Saint Blaise Chapel
This Romanesque chapel is characteristic of the sobriety and simplicity typical of such buildings in the Middle Ages.
Once the chapel of the weavers’ and carders’ brotherhoods, whose patron saint is Saint Blaise, it dates back to the 12th century.
With a simple rectangular layout, it resembles many small Romanesque chapels found along the roads of Provence. Its façade features a rounded Romanesque doorway topped by an oculus and a small bell tower.
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The Quiqueran Hospital and its garden
The Quiqueran Hospital reflects refined culture in the regular and sober style of the classical Renaissance, popular at the time. It housed the poor and the sick.
It was built in the 16th century during the Wars of Religion, by the will of Jeanne de Quiqueran, wife of Honoré des Martins, governor of Les Baux-de-Provence. Later renamed “Hôtel Dieu et Charité des Baux,” it only closed in 1787.
This “house of charity” was sustained by rents from individuals, which their heirs continued to pay generation after generation. Some were paid in money, but most were in kind—donations of wheat, wine, or oil.
The hospital consisted on the ground floor of a portico formed by three large arches, and upstairs, a gallery adorned with small columns supporting the roof. The entrance was on the opposite, northern side, along a street once lined with houses. The façade was very austere, with no decoration.
In the second half of the 18th century, the Quiqueran “house of charity” still housed six poor people, six sick individuals, and a servant who lived on-site.
After the Revolution, due to lack of funds, it was transferred to the Maussane hospital, which still houses its archives today.
The Quiqueran Garden
The garden is inspired by the design principles of medieval gardens, rich in symbolism and divided into distinct areas, each with its own unique atmosphere.
It features plants and shrubs typical of the Provençal garrigue: thyme, rosemary, and orchard fruits.
With an educational purpose, this garden allows visitors of all ages to discover the knowledge of our ancestors regarding medicinal, culinary, and decorative plants.
The courtyards
It was in the courtyards that the castle’s inhabitants lived. The first outer courtyard provided access to the lordly residences. There, you would encounter suits of armor and fine dresses, but also servants carrying bread to bake in the oven house or fetching water from the cistern. The guards also lodged in this part of the castle.
Inside the houses of the first courtyard, the walls were covered with tapestries. Decorative, they were mainly used to fight cold and dampness, making the rooms less austere and more comfortable.
In the second outer courtyard, artisans and peasants lived and worked. Separated from the first courtyard by a moat, the houses formed a true village sheltered by the castle walls.
The second courtyard was a bustling area. Peasants who cultivated the lord’s vegetable gardens, fields, and vineyards lived here. The shepherd and his flock (pigs, sheep, and goats) also lived here.
There were surely stables for the lord’s horses, as well as donkeys and mules carrying heavy loads up from the valley: grain, wood, and water when the cisterns ran dry. Chickens and geese pecked everywhere.
The Sarassine Tower
The Saracen Tower played a major role in the defense of the site. Closing off the castle on the south side, it acted as the “guardian of the castle.” Built atop a rocky outcrop, it sealed the castle’s southern side and protected the access through the “Auro Gate.” Auro, in Provençal, means the north wind, the fierce Mistral.
This structure featured a clever defensive system designed to confuse intruders who, believing they were entering the castle, were instead repelled along the fortress walls. False doors and natural obstacles misled the attackers.
Another tower, still standing today, protected the castle’s northwest corner: the Paravelle Tower. It overlooked the Vallon de la Fontaine and the Val d’Enfer, but especially the Col de la Vayède, whose significant elevation made it a particularly strategic location for laying siege.
The Maison du Four
Traces of the delicate Renaissance ornamentation can be seen in the Maison du Four.
The cornice is decorated with acanthus leaves, an ornamental feature widely used in architecture since the days of ancient Greece.
The Maison du Four, where they baked their bread, had three rooms on the ground floor. The oven can be seen in the room on the left with, to its right, a sink with its outlet hole. A window – which still has the stubs of its mullions today – opens out onto the castle alley.
The first of the bakery’s three rooms currently takes the form of a terrace. This is in fact all that remains of this room in the open air.
Originally, the bakery had two storeys. This can be seen thanks to the traces of a staircase above the entrance door.
The Keep
The keep is by far the castle’s most impressive vestige. Usually, the lord and his family lived together in a single room in the keep. Here, it is at the top of the rock that the Château des Baux was founded.
To build the keep, the lords of Les Baux had the rock giving onto the valley carved out to a height of up to 20 metres, to make it difficult to climb. It is mostly built with rock.
The rock was broadly hollowed out to build it. The stones were therefore available, ready to be dressed at a time when many castles were still made of timber, because the quarries were often a great distance away and it would have been costly to transport the stones.
On the first level, the keep had just one room, but from the first floor upwards there were three rooms and the keep then measured 35 metres by 12.
The castle chapel
The building has the castle’s oldest remains, and is a wonderful example of the Flamboyant Gothic style.
Built close to the castle’s entrance, the chapel ensured its religious and physical protection. In the 12th century, it was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and then, from the 16th century onwards, to Saint Catherine.
Admire the vault and its Gothic-style intersecting lierne and tierceron ribs. Initially in the Romanesque style with a barrel vault, it was restored in the 16th century.
In the 15th century Saint Mary’s chapel was richly furnished and decorated. There were two paintings, a small organ lent by the prior of the Carmes d’Arles, a number of liturgical books and gold plate. But above all it had a wealth of ecclesiastic vestments cut from costly fabrics.
A tapestry depicting the Three Wise Men and a large painting representing Saint Anthony hung on the walls.
The trou aux lièvres (The hares’ hole)
Ensuring the castle’s defence, the trou aux lièvres (hares’ hole) was a formidable trap for the enemy.
A sloping passageway with broad steps crossing through the whole rock, this deep ditch barred the way into the castle.
From the exterior, it could be watched from a parapet with machicolations carved into the rock. If any intruders came close, the guards could see them and repel them by throwing projectiles at them.
Even if the intruders managed to get in, they were still exposed to the projectiles that could be thrown from the roof of the chapel, just on the left.
At that time, there were two storeys with battlements. This defensive system also offered an effective escape route in the case of a siege.
Features in the walls such as this old doorway show us that the terrace had two stories and was topped by battlements.
The water cistern
The water supply always posed a problem on the spur. As the rock did not have a spring or a well, they had to collect the rainwater, and this is the cistern that was used to supply the castle with water for several centuries.
This cistern was covered with a barrel vault and had two openings: the first one received the runoff water and the second one was used to draw off the water.
Today, you can still see the traces of friction left by a rope which probably had a bucket attached to it. Regular holes drilled in the separating wall perhaps served to filter the water.
Originally there were three cisterns. The other two cisterns were at the peak of the rock next to the keep and near the castle chapel.
There is a ditch between the first courtyard and the bakery running down the castle alley, that took the rainwater to the cistern.
The walls were coated with a mixture of crushed terracotta, sand and lime to make them waterproof.
The troglodyte houses
These are dwellings carved out of the rock. They allow us to understand how the inhabitants of Les Baux managed to make the most of their rocky surroundings to develop.
They form a neighbourhood, mentioned in the 16th century land registers as the “Baume de Roucas”. In Occitan, “baume” means cave and “rouca” means rock. It was therefore a neighbourhood of rock dwellings, that must have looked something like those in the second courtyard.
These houses bear witness to the ingenuity of the inhabitants who used the stone to make their homes more functional: shelves were carved in the wall, fireplaces dug out in the thickness of the rock, not to mention the knobs that were used to hang things up and to dry hams.
The dovecot
The castle’s dovecot is an impressive testimonial to pigeon breeding, a widely developed practice in the Middle Ages. As meat was a luxury, there was a very real need to diversify the sources of food.
Throughout feudal times, the secular and ecclesiastical lords were almost alone in enjoying the right to build and exploit immense dovecots that could house as many as 2,000 nesting places. This feudal right was abolished at the time of the French Revolution.
The pigeons’ nests carved into the rocky wall are called “boulins”. A ladder was used to climb up to collect the pigeon eggs and squabs. They are designed to accommodate a couple.
Pigeons, greatly appreciated for their meat, were also used as messengers, a tradition that dates back to classical times.
Carrier pigeons belong to a special breed of pigeon with a highly developed instinct allowing them to return to their home dovecot, regardless of their departure point.