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Origin and history

The commissionory of LaCommand, originally named Espitau deu Faget d'Aubertii (Hospital of the beech grove of Aubertin), was founded between 1115 and 1118 by Gaston IV of Béarn, the Crusader. Located on an ancestral path leading to Spain via the Somport Pass, it served as a relay for pilgrims of Santiago de Compostela, merchants, and actors of the Reconquista. A charter of 1128, known as the Albertine Charter, resolved a property dispute with a local lord in exchange for 90 sheep, allowing the expansion of the hospital under the aegis of the regular canons of Saint-Augustin, affiliated with the Priory of Saint-Christine-du-Somport. The adjoining church was built around 1130-1140, and papal bubbles (Eugène III in 1151, Innocent III in 1216) confirmed its charitable role for the poor and travellers.

In the 13th century, the command office became a key administrative and economic centre for the priory of St.Christine, benefiting from land donations (such as land in Artiguelouve in 1160) and income related to transhumance. In 1208, she received goods in Aragon (Castejón de Valdajasa) in exchange for welcoming shepherds and religious. A pareage signed in 1297 between Viscount Roger-Bernard III of Foix and Commander Fortaner of Pimbo suggested the creation of a bastide, consolidating its legal status. The local population, estimated at about 20 people in 1385 (religious, donates, peasants), lived in cultivated land and tolls on the road to Spain.

The Protestant Reformation in Béarn (XVIth century) marked a turning point: Jeanne d'Albret confiscated the revenues of the commission in 1571, hunting the canons. The Barnabites, settled around 1640 after a period of decline, restored the site and resisted conflicts with neighbouring villages (Monein, Aubertin). They kept the hospital until the Revolution, where the goods were sold as national goods. The church of Saint-Blaise, the former hospital (classified as Historical Monuments in 1962), and a medieval cemetery with discoidal steles (XVIIth-XVIIIth centuries) remain, testifying to nine centuries of hospital and religious history.

The architecture of the commandory combines Romanesque elements (chapitels carved by the Master of Oloron, apse of the 12th century) and primitive Gothics (northern 13th century chapel, influenced by Cistercian and Hispano-Mauresque art). The cloister, destroyed during the Reformation, gave way to a cemetery used until 1865, where the discoidal steles — oriented towards the rising sun according to the Christian symbol of resurrection — were erected by the local families. Today, the site, owned by the department, houses exhibitions and a stage cottage for pilgrims, perpetuating its vocation of welcoming.

The command office illustrates the close links between Béarn, Aragon and Gascogne during the Middle Ages, served as a stop on the Via Tolosana (path from Arles to Compostela), and reflects the influence of religious orders in the regional social and economic organization. Its decline in the 18th century, accelerated by royal reforms against non-hospital establishments, was sealed by the Revolution. The Barnabites, the last managers, had tried to modernize the contracts with the peasants (1667) and defend their rights vis-à-vis neighbouring communities, before the site became an independent commune in 1790.

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