Walls of Avignon – Avignon France – ECTV
Hey everybody, this is Eric Clark’s travel videos and I’m here in Avenueon, France and I’m outside the wall and the wall goes all the way around the entire city and the city’s enormous inside. Multiple grocery stores, multiple everything. I mean everything you need is inside that city and it’s right across the street from the train station which is really cool too. But let me show you some of the wall so you have an understanding what we’re dealing with. Let’s do it. So this is the corner of the wall. And if you look over here, here’s another the entrance to the main city. And this main road right here is the main road. And you can see that the wall goes down that way. But I’m just going to walk this way and share with you the wall cuz it’s pretty amazing. Um certainly a big wall. Oops. I don’t want to scan so high that uh you can’t see it. And it’s got these little rampart things all the way down, which is pretty amazing. So, very cool. I like it. Certainly neat. And the wall’s cool. And it’s got the little arrow things up there on top so you can shoot arrows. And same thing up on that one. But it literally goes all the way around the entire city and it is I mean again I can’t tell you it’s like uh you know it look at all the cars coming out of here. So it’s pretty crazy. Um wow. Huh. And I think what I’ll do is now that you’ve seen the outside, I think I’ll jump onto the inside and we can look at the inside together, too. Um, and there’s a little bit of the city on the outside, but for the most part, um, everything in Avenon is within these walls. Um, which is pretty amazing. Yeah. And there’s like uh you can get up onto the walls too. Let me St. Charles 1902. Breached in 1902. But uh so if you look here, you can see where the you can get up on top here and then you can get up on that upper ledge up there. But it goes all the way around. And this is uh courtesy of President Kennedy. Is that amazing or what? Can you imagine? Huh? It’s like he dedicated something to this. But let’s walk down this way and I’ll just walk back to that exact same spot and then you’ll understand that that this goes just like this everywhere. And uh like there’s little stairs here too. So you can get up onto the top part. You see right here where these little stairs are? D so you can get up onto the top rail and that’s I guess where the people would fire you know arrows from and everything else but it’s a substantial wall. Um so pretty neat and I like Avenueon. I’ve been here before. I was here before, you know, years ago, 10 years ago, and I had a car and I drove all the way around the city just because the the wall was so captivating because I thought, well, it’s going to stop. I mean, you know, you go just almost anywhere and uh it’s the same situation that the um the walls, you know, maybe a little distance but not fully completed. But and here they could dump oil or whatever on the people or, you know, whatever. And then if they were hiding, they could hide in here if it was raining or snowing or what have you. And you can see the the arrow slit up there. But uh very cool. I really like Avignon. I uh it’s pretty amazing. You know, I think a lot of people come and visit by a boat, you know, if they’re doing a river cruise or what have you, but I don’t know that uh they get to spend a lot of time inside the city. Um I’m here for 10 days and so uh I’m hoping to get to see every bit of it. So, and like this little tower, this round tower, you can see the doors and the stairs leading up to it. The little door is cute. Um certainly not made for a big guy. If he had armor, he might not fit in that little tiny narrow door. But and again, you can see the stairs going up to it. Tell me that’s not amazing. Wow. Very cool. Well, I’m going to walk on the outside of this side now. So now you’ve seen the outside one direction and the outside another direction. Um and so and the buses come through here and the people are pretty busy. So, I’m going walk this way for a while and see how far down it goes and, you know, until the next entryway. It really is amazing. Very cool. I did some looking on Google Map just to see the entrance ways and they have a few of them all the way around the city, but for the most part, you have to go in one of the main entrance ways like, you know, the one we just went through. Um, let’s get down to this one. Obviously, people are coming this way, so there was probably not one for a little while, but uh driving it would be neat. And why is there such a big wall, Eric? Well, this is the Pope’s palace. Popes’s plural palace. And so, there’s a huge huge palace inside that the popes all come to. And so, you have to be able to protect the popes. Um, and so it’s uh it’s pretty important back then that there was uh protection. And there’s a door here. Let me go look and see what’s inside this door. Mont Clair. Port Montlair. Ah. Okay. So, here’s what it looks like inside one of these things. Wow. And you can see, so this used to be there’d probably be a wooden floor here and a, you know, a hold of fire there, a hold of fire there, a hold of fire there. And so, pretty amazing. and they could block the gates off and stuff, but uh wow. You know, it’s a kid’s delight. You know, you could run through here all day. Anyway, that’s it. I’m going to stop rambling. Thanks for coming with me and enjoying the walls of Avignon. The walls of Avenueon. Okay, bye everybody.
The walls of Avignon (French: Les Remparts d’Avignon) are a series of defensive stone walls that surround the city of Avignon in the south of France. They were built in the 14th century during the Avignon papacy and have been continually rebuilt and repaired throughout their subsequent history.
The current walls replaced an earlier double set of defensive walls that had been completed in the first two decades of the 13th century. During the Albigensian Crusade the town sided with the Count of Toulouse, Raymond VII but in 1226, after a three-month siege by Louis VIII of France, Avignon capitulated and was forced to dismantle the earlier walls and fill in the moats. Beginning in around 1231, the earlier walls were rebuilt and although they have not survived, their path is preserved in the street plan of the city.
In 1309 Pope Clement V moved to Avignon and under the papacy the town expanded outside the limits of the earlier city walls. From the 1350s during the Hundred Years’ War the town became vulnerable to pillage by marauding bands of mercenaries and in 1357 under Innocent VI, the fifth Avignon pope, work began on the construction of a new set of city walls to enclose the expanded town. The walls took nearly 20 years to complete.
The walls stretch for 4.3 km (2.7 mi) and enclose an area of 150 ha (370 acres). There were originally twelve gates controlling access to the city but this number was reduced to seven when the fortifications were modified between 1481 and 1487 during the French Wars of Religion. There are now 15 vehicular entrances and 11 pedestrian entrances.
Historians had assumed that during the Roman period Avignon would have been defended by a wall,[1] but this is now considered unlikely.[2] A large amount of rescue archaeology has taken place in Avignon since the 1960s, especially around the Place de l’Horloge. This has revealed many details of the Roman town but no evidence has been found for a defensive wall.[2]
In late antiquity a rudimentary wall was erected by reusing material from Roman monuments. It was centred on the Rocher des Doms and enclosed a much smaller area than the Roman town.[3][4] This wall is mentioned by the Gallo-Roman historian Gregory of Tours when describing the siege of the town by the Frankish king, Clovis I, in around 500 AD.[4][5]
A 17th century map showing the two arches of the Portail Magnanen at the junction of the Rue du Portail Magnanen and the Rue des Lices. A bridge is shown over the inner moat.
In the 12th century the town enjoyed a degree of independence and became very prosperous. A bridge was built across the Rhône, the Pont Saint-Bénézet whose construction is traditionally dated to between 1177 and 1185.[6] There are no surviving records of when the first city wall was built but historians have suggested dates between 1060[7][8] and 1176.[3]
In the first two decades of the 13th century the town added a second wall with a second moat outside the earlier wall. The two walls were parallel and separated by around 30 m (33 yd). Built into the outer wall were a series semi-circular towers. Access to the town was provided by twelve pairs of gates, each pair consisting of a gate in the inner wall and another in the outer.[a] Water for the moats came from the Sorgue through the Canal de Vaucluse. After 1229, additional water was also provided from the Durance by the Canal de l’Hôpital (La Durançole). The double walls extended around a perimeter of approximately 3 km (1.9 mi) and enclosed an area of around 45 ha (110 acres).[10]
During the Albigensian Crusade the town sided with the Count of Toulouse, Raymond VII. In 1226 the French king, Louis VIII, descended the Rhône valley with a papal legate and a large army en route to a new campaign against the Albigensians. Avignon refused to open its gates but after a siege lasting three months (10 June until 12 September) the city was forced by famine to capitulate. One of the conditions imposed on the town was the dismantling of the city walls.[11] The town rebuilt the defences between 1234 and 1237, presumably on the same plan,[12] but in 1251 Avignon lost its independence when the two younger brothers of King Louis IX, Alphonse of Poitiers and Charles of Anjou (Charles I of Naples) took back control and appointed a viguier (magistrate) to administer the town.[13]
My name is Eric Clark and I am a world traveler. I have been around the world a few times and decided to help fund my travels by sharing my videos and pictures. I have been to almost every country and would be glad to give tips and pointers. Drop me a note. = )