to fortify the habitat of these religious communities amid conflicts brought about by the Hundred Years’ War. However, among the many forms of material translation of the Hospitallers' habitat, which does not follow any typical plan or architecture which are common features of the habitat developed within military monasticism, some houses benefitted from elements characteristic of a castral architecture as early as the twelfth century. This phenomenon is however more clearly noticeable among Templar establishments in the Quercy, Rouergue or Albigeois for example, where, between the second half of the twelfth century to the end of the thirteenth century, the brothers erected towers which included most of the functional areas necessary for the practice of a common religious life and which no doubt contributed to the expression of an identity brand2. In the absence of such architectural vestiges in the Hospitaller commanderies of the Southwest for the same period, it is still possible to question the reality of the fortification from which they could have benefitted, even though the archaeological data which would make it possible to propose an overview of their topographic and monumental organization in the first two centuries of their existence is still lacking.

• 3 MATTALIA, Yoan – Les établissements des ordres religieux militaires, vol. 1, pp. 153-155.
• 4 MATTALIA, Yoan – Les établissements des ordres religieux militaires, vol. 1, p. 221.
• 5 MATTALIA, Yoan – Les établissements des ordres religieux militaires, vol. 1, pp. 156-157.
• 6 Marseille, Archives départementales des Bouches-du-Rhône, 56 H 130, fol. 230r. The castle of the Ho (...)
• 7 MATTALIA, Yoan – Les établissements des ordres religieux militaires, vol. 1, p. 221 and pp. 360-363

4Based on current knowledge, it is not possible to observe the castral dimension of the Hospitaller commanderies from the southwest of France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries from their numerous architectural vestiges. One has to resort to the written documentation produced by the religious institution to try to understand in part the material organization of the domus and detect a possible trace of fortification. Scant information can be obtained through the analysis of mentions of places where some transactions took place in the Middle Ages and descriptions of buildings done after general visits in the beginning of the early modern period, particularly during the first years of the seventeenth century. By using general visits cautiously, we are able, in some cases, to compensate for the absence of vestiges of conventual buildings. Of course, they were done at a later date and they provide a vision distorted by the eyes of administrative-focused visitors whose descriptions don’t give clues to differentiate between older and more recent architectural structures. In Rouergue for example, in the thirteenth century, the domus of the Canabières, founded shortly after 11203, had one- or two-story buildings which expressed a social and functional hierarchy between a noble floor, hosting an aula or the camera of the commander, and the common areas on the ground floor, including the kitchen4. Further south in the diocese of Rodez, the house of Saint-Félix-de-Sorgues, founded between 1146 and 11595, had several residential buildings which were organized with Saint-Pierre church around a square plan. This general layout of the buildings gave it a castral appearance until its complete destruction during the wars of religion in modern period. Descriptions from the modern period mention the “château et forteresse” erected “en un coin de ladite ville en forme de citadelle”6. From texts from this domus’s cartulary we can only guess the presence of a platea structuring the space, around which stood a two-story residential building adjoining the church, and, probably, a building dedicated to receiving the pilgrims, the poor and the sick7. The term solier used for the two Hospitaller buildings of Canabières and Saint-Félix-de-Sorgues, in the thirteenth century, might designate multiple-story houses, if not turriform, whose fortified dimensions remain largely unknown.

• 8 A door or a porch is mentioned in 1236 and in 1245: Toulouse, Archives départementales de la Haute- (...)
• 9 CARRAZ, Damien – “Expériences religieuses en contexte urbain. De l’ordo monasticus aux religiones n (...)
• 10 POUSTHOMIS-DALLE, Nelly – “Histoire et archéologie de la commanderie-grand prieuré des Hospitaliers (...)
• 11 POUSTHOMIS-DALLE, Nelly; MACÉ, Laurent – “Structurer et modifier l’enclos en milieu urbain : la com (...)

5This commitment to protecting houses can be seen in the layout of the conventual buildings that compose and delimit the quadrilateral of some Hospitaller establishments and materialize the defensive and passive enclosure. While it can be found in both rural and urban commanderies, this topographical arrangement is better documented when found in a city. In Millau for example, the two-story conventual buildings of the peri-urban religious establishment delimited the area of a domus organized around a courtyard as early as the second half of the twelfth century. A monumental door or a porch gave access to the portico courtyard which served the church of Saint-Jean-Baptiste built before 1160, its adjoining cemetery, along with the residential buildings8. This topographical and architectural layout ensured an enclosure which served as much to defend the place as to symbolize the religious community’s search for relegation, away from the tumult of the urban world, even though it was fully integrated into the socio-economic activities of the city9. It was the same in Toulouse where the church of Saint-Jean, the dormitory, the refectory, the kitchen and the cellar of the priory of the Hospital built intra muros were organized at the end of the twelfth century around a conventual quadrilateral and its cloister10. At the beginning of the 1180s, the brothers proceeded to modify their block of buildings and built a new enclosure, materialized by a surrounding wall with its porch11.

• 12 D’AGOSTINO, Laurent – “Un établissement des Hospitaliers de Saint-Jean: la commanderie de Chauliac (...)
• 13 MANIÈRE, Gabriel – “Un établissement des Hospitaliers de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem, La Salvetat de Se (...)
• 14 RAMIS, Pauline – Implantation des Hospitaliers et des Templiers dans les départements du Gers et de (...)
• 15 MATTALIA, Yoan – Les établissements des ordres religieux militaires, vol. 1, pp. 168-178.

6The elements that constitute a Hospitaller house’s fortification in twelfth- and thirteenth century southwestern France are not materially known. Some topographical indications on the choice of the location of the houses undoubtedly reveal the regular communities’ search for defense, and they very occasionally favored a settlement on a high site, as illustrated by some establishments in Auvergne12. In southern France, the brothers sometimes chose to modify the topography and raise the ground where they would establish themselves. This is the case at La Salvetat de Serres in the diocese of Comminges. This Hospitaller house was positioned on a rectangular anthropogenic hillock. Ditches were dug to protect the domus and separate the area from the rest of the upper terrace. The digging material was then used to artificially raise the mound where the small religious establishment stood13. Similar structures are attested in Gascony at Goutz and Moncassin14. An analysis of the processes and the chronology of the foundation of these religious houses in Quercy, Rouergue and Albigeois clearly shows that these communities have essentially adapted to the practical and economic realities of the places where they wished to settle with the Subsidium Terre Sancte in mind15.

• 16 DU BOURG, Antoine – Histoire du Grand-Prieuré de Toulouse et diverses possessions de l’ordre de Sai (...)
• 17 DU BOURG, Antoine – Histoire du Grand-Prieuré de Toulouse, pièce justificative n.º XXXII. The text (...)
• 18 DU BOURG, Antoine – Histoire du Grand-Prieuré de Toulouse, p. 125.
• 19 BIGET, Jean-Louis – “La dépossession des seigneurs méridionaux. Modalités, limites, portée”. In ROQ (...)
• 20 DUFFY, Paul – “Le comte d’Ulster et la croisade contre les Albigeois”, p. 18. The author interprets (...)
• 21 For a reminder on the chronology and stages of Renneville's donation to the Hospitallers of Saint J (...)
• 22 The document was published in DU BOURG, Antoine – Histoire du Grand-Prieuré de Toulouse, pièce just (...)
• 23 DUFFY, Paul – “Le comte d’Ulster et la croisade contre les Albigeois”, pp. 22-23.
• 24 LACROIX, Camille – La défense collective en Toulousain à la fin du Moyen Âge (vers 1350-vers 1550). (...)

7Through donations, the brothers were able to obtain fortified places in which they settled. However, it is not always possible to distinguish from the texts between a fortified settlement that may have been ceded to them and the castral-type establishment that they built to house their religious community, as the donation of the castellum of Caignac, in Lauragais, to the brothers of the Hospital in the second quarter of the twelfth century, illustrates. The Hospitallers settled there following the donation by Guilabert de Laurac, his wife, their sons and other local lords of the honor of Caignac, the church and their associated rights, as well as the sauveté that had been established. The donation reserved for the inhabitants of Caignac privileges they had enjoyed before, and that bound the Hospitallers, particularly in regard to their protection and defense16. In 1171, Sicard de Laurac, one of Guilabert’s sons, confirmed his father's donation and authorized the prior and the brothers of the Hospital to erect a fortified place at Caignac for their religious community17. In the seventeenth century, this building was still described as a castle made up of four-square towers and a keep18. Still in Lauragais, in the first half of the thirteenth century, following a donation from Hugh II de Lacy, the Hospitallers took possession of Renneville, established on a hill overlooking the Hers Mort and Marés valleys. Hugh II de Lacy was an English knight and former Earl of Ulster, companion of Simon de Montfort in the Crusade against the Albigensians. Montfort made him lord of Castelnaudary, Laurac and a number of surrounding villages and domains in 1212, when the Pamiers statutes were promulgated19. Seeking to forge ties with local religious communities, Hugh II de Lacy made a series of donations to the Dominicans of Prouille and also became close to the Hospitallers of Toulouse, probably around 121520. The Hospitallers received Renneville after many twists and turns. Before the Crusade against the Albigensians, the area was held by Lord Almaric de Castelnau. But he was dispossessed of it by Simon de Montfort after having been prosecuted with his wife for heresy21. Hugh II de Lacy finally relinquished Renneville after he affiliated himself ad sucurrendum to the order of the Hospital, and expressed the wish to be received as a donat as his death drew near, in order to gain the spiritual benefits of the religious community and to obtain a burial in the cemetery of the Toulouse Hospitaller house22. In an undated document he associated his affiliation with the donation of the place of Renneville, which was then qualified as forcium et municionem, of its inhabitants and its outbuildings. The chronology of the establishment of the Hospitallers in Renneville deserves to be reviewed, because Hugh II de Lacy ultimately left the Lauragais area to return to England in 1221 after the failure of the siege of Castelnaudary, which was then in the hands of Count Raymond VII23. The Hospitallers, finally took possession of the fortified place of Renneville during the thirteenth century and were able to found a commandery at the end of a process that would be worthy of a new analysis. Only a few elements are available regarding its architecture, which was probably castral. General visits from the beginning of the early modern period are the only ones to mention that the commander's castle was divided into two two-story main buildings, organized around a small courtyard and linked to a tower which was probably built in the thirteenth century24.

• 25 Toulouse, Archives départementales de la Haute-Garonne, H Malte Le Bastit 7, n.º 9. This is also th (...)
• 26 Marseille, Archives départementales des Bouches-du-Rhône, 56 H 130, fol. 3v-5v.
• 27 Marseille, Archives départementales des Bouches-du-Rhône, 56 H 130, fol. 2v-3v.
• 28 D’AGOSTINO, Laurent – “Un établissement des Hospitaliers de Saint-Jean: la commanderie de Chauliac (...)

8The Hospitaller establishment of Latronquière, in the northeast of the diocese of Cahors, also adopted a fortified architecture. This building, now completely destroyed, was the main commandery of the Order in the Quercy area. The Hospitallers had a fortified establishment built there, which appears late in the written documentation. The religious establishment’s very name, designated in 1285 as la mayo del castel da la Tronquieira, conveys the castral dimension of the house25. However, we are very poorly informed about its architecture and topography. The castle stood on a hill, in an enclosure materialized by the presence of a surrounding wall combined with a ditch. Nevertheless, thanks to general visits from the first years of the seventeenth century, it is possible to picture its physiognomy. Two towers, one square and the other circular, connected by a main building, sheltered the small community of brothers26, while the chapel of Saint-Jean-Baptiste stood in close proximity in the enclosure of the castle27. Although the written documentation does not give a precise idea of the ancient topography of the site, the example of the domus of Latronquière could compare with what we observe in Auvergne, where the association of a quadrangular tower and a chapel seems to have been very widespread among Hospitaller houses28.

• 29 MATTALIA, Yoan – Les établissements des ordres religieux militaires, vol. 1, pp. 159-160.
• 30 The document is a copy made at the end of the Middle Ages. Toulouse, Archives départementales de la (...)
• 31 The place is mentioned in 1278: Actum apud castrum de La Bastide in domibus Ospitalis Sancti Johann (...)

9Finally, the donation of the fortified granary of La Bastide-Pradines, which overlooks the Cernon valley southeast of the Rouergue province, is another example of the predominantly castral architecture. It was probably an old toll station established in the twelfth century by the Count of Rodez who owned a monumental granary there, a place of storage for the perishable goods that were collected29. The chronology and the modalities of the Hospitallers’s establishment are unclear. The brothers are believed to have settled nearby between 1208 and 1221. Then the domus took its definitive form when Count Henri de Rodez, who was dying in the house of the Hospitallers of Acre, bequeathed all that he owned in La Bastide-Pradines to the brothers30. The fortified granary of the old county toll thus formed the heart of a small castral Hospitaller house, which is clearly mentioned in written documentation of the second half of the thirteenth century31, although it developed mainly in the fourteenth century.

• 32 CARRAZ, Damien – “Archéologie des commanderies de l’Hôpital et du Temple en France (1977-2007)”. Ca (...)

11The many vestiges of fortifications preserved within the houses of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem come from the fortification of these religious establishments which started in the fourteenth century, during the Hundred Years’ War32. This building activity, fostered by the prevailing climate of insecurity, continued throughout the fifteenth century and beyond. The Hospitaller commanderies contributed to the militarization of the built landscape taking place in the southwest of France at the time. They set up real fortification programs according to various modalities, which affected all the monumental structures of the commanderies, be it the brothers’ residential spaces, their churches, the barns or even the defensive structures of the village communities which dwelled in the shadow these religious establishments.

• 33 MATTALIA, Yoan – Les établissements des ordres religieux militaires, vol. 3, pp. 9-22.
• 34 MATTALIA, Yoan – Les établissements des ordres religieux militaires, vol. 3, pp. 63-77.

12The Hospital houses and the old Templar establishments devoted to the Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem from 1312 were fortified in order to protect the religious communities they accommodated. The fortification work was diverse: new towers were built; old residential buildings were modernized… there are too many examples to mention here. For example, in Cras, in the diocese of Cahors, the old Templar tower originally built between the end of the twelfth century and the first half of the thirteenth century was raised at the end of the Middle Ages, probably in the fifteenth century (it is not yet possible to give a precise date). The new levels were erected in association with the construction of an adjoining rectangular dwelling which resulted, in particular, in the modification of the circulation within these spaces33. The old tower of the Templar domus of Trébaïx in Quercy, built in the last years of the thirteenth century according to an architectural program which associated to the tower and its chapel on the ground floor a dwelling dedicated to the common life of brothers, was also raised and partially refurbished34. Besides a modification of the tower’s upper levels, the creation of new residential spaces and the fitting out of new windows, its fortification resulted, particularly, in the piercing of shooting apertures, including an open cannon port in the lower part of the spiral staircase which led to the different levels of the building.

• 35 MATTALIA, Yoan – Les établissements des ordres religieux militaires, vol. 3, pp. 91-108.
• 36 Grimal de la Source and his wife Aigline joined the Order of the Temple in 1224 and gave the place (...)
• 37 Marseille, Archives départementales des Bouches-du-Rhône, 56 H 130, fol. 159v-161r. About the locat (...)
• 38 MIQUEL, Jacques – Châteaux et lieux fortifiés du Rouergue. Rodez: Éditions d’françaises d’arts grap (...)
• 39 MIQUEL, Jacques – Châteaux et lieux fortifiés, p. 188.
• 40 The site is described as a “château ou grosse tour forte carrée”: Marseille, Archives départemental (...)
• 41 Toulouse, Archives départementales de la Haute-Garonne, H Malte La Tronquière 28, n.º 3: Apud Drulh (...)
• 42 Toulouse, Archives départementales de la Haute-Garonne, H Malte La Tronquière 16, liasse 9, n.º 7.
• 43 MATTALIA, Yoan – Les établissements des ordres religieux militaires, vol. 3, p. 109.
• 44 Marseille, Archives départementales des Bouches-du-Rhône, 56 H 130, fol. 247v-249r.
• 45 MIQUEL, Jacques – “Commanderies templières et hospitalières du Rouergue”. Revue du Rouergue 57 (199 (...)

13A lot of building reconstructions were done in Rouergue. In La Couvertoirade, on the Larzac plateau, for example, a tower with a brattice was built upon the thirteenth-century wall adjoining the old Templar tower which had been erected at the end of the twelfth century35. The domus of Sainte-Eulalie-de-Cernon and La Selve were also rebuilt. In La Clau, also in Rouergue, the brothers of the Hospital were careful to alter the castral complex, bequeathed to the Templars by Grimal de la Source and his wife Aigline in the first half of the thirteenth century36. In general visits from the beginning of the seventeenth century, the place is described as a fortress surrounded by high walls within which stood the commander's castle and the lodges of the village fort which had been built there during the Hundred Years’ War37. The castle consisted of a large square tower erected, according to Jacques Miquel, between 1380 and 139238 (Fig. 1). It included two vaulted rooms above which rose four more levels with planked floors and various comfort amenities. At the top of the tower stood a last vaulted room surmounted by a guardhouse combined with machicolations. A second square tower, lower than the first one and undoubtedly older, was made up of five levels which essentially served as storage space during the modern period. It included a vaulted room on the ground floor. The two towers were linked together by a large main building which was accessed by a spiral staircase integrated into a small circular tower. In Mouret, the Hospitallers most probably had the tower of Landes erected on the base of an older construction which might have been the remains of a building of the old Templar house. The new square-shaped residential tower housed in the commander's camera an altar in a window of the building, intended for the expression of his private devotion (Fig. 2). In Limouze, west of the city of Rodez, the old agricultural establishment related to the Templars of Espalion was rebuilt in the fifteenth century. The Hospitallers erected a tall square tower, protected in the sixteenth century by an enclosure flanked by a circular tower39 (Fig. 3). In the seventeenth century, the square tower topped with machicolation consisted of eight levels. The first two levels were vaulted40. Finally, in the heart of the village of Drulhe, stood the old tower of the Templar house, first mentioned in 130341. This building probably reappears in written documentation in 1476, in a transaction made on the shared use of the tower between the five lords of the place. The commander of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem owned half of it, while the other four lords each owned a quarter of the other half42. At the time, the village of Drulhe was protected by ditches and an enclosure, still represented on an eighteenth-century plan (Fig. 4). At the end of the fifteenth century, the place was defended jointly by the men of the commander, those of the four other lords and by the people of Drulhe. A door on the first level of the Hospitaller house gave access to the heart of the village. The tower adjoining the Hospitaller house was intended for “the service” of the lords and was probably not a residential tower. The use of the ground floor, which had a prison function, was shared between the lords and, as it required repairs, the Hospitaller commander promised to vault it in 1476. The keys to the building were held by the bailiff of the place, who managed the prison. While the lords shared the upper floor ad servicium comune et thuitionem et deffentionem for the watch and the night and day guard, the commander had full rights to the other levels of the building, although the other lords had to participate in their maintenance. The Hospitallers also had work done in their old establishment in Lugan. The conventual buildings were rebuilt and arranged according to a quadrangular plan delimited by two residential wings and by the church of Sainte-Marie. Circular towers with shooting openings protected the house at the corners43 (Fig. 5). Finally, in Martrin, the commandery, also altered at the end of the Middle Ages, adopted a similar quadrangular plan, with the wings being defined by the conventual buildings and the church of Sainte-Marie44. In the fourteenth century, the establishment also had a tower destined to accommodate the locals in the event of an attack45.

• 46 Marseille, Archives départementales des Bouches-du-Rhône, 56 H 129, fol. 721r.
• 47 CABIÉ, Edmond – “Le château de Rayssac près d’Albi. Ancienne commanderie des Hospitaliers de Saint- (...)

14In Albigeois, the main Hospitaller establishment in the diocese of Albi was in Rayssac. The house, largely refurbished at the end of the Middle Ages, was described in the seventeenth century as a castle surrounded by ditches without water46 (Fig. 6). It had a square plan similar to that of the abovementioned establishments, associating conventual buildings protected by watchtowers in the corners and the Saint-Jean-Baptiste chapel. The mention of semi-circular or pointed barrel-vaulted arch rooms on a square plan most probably corresponding to an old tower which should be studied anew, hints at a previous fortification of this establishment, which was reworked in the second half of the fifteenth century and the first years of the sixteenth century to put in lodging with windows fitted with shooting slots47.

• 48 POUSTHOMIS-DALLE, Nelly – “Histoire et archéologie de la commanderie-grand prieuré”, pp. 244-245; P (...)

15A final example illustrates the brothers’ desire to erect fortified structures in an urban environment. In Toulouse, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Hospitallers took advantage of an effort to restructure the eastern wing of their old twelfth-century cloister to raise a large tower behind the apse of the church of Saint-Jean. The tower’s ground floor was used for the sacristy, while the upper levels housed ceremonial rooms and archives48.

• 49 CROZIER, Jacynth – “La mise en défense d’un lieu-refuge spécifique: l’exemple des églises fortifiée (...)
• 50 BLANC, Marie-Claude – Anglars-du-Cayrol, Sauvegarde du Rouergue 103 (2010), p. 9 and p. 13; MIQUEL, (...)
• 51 Toulouse, Archives départementales de la Haute-Garonne, H Malte Toulouse 393, n.º 41, published in (...)
• 52 LACROIX, Camille – La défense collective en Toulousain, vol. 1, pp. 405-416.

16Some churches erected in the heart of Hospitaller houses were also fortified in the same way as many secular churches in the various dioceses of southwest France49. The nave of the old Templar church of Saint-Étienne d'Anglars in Cayrol, in the Rouergue area, was rebuilt and fortified around 1381 when the locals obtained permission from the commander of the house of Espalion50. A lodging comprised of two levels and several rooms was then fitted above the nave. Corner turrets ensuring the defense of the building were then built in the sixteenth century (Fig. 7). In the Quercy area, the old Templar church of Sainte-Marie erected within the domus of Lacapelle-Livron in the diocese of Cahors, was also fortified. While the brothers of the Hospital restructured the conventual buildings of their religious establishment, they raised this ecclesial building which had already been extensively altered in the thirteenth century to accommodate a Templar community. A tower was built on top of the first span of the nave at the end of the Middle Ages, while a fortified dwelling was built on the last two spans of the place of worship. In Poucharramet, in Toulousain, the commander John d'Assar had the church of Saint-Martin fortified after having been ordered to do so by the Duke of Anjou, governor of Languedoc, in 1367. According to him, this was justified because of the threat from routiers (mercenaries)51. He ordered the commander to protect the church of Poucharramet, to have it surrounded by ditches, provide it with the necessary fortifications and set up a watch day and night. All the local and the neighboring residents were requisitioned for construction work and guard duty52 (Fig. 8). The church was thus fitted with machicolations, battlements, corners watchtowers and a walkway, while ditches were dug around the adjoining conventual buildings.

• 53 MATTALIA, Yoan – Les établissements des ordres religieux militaires, vol. 1, p. 147.
• 54 MIQUEL, Jacques – “Les fortifications de la commanderie de Sainte-Eulalie-de-Cernon pendant la guer (...)
• 55 The building is 16 m long and 7.5 m wide, and the door on its southern wall is shut by a brattice. (...)

17The Hospitallers fortified some of their agricultural domains to protect the crops and the population of the surrounding farms. On the Larzac plateau, the old Templar barns of Gals and Frassinel were thus abandoned in the fifteenth century in favor of the agricultural domain of Viala-du-Pas-de-Jaux, created by the Templars between 1150 and 118653. Bernard d'Arpajon, commander of Sainte-Eulalie-de-Cernon and prior of Saint-Gilles, erected a 15-meter-long, 9-meter-wide refuge tower more than 25 m high, that included a vaulted ground floor and five planked levels54. An adjoining house was built for the brothers. It was extended in the sixteenth century. Likewise, after the Counts of Armagnac, successors of the Counts of Rodez, granted the Hospitallers of La Bastide-Pradines full legal independence of the place in 1320, they had their establishment refitted and fortified in the first half of the fourteenth century. Its new name, Castel-Granieyras, reflects its dual castral and economic dimension. The old granary thus took the form of a large rectangular building with four levels, the first two being vaulted and the two upper levels planked55 (Fig. 9).

• 56 For the Rouergue area, see FERRAND, Guilhem – “Les murs, le guet et la communauté: la construction (...)
• 57 LACROIX, Camille – La défense collective en Toulousain, vol. 1, p. 131.
• 58 LACROIX, Camille – La défense collective en Toulousain, vol. 1, pp. 129-131.
• 59 RAMONDENC, Erwann – “Trois documents concernant la réparation des fortifications à Saint-Félix-de-S (...)
• 60 MIQUEL, Jacques – “La commanderie de Sainte-Eulalie. La construction des enceintes fortifiées du XV(...)
• 61 MIQUEL, Jacques – “Les fortifications de la commanderie de Sainte-Eulalie-de-Cernon”, p. 342.

18Along with the fortification of commanderies and housing, collective enclosures were built in order to provide the population with safe places. This was in response to growing fear and insecurity, which bred various types of reaction depending on the place56. An analysis of the construction of these defensive elements reveals the legal basis at their origin and the existence of relationships, sometimes complicated, maintained between the commanders, the lords of the places, the communities of inhabitants who resided there and the representatives of royal power. Thus, in Renneville, in the Lauragais area in 1366 and 1368, or in Poucharramet in the Toulousain area in 1367, the fortification of the commanderies and their agglomerations was planned by associating the commanders and the communities of inhabitants. As Camille Lacroix was able to demonstrate, the transactions they established enabled the two parties to agree on the terms of construction, maintenance and occupation of the fortified space to be built, as well as on the organization of the defense of the place57. These fortifications often generated tensions. At Poucharramet, the commander expressed some reluctance to undertake the fortification works of the commandery requested by the king’s lieutenant in Languedoc58. In Saint-Félix-de-Sorgues, in Rouergue, the community of inhabitants was reluctant to participate in the repair work of the enclosure and in the repair of the walls which required, for example, the installation of raceways, walkways or openings for observation, despite the order from the royal judge of Millau received twice in April 139859. On the Larzac plateau, the constructions of the collective fortifications of the village of La Couvertoirade from 1439, of Sainte-Eulalie-de-Cernon from 1442 and, shortly after, of the agglomeration of La Cavalerie, seem to have posed fewer problems60. The construction of the enclosure of La Couvertoirade was granted by the commander and prior Bernard d'Arpajon on November 2, 1439 after a request issued by the community of the inhabitants of the place who wished to raise fortifications consisting of walls and other defenses to protect the persons and their property, while associating royal power with it in the person of the Seneschal of Rouergue or his representative. The enclosure, which is still awaiting an archaeological study, leans against the old Templar castle (Fig. 10). It is made up of round or semi-cylindrical towers flanking curtain walls and pierced with cannon port arches and gates topped with machicolations under square towers61. It served as a model for the one built in 1442 in Sainte-Eulalie-de-Cernon, of which the price contract relating to its implementation specifies, in addition to its funding in kind and in cash, the topographical, architectural and technical characteristics of the fortification necessary to defend the community of inhabitants.

• 62 D’AGOSTINO, Laurent – “Un établissement des Hospitaliers de Saint-Jean: la commanderie de Chauliac (...)
• 63 These observations, for Cistercian monks, were highlighted during the Bozouls seminar, Abbayes et d (...)

19So, the various domus of the Hospitallers of Saint John of Jerusalem in southwestern France sometimes took on a castral dimension, although it was not a systematic defining trait. Traces of fortification of this religious habitat are, if not unequally present in the concerned region from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, at least hardly perceptible. The choice to fortify these regular establishments might have concerned some of them as early as their foundation and the construction of their first buildings to shelter and protect small communities of brothers in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. However, it seems that it was not a predominant feature in their architecture in that period, although this argument should be made with caution due to the very small number of preserved elevated remains. On the whole, we experience great difficulties in detecting the topographic and monumental organization of these religious establishments which did not follow a standard plan. While the use of written sources seems to attest to this castral dimension, its perception remains meager and only archaeological excavations would certainly make it possible to add new data to the problem and to qualify the matter. The presence of a more particularly fortified architecture might have mainly concerned houses which enjoyed a higher status within the network of Hospitaller domus previously founded in the countryside like La Tronquière or Rayssac, but it would be necessary to extend the investigation. In addition, the vocabulary used to designate this habitat in the donation charters sometimes adds to the confusion between the fortified place ceded to the brothers for them to settle there and the fortified habitat that they erected there. It is essentially the redevelopment of the houses at the end of the Middle Ages which marks, among the Hospitallers of Saint John of Jerusalem in the southwest of France as well as elsewhere in the kingdom of France, the will to fortify these religious houses in the specific context of the Hundred Years’ War. The fortification of the domus, of their conventual buildings, the construction of towers, the fortification of ecclesial buildings or barns which has been compared, for example in Auvergne, with the architecture of stronghold houses62, associated with the collective fortification of agglomerations formed by the polarization of a habitat near the commanderies, is part of a general movement which is striking by the extent of the work carried out. It highlights a strong constructive dynamism from the fourteenth century on, and the presence of significant economic means available, similar to what is observed at the same time among Cistercians in Rouergue63, sometimes linked to specific legal, judicial or conflictual conditions that should be studied further. It also raises the question of chronology, of the causes and the need for reconstructions. Did the destructions engendered by the war make it necessary to redevelop or rebuild the brothers’ habitat, or is it a precaution desired by the religious community, which could perhaps also be associated with an evolution in the practice of a daily and religious life in the various domus of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem?