Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

Castelbouc Castle is a medieval building located in the municipality of Sainte-Enimie, in Lozère, in the Occitanie region. Built on a rocky piton overlooking the Tarn gorges, it originally belonged to the historic Gevaudan province. Today in ruins and almost inaccessible, it bears witness to a past linked to religious conflicts and local defensive strategies.

The first records of the castle date back to the 12th century, when it was owned by Stephen de Castelbouc, vassal d'Élie de Montbrun, Templar Commander of Larzac. This link with the Templars suggests a strategic or religious importance of the site at that time. In the 16th century, during the wars of Religion, the particular states of Gevaudan ordered the destruction of many castles, including Castelbouc in 1592, to prevent them from serving as refuge for Protestants.

A local legend, dated the 13th century, tells that Raymond de Castelbouc, the only man left in the village during the Crusades, should have "satisfied" all the women of the village, dying of exhaustion. His ghost, in the form of a goat, haunted from the ruins, giving his name to the place. This story reflects popular beliefs and medieval imagination around lubricity and supernatural punishment.

Recent archaeological discoveries have revealed sauropods (herbivorous dinosaides) near the bridge leading to the village, attesting that the site was a border of the lagoon to the middle Jurassic (about 170 million years). Although not directly linked to the castle, these traces highlight the geological age and paleontological richness of the region.

External links