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Origin and history

Vautheau Castle, also known as Vauteau Castle, is an ancient feudal fortress built in the 12th century on a feudal motte in La Grande-Verrière, Saône-et-Loire. Its ruins, now invaded by vegetation, include a three-storey square tower (XVI century), ditches and a stair turret decorated with a shield. The site also housed a seigneurial chapel from the 11th century, linked to an annuity paid to the church of Autun.

In the Middle Ages, Vautheau was the centre of a powerful seigneury extending over several communes, including Monthelon and Saint-Léger-sous-Beuvray. The family of Vautheau, chivalry, was the first owner, as evidenced by the burials of Guy de Vautheau (circa 1200) and Guillaume de Vautheau (1253) in Autun. The estate then passed to the Dukes of Burgundy (XIVth century), then to the family of Choiseul-Traves by marriage in 1456.

The Choiseul-Traves, Protestants exalted in the 16th century, made Vautheau a Huguenot den where there were sermons gathering up to 700 nobles. Jacques de Choiseul-Traves, lord in the middle of the sixteenth century, looted the surrounding churches with his Calvinist troops. His son, John, even captured the bishop of Châlons in 1545. The seigneury declined after the 17th century, passing to the families of Maizière (1728) and then to Esterno (1866), whose descendants still owned it.

Architecturally, the castle blends the remains of the 12th century (premises, ditches) with Renaissance elements, like a dovecote now collapsed. The staircase turret, the only standing structure, has a door with a brace topped by a coat of arms. The site, a private property not accessible, illustrates the evolution of a strong house in a seigneurial residence, before its gradual abandonment.

The heraldic of the successive families – such as the Choiseul-Traves (azure to the cross of gold) or the Pocquières (silver to the band of gules) – recalls Vauteau's strategic importance. The seigneury exercised high, medium and low justice over the surrounding hamlets, testifying to its feudal power over the Autino Morvan.

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