Château de Termes

In this natural site, at 470 m altitude, the castle was one of the most powerful in Languedoc, and ruled over the Termenès, a lordship of about sixty villages. The lords of Termes favoured Catharism: at the time of the Crusade, Raymond is said not to have had mass said in the chapel for more than thirty years. Following a lack of maintenance and the troubled context of the Fronde around 1650, the authorities chose to destroy the castle, which was done in 1654. Falling then into oblivion, it was only rediscovered in the twentieth century. Bought by the commune from the Touring Club de France in 1988, the château de Termes was listed as a Historic Monument the following year and opened to the public. Restorations and archaeological excavations are carried out together there today.

← Other sites in Aude