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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The Cohitte mansion, located in Beaucens in the Hautes-Pyrénées, finds its first traces written in the 12th century with mentions of a seigneur of Cohitte, although the seigneury is not recorded in the investigation of 1300 ordered by Philippe le Bel. It was only in the fifteenth century that documents formally attested to its existence: a tribute given in 1445 by Arnaout, lord of Cohitte, to Ramon-Gassie VII, Viscount of Labeda, and a military order of 1483 addressed to Bertran, another lord of Cohitte. These texts reveal that Cohitte, enclave within the vicomté, was a separate fief, probably the result of a subsequent dismemberment of the seigneury of Beaucens, acquired by the vicomtes of Labeda only from 1410.

In 1600, a tribute described the mansion as a "high-rise bastia" home, integrating a tower, a small church and a mill into its lower courtyard. The most important work campaign took place between 1692 and 1693, led by Bernard d'Estrade. This includes the elevation of the roof in the pavilion, the piercing of an armored entrance door, and the addition of two stairs, one of which is "lantern, to be balustered with walnut" above the main door. These arrangements give the manor its present physiognomy, mixing sobriety and reduced features of a fortified domain: low-drilled corner towers, barbacans, monitoring windows, and large-scale walls.

The manor house, surrounded by ordered agricultural buildings, today preserves a strong evocation of its seigneurial past, without any major alteration of its environment. His sober plan and modest exteriors reflect the transformations of the seventeenth century, when he was inscribed as a Historic Monument in 1998, including the house and its outbuildings. The absence of detailed sources about its successive owners underlines the difficulty of tracing its history, despite its local role as strategic enclave under the authority of the vicomtes of Labeda.

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