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Origin and history

The castral motte of Villars, or Poype, is a fortification of land erected in the 10th century on the town of Villars-les-Dombes (Ain, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes). Originally, it was on the outskirts of the medieval village, grouped around a Romanesque church. The artificial tart, now in the centre of the village, supports the ruins of a round brick tower dated 940. Excavations revealed a Romanesque church buried in the 11th century, built on a square tower of the 10th century, itself incorporating Gallo-Roman blocks. The lower yard, surrounded by ditches, was integrated into an urban enclosure in the 13th century.

The poype was the heart of a seigneury, then a barony, a county and finally a marquisate. In the 12th century, Étienne I de Villars assumed rights over the fief at Humbert de Beaujeu, confirmed in 1253 by Béatrix de Faucigny. The castle, built in the 11th century by the Sires of Villars, was dismantled in 1595 by the troops of Biron after a violent bag. The seigneury often changed hands: ceded to the Savoys in 1327, erected in 1432 for Philip IV of Lévis-Mirepoix, then in 1565 for Honorat de Savoy.

Ranked a historical monument in 1905, the motte also houses the remains of an aula (the room of the High Middle Ages) under the terre. Three other motes existed in Villars: Filioli (destroyed in 1847), La Juyre and Termant. The 1988 excavations confirmed the strategic importance of the site, linked to the feudal organisation of the Dombes, between seigneurial conflicts and control of the commercial axes.

The site illustrates the evolution of a local power, from the Sires of Villars to the Savoys and the Lévis-Mirepoix. Its history reflects the struggles for regional domination, from the feudal commitments of the 13th century to the confiscation by Marguerite of Austria in the 16th century. Today, the poype remains a rare testimony of medieval earth fortifications, combining archaeology and memory of the massacres of 1595.

The visible round tower, the last vestige of the castle, symbolizes the transition between military architecture on earth (motte) and masonry (X century bricks). The re-used Gallo-Roman blocks underline the continuity of the occupation of the site, from antiquity to modern times, where the marquisat was ceded to bourgeois families such as the Perrachon or the Dugas de Bois-Saint-Just.

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