Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The castle of Oricourt, in Burgundy-Franche-Comté, is a fort with double enclosure built around the middle of the 12th century (although the sources mainly cite the 13th, 15th, 16th and 18th centuries as key periods). Gaucher, connetable of the Count of Bourgogne Otton de Méranie, was the first known lord in the 1170s. It is the source of most of the castral ensemble, combining natural (calcareous) and artificial defences (fossed, ramparts, towers).

In the 15th century, Chancellor Nicolas Rolin, famous for the hospices of Beaune and immortalized by Jan Van Eyck, acquired the castle. He then passed into the hands of the powerful Lorrain family of the Blâmont, turbulent vassals of the Duke of Burgundy. A fratricidal conflict between Jean (Lord of Oricourt) and Henri de Blâmont degenerates into open war, involving the Duke Jean without Fear. In 1410, after a siege and destruction (like that of the castle of Vellexon), the Duke of Oricourt was restored to the Blâmonts by agreement. Modern artillery makes its medieval fortifications obsolete.

In the 17th to 18th centuries, the castle belonged to the family of Cordeloy, recently anoblated. Claude François de Cordeloy (1628–1706), soldier and lieutenant of the Marshals of France, reigned there as master for 50 years. His authority was challenged by his daughter Gabrielle, who fled to marry an officer against his will, causing his disinheritance. A trial in 1708 revealed daily life in Oricourt, marked by religious tensions (mission against Protestantism) and frumentary crises (1690–1709). The castle, transformed into a farm, passed to Chapuis de Rozières in 1761, then to Grivel in the 19th century.

The Revolution partially spared the fortune of the Chapuis, emigrants, but the castle declined: transformed into a farm, it lost its fortifications. Ranked a historic monument in 1984 and protected site since 1913, however, it retains remarkable elements: double enclosure, high courtyard with seigneurial lodges, chapel, dovecote, and deep ditches carved in the rock. Its architecture reflects its successive adaptations, from medieval origins to modern times.

The castle is today a testimony of the social and military changes of the Franche-Comté, from feudal lords (Blâmont) to local noble families (Cordeloy, Chapuis). Its history combines dynasty conflicts, matrimonial strategies and economic adaptations, illustrating the transition from a medieval fortress to a seigneurial residence and then to a farm.

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