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Les Grandes Murailles (The Great Wall), Saint Emilion

Last remaining wall of a 12th-century Dominican monastery

featured in Sights & sites

The great wall, or Grandes Murailles, is now all that remains of a once Dominican monastery that was built in the 12th-century.

By tradition, the Dominicans are part of the family of 'mendicant' monks - which means that they relied chiefly or exclusively on charitable donations and begging to survive. Architecturally, certain rules had to be applied to a Dominican monastery, one being that buildings and the church should not exceed a certain height. This section of wall suggests that Saint-Emilion mendicant monks were perhaps not be as poor as their order demanded!

Tension between the French and the English during the Hundred Years War in this region meant that building was ultimately destroyed. At the beginning of the Hundred Years War, French troops who were fighting to reassert the power of their king, took refuge in the monastery. It became a refuge, an observation point and a defensive position. The Dominicans who no longer felt safe there left their large monastery and settled within the walls of Saint-Emilion town. The monastery, meanwhile, was deliberately destroyed, leaving just this stylish piece of wall.

Worth knowing

It sits proudly at one end of a field of vines, now providing grapes for the domaine known as Chateau des Grandes Murailles.

Location

Map of the surrounding area