King’s Keep, to the west of the village of Saint-Emilion, in the heart of the Bordeaux wine area, Gironde department, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France. The keep is all that remains of a castle built in the 1200s. The keep’s tower is still used today by the Jurade, an organisation founded in 1199 when it was given control over legal and economic affairs and recreated in 1948 as a wine brotherhood to promote Saint-Emilion wine.
Saint-Emilion, Gironde department, Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, France: the King’s Keep or ‘Lou castel daou rey’ is a square stone keep located to the west of St Emilion and all that remains of a castle built in the 1200s. It is the only Romanesque keep still intact in the Gironde. The whole building is 32 metres high and the tower is metres high. The exterior walls and corners are covered with flat buttresses. The Keep’s construction date is not certain. One theory is that King Louis VIII of France ordered its construction in 1224, another that Henry III Plantagenet, King of England and Duke of Aquitaine, ordered its construction in 1237. A third possibility is construction on the orders of the Jurade, which was founded in 1199 and given control over legal and economic affairs. The Jurade still uses this tower today because, although the Jurade was dissolved during the French Revolution, it was recreated as a wine brotherhood in 1948 to assure promotion of Saint-Emilion wine. The jurats (members of the Jurade) meet at the top of the tower to proclaim the New Wine Judgement in June and grape harvest in September. Saint-Emilion is a medieval village in the heart of the Bordeaux wine area. In the 700s AD, according to legend, a monk called Aemilanus (Emilion) fled from Brittany to seek refuge in a cave in a place called Ascum bas (the former name of the village of Saint-Emilion); he lived the life of a hermit and performed some miracles and after his death his followers called the village after him. In the medieval period, the Saint-Emilion area benefited from its location on the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela and many churches, monasteries and hospices were built there from the 1000s onwards. The Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion, covering Saint-Emilion and the seven villages that surround it and their vineyards, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Size: 2811px × 4225px
Location: King's Keep, Saint-Emilion, Gironde department, Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, France
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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