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Origin and history

Montbrun Castle is a castle in ruins, built between the 12th and 15th centuries, situated on a hill overlooking the village of Montbrun-des-Corbières, in Aude. Originally, it was a feudal motte mentioned in the 11th century, surrounded by houses. The site was already strategic during the Gallo-Roman period, serving as a strong place on the Via Aquitania between Narbonne and Bordeaux. The present remains, reduced to a few stones and to the shape of a motte, testify to its systematic dismantling from 1824 by its buyer, Antoine Boutet.

In the Middle Ages, the castle was linked to the family of the lords of Montbrun, first mentioned in 1175. These notables, based in Narbonne, sat in the consulate and were represented locally by a chestnut and a prosecutor. In 1229, the castle was one of the tributes paid to the Count of Foix, Roger-Bernard II, before being named in 1263 in the possessions of the king of France. During the Albigois Crusade, Simon de Montfort dispossessed the local lord, before Amaury de Montfort returned him to the Viscount of Narbonne. A chapel dedicated to Notre Dame, built in the 13th century near the castle, became the seat of an archpriest.

The seigneury changed hands by marriage alliances: it passed to the Tregoin in 1625, then to the Pascal de Félix in the 18th century, with Jean-Hyacinthe de Tregoin bearing the title of Viscount de Montbrun in 1693. The last lord, Hyacinthe-Xavier-Joachim-Antoine Pascal, Marquis de Saint-Félix, died in 1790. His widow, who died in 1824, left the castle to Antoine Boutet, who demolished it to reuse its stones in the construction of a nearby farmhouse, the Clus.

The village, surrounded by ramparts of which remains remains, housed a village community attested as early as 1272 near Castrum de Montbruno. In the 18th century, the chestnut lived in a house behind the castle, then uninhabitable. The current ruins and archives evoke a history marked by religious conflicts (Albigois Cross) and seigneurial transformations, before its definitive abandonment in the 19th century.

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