Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The castle of Saint-Amadour, located in La Selle-Craonnaise in the department of Mayenne, is mentioned from the twelfth century under the name P. de Sancto Amatore in the cartular of the Abbey of Roë. The archives reveal successive toponymic evolutions: G. de Saint Amador (1474), G. de Saint Amadour (1529), then seigneury of Saint Amador (1543), reflecting his status as a moving seigneurial land of the Ile-Tison, with limited rights (low justice) until its expansion in the eighteenth century as center of vast agricultural estates.

Built in the 17th century by the Hullin family, the house is distinguished by an elevated north façade on a terrace, offering views of a wooded landscape, while the south facade, decorated with a back wing and a winter lounge added at the end of the 19th century, dominates lawns and ponds. The park, structured in quinconce, and the historical tapestries (like the Amours de Gombault and Macée) bear witness to its prestige. The chapel, attested in 1547, was abolished at the end of the 19th century.

In the 18th century, the castle became a pole of agricultural innovation under the impulse of Victor de Broglie, spreading in the Craonnais modern methods of breeding and cultivation. The family of Saint-Amadour, allied with noble lines such as the d'Avaugour or the Montmorency, carries Gules to three heads of silver wolf and disappears in the middle of the seventeenth century. The domain thus illustrates the evolution of local seigneuries, between feudal power and adaptation to economic challenges.

The archives mention royal grants, such as the £400 awarded in 1778 for the construction of a road linking Saint-Amadour to Barberelle, highlighting its role in territorial planning. The sources (Angot, Cassini, Chartriers de Craon) confirm its historical importance, between medieval heritage and transformations of the 17th to 19th centuries.

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