During the long struggles of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries for control of southwest France, both the English and the French combatants constructed dozens of new towns – principally in the disputed "frontier" areas between the Dordogne and Garonne rivers – in an attempt to consolidate their hold on their respective territories. These towns, known as bastides, were essentially fortified settlements, walled and gated and built on a rational grid-plan round a central arcaded market square, in contrast to the haphazard organic growth of the usual medieval town. As an incentive to local people, anyone who was prepared to build, inhabit and defend them was granted various perks and concessions, including a measure of self-government remarkable in feudal times.There's a heavy concentration of these settlements in the country to the south of Bergerac between the rivers Dordogne and Lot, the control of which was hotly contested by the French and English. Many retain no more than vestiges of their original aspect, but two of the finest, which are almost entirely intact, lie within a fifty-kilometre radius of Bergerac: Monpazier and Monflanquin.
Pages in section ‘Bastide country’: Monpazier, Biron, Beaumont.
| 