Origin and history
The Commandery of Arville, located in Couëtron-au-Perche (Loir-et-Cher), is a former Templar house founded in the 12th century on land given by a local lord. The Templars cleared the forest there to create areas of cultivation and grazing, confirming their presence in 1169. The Commanderie, integrated with the Baillie de Chartres, included several secondary houses such as the Temple-near Mondoubleau. The church and the entrance porch, partially built in the 12th century, complete a closed complex including house, agricultural buildings and enclosure wall.
From the 14th century, after the dissolution of the Order of the Temple in 1312, the site passed to the Hospitallers of Saint John of Jerusalem. The latter reorganized the command office, now attached to Sours near Chartres, and strengthened its fortifications, probably in response to the disturbances of the Hundred Years War. Hospitallers operate the estate in rent, collecting tithes, taxes and seigneurial rights (justice, fishing, tolls). A 1495 terrier describes an old house and a parish church served by a chaplain brother.
In the 16th century, a restoration campaign transformed the entrance porch (addition of towers and a brick-decorated pavilion), modernized the communes, the tidal barn and the dovecote, and erected a common oven. The Commanderie, now called "Château d'Arville", is run by farmers who live on site, while the Commanders often reside in Blois or Paris. Hospitallers practice high, medium and low justice, with patibular forks still mentioned in the 18th century. The church, dedicated to Notre-Dame and then to Saint-Louis in 1729, preserves furniture offered by the Commanders (lutrin, painting of 1625).
The French Revolution led to the confiscation of hospital property in 1791. The command office was sold to private individuals in 1793, then divided: the church, spared, was maintained, while the porch became the town hall in 1876. In the 20th century, a rehabilitation led by an inter-municipal union (from 1982) and the association Chantier Histoire et Architecture Médiévales restored the buildings. Since 1999, the site, managed by a local association, offers visits, accommodation and cultural activities, benefiting in 2024 from a grant of €90 000 via the Heritage Mission.
The spatial organization of the commandory rests on a walled enclosure of 5 to 6 meters high, with three towers (one remains) and a dry ditch. The fortified porch, with its drawbridge and cannons, dates mainly from the sixteenth century, although its base in broken arch dates back to the twelfth century. The tithe barn, at the foothills of brick, houses a 16th century structure, while the dovecote, a seigneurial symbol, replaces a medieval dovecote. The commons, aligned along the Couëtron Creek, include stables, lodges and a tripot (palm playroom).
The Templars of Arville, numbering seven in 1209, include a commander, a chaplain, a cleric and service brothers (winners, millers, carters). Their estate, self-sufficient, generates surpluses sent to the Temple Treasury in Paris (755 pounds in 1295-1296). Conflicts with the local nobility, like Geoffroy V of Châteaudun, illustrate tensions for seigneurial rights. After 1373, the Hospitallers reduced the number of staff and favoured employment, while maintaining justice and feudal rights until the Revolution.
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