QR La Sauvetat 6
The primitive core
Originally, the Hospitaller commanderies and the houses dependent on them were mainly agricultural estates, part of whose income, the responsio, was paid to the Order. The first hospitaller settlement at La Sauvetat, referred to in the literature as a « cloister », was small in size and consisted of various buildings placed around a courtyard: the chapel, the « château », which was the dwelling of the prior and friars, a square tower and some agricultural or other functional buildings. The arrangement can still be seen on the cadastral map from 1819, and the chapel, which forms the transept of the church built in the 19th century, the square tower, remnants of the walls and architectural elements of the castle are still partly visible today.
As a visit report attests, the buildings were in ruins in 1617. The report states: « We entered the lower courtyard of the old castle, which is now uninhabitable, and found it to have three unroofed storeys and a large, beautiful, vaulted cellar with a staircase leading down to it ». A preventive survey carried out in 2021 uncovered a staircase cut into the rock, which confirmed the latter point.
Image captions
- Remains of the square tower
- Significantly altered remains of the castle