The castle | ©Torsade de Pointes / CC0The city of Vaison
While Barbarians were devastating the Roman city, counts of Toulouse decided to live on the rock, on the other bank of river Ouvèze, in the 14th century, to found the current castle.
Then a city was born, surrounded by powerful ramparts.
Inhabitants immediately moved from the right bank to the left one.
But things became pretty difficult: we had a bishop in Vaison, since the 3th century... but this bishop and counts of Toulouse always quarreled!
Wars... and peace?
They were always getting at each other. Everything started in 1160, when count Raymond V besieged the city and plundered it.
Here we go again in 1180! Why? Because the area became under the pope’s authority, so the Church owned Vaison!
This situation didn’t please counts at all. So in 1185, Raymond VI’s henchmen raised a wooden keep on the Church’s land.
The bishop destroyed it. Count Raymond VI kicked bishops out and reraised a stony castle in 1194, as a sign of no confidence!
The bishop stopped the building site and destroyed the foundations, threatening workers of an excommunication!
The count took revenge and kidnapped the bishop: he ordered him to give him back his castle and Vaison city... No, no, no! shouted the bishop.
They finally made a deal: counts gave the fief back to the Church in 1190, on the condition that counts could get it back after the bishop’s death!
When the prelate passed away, they didn’t wait for the end of the burial: they get back the city and rebuilt their fortress!
A new city was founded near the fortress, the "upper town", the bishops’ seat in 1465. Under the Popes’ domination, Vaison fell to kings of France: the end of troubles...