The Canal du Midi
An architectural marvel designed in the 17th century to link the Atlantic to the Mediterranean by water, the Canal du Midi stretches over 360 navigable kilometres between Toulouse and the Mediterranean Sea, including 121 kilometres in the Aude. Its designer and builder, Pierre-Paul Riquet, had several objectives in mind: technological innovation and aesthetics in terms of architecture and man-made landscapes, a rare approach at the time. The result is there: the Canal du Midi is both a technical feat and a work of art. Today, the Canal du Midi is still in operation, with its characteristics - its route, its water supply, many of its structures - essentially unchanged since its creation.
The City of Carcassonne
The historic town of Carcassonne is an excellent example of a fortified medieval city whose enormous defensive system was built on ramparts dating from late antiquity. As the centrepiece of the defensive system designed in the 13th century by Philippe Auguste and his successors, Carcassonne was the political, administrative and military centre of the Cathar country. It has a castle, 52 towers and two inner and outer walls. The medieval city of Carcassonne has been on the Unesco World Heritage list since 1997 for its architectural history from late antiquity to its exemplary restoration by Viollet-le-Duc in the 19th century. It is to this architect that we owe the extraordinary restoration of the City of Carcassonne, from 1850, when it was falling into ruin. The work lasted more than 60 years and was continued by one of his brilliant pupils after his death in 1879.
The citadels of vertigo
Perched on vertiginous rocky peaks, Aguilar, Lastours, Montségur, Peyrepertuse, Puilaurens, Quéribus and Termes form a defensive complex around Carcassonne that has long been considered impregnable. These fortresses, as beautiful and majestic as they are, were not there to make the landscape look pretty, but to defend the Franco-Aragonese border, which was very close at the time, and to reinforce the power of the king over this newly conquered territory. They were built in the 13th century in only a few decades, which says a lot about the architectural talents of their designers. The Citadels of Vertigo have been in the running since 2011 for inclusion on the Unesco World Heritage List. In 2017, the Ministry of Culture validated their inclusion on the tentative list of French Unesco candidate properties, one more step towards global recognition.
The "Châteaux Pinardiers
At the end of the 19th century, in a region marked by the "golden age of wine", rich landowners, not really from the great French nobility, decided to build residences, sometimes eccentric, often magnificent, in keeping with their recent fortunes. This is how the so-called "pinardiers" castles came into being. Like the château de Ventenac in Minervois, between Narbonne and Carcassonne, or the château du Terral in Ouveillan. Today, several of these castles and their parks are open to visitors. Some have even been converted into guest rooms, restaurants, buildings or public gardens.
The formation of villages in the Aude
In the Middle Ages, villages took on different forms according to the specific periods that saw their birth.
The open village. It appeared during the Carolingian period, between the 8th and 10th centuries. Its plan is irregular and it has no fortifications. It has no castle, and the church is on the edge or outside the village. Like Villanière in the Montagne Noire and Villardebelle in the Corbières.
The ecclesiastical village. From the end of the 10th century, a spiritual and social movement organized by the Church defined an inviolable space around the church and its cemetery, within a radius of thirty steps. This space is today called "ecclesiastical enclosure". It can be found in several localities in Aude such as Loupia, Villegailhenc or Carlipa.
The castral village. This type of village is the most widespread. It adopts variable dimensions, and appears especially during the XIIth century by declining under several forms. Some are concentric, like Lasserre-de-Prouilhe or Villemoustaussou. Others are built in steps, adapting to the relief, like Aragon.
The bastide or new village. From the second half of the 13th century until the 14th century, a few new villages were developed, with a checkerboard plan and a square dedicated to the market. Until the Hundred Years War, these bastides were not fortified. The French-English conflict will lead some of them to protect themselves with ramparts, towers and ditches. In the Aude region, we can mention the Ville Basse of Carcassonne, founded in the middle of the 13th century, or Labastide-d'Anjou, the last bastide created in the southwest of France in 1373.
The village fort. In the context of the Hundred Years' War, in the 14th and 15th centuries, some villages built a defensive fort which, at first, served as a temporary refuge for goods and people in case of danger. These spaces are small and are most often found around churches or lordly castles. They represent the only fortified area of the village. Marseillette and Ventenac-Cabardès had village forts.
The myth of the "circulades". The name "circulade" was sometimes given to villages of round shape, whether they were born around a church or a castle. The Aude has 22 of them, including the village of Bram, probably the largest and most perfect of these round villages. Built around a central church enclosure, a triple circular ring surrounds the heart of the village. The facades of the houses are perfectly aligned and slightly curved. But in reality, the term "circulade" is historically meaningless. It may lead one to believe that these villages were created by the high aristocracy of the region in order to create agglomerations with a pre-established plan, whereas these circular villages are only the most regular versions of the fortified localities that appeared in the 11th and 12th centuries.
