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Origin and history

Masclat Castle, located in the Lot en Occitanie, has its origins in the 13th century under the lordship of Cardaillac, which built the central tower and part of the house body. The Viscounty of Carlux, on which Masclat depended, was ceded to the Viscounts of Turenne in 1251 and then passed by successive alliances to the families Themine, Ithier de Concorès, and Masclat. Occupied by the English between 1355 and 1362, the castle reflects the conflicts of the Hundred Years War in Quercy.

In the 15th century, the seigneury of Masclat was divided between the Auriole (from the marriage of Peyronne de Lopdat) and the Vervaix, the latter marking the history of the place until the 17th century. Jean de Vervaix, lord in 1516, would have added the wings of the main body and the stair tower. The family, which had become Protestant, was involved in the wars of Religion: François de Vervaix s.

The Fontanges and the Lantrons became coseigneurs in the 17th and 18th centuries, before the delabrated castle was sold in 1859 to François Planchou, mayor of Masclat. The architectural transformations (façades, outbuildings) in the 18th to 19th centuries, as well as the truncation of the towers, altered its medieval appearance. Ranked a Historic Monument in 2007, it now embodies a Quercy heritage marked by feudal rivalries and religious change.

The building, plan in H, preserves remains of the 13th–14th centuries (square towers, cellars) and Renaissance additions. The outbuildings, including one built with the stones of the priory of Camilnel, testify to local reuse. The revocation of the edict of Nantes (1685) could explain the demographic decline of Masclat, linked to the exodus of Protestants such as the Vervaix.

Historical sources (numbers of 1504, notarial acts) reveal a seigneury fragmented between several lines, reflecting marital strategies and power conflicts in Quercy. The castle, passed into the hands of bourgeois like the Planchou, was restored after 1859, avoiding total ruin. His recent inscription underscores his role in regional history, from the Albige crusades to the unrest of the religious wars.

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