The Ramparts of Vannes are the fortifications erected between the 3rd and 17th centuries to protect the city of Vannes in the Morbihan department in France. Founded by the Romans at the end of the 1st century BC under the reign of Augustus, the civitas Venetorum was forced to protect itself behind a castrum at the end of the 3rd century, during a major crisis shaking the Roman Empire. This first enclosure remained the city’s only protection for over a millennium. During the time of Duke John IV, at the end of the 14th century, the city’s enclosure was rebuilt and extended southward to protect the new districts. The duke wanted to make Vannes not only a place of residence but also a stronghold he could rely on in case of conflict. The area of the city intra-muros was doubled, and the duke added his to the new enclosure.
The Wars of the League at the end of the 14th century forced the city to equip itself with several polygonal bastions (Gréguennic, Haute-Folie, Brozilay, Notre-Dame). The Garenne spur was the last defensive structure built in Vannes around 1630. From 1670, King Louis XIV sold parts of the ramparts piece by piece to finance his wars. The most significant event was, in 1697, the donation to the city of Vannes of the ruins of the Château de l’Hermine, which were then used for the redevelopment of the port and the maintenance of municipal buildings.
The urban developments of the 19th century led to the demolition of several segments of the northern and western walls. It was not until the partial destruction in 1886 of the Prison Gate, one of the oldest entrances to the old city, that Vannes residents attached to their heritage came together to form a heritage defense association in 1911. This led to the gradual establishment of protection for the ramparts as historical monuments between 1912 and 1958. For several decades, the city has been undertaking the restoration and enhancement of the parts of the ramparts it owns. A cornerstone of Vannes’ heritage and a quintessential tourist attraction, the Ramparts of Vannes are among the few urban fortifications still remaining in Brittany.
History
First enclosure At the end of the 3rd century, under the threat of Germanic peoples, the Emperor Probus authorized Darioritum, like all the cities of the Saxon Shore, to raise fortifications. The ancient town of Vannes thus surrounded itself with ramparts on the Mené hill and abandoned the Boismoreau hill, which formed the heart of the city. The choice of this location was due to its configuration: the Mené hill was at that time a rocky promontory surrounded by marshes. This first enclosure was roughly triangular and extended from the current rue du Méné, in the north, to the , in the south. More precisely, it was an “irregular hexagon comprising three large sides, of unequal lengths, connected to each other by three small sides, also of unequal lengths”. This first enclosure, with a perimeter of less than , encompassed approximately 5 hectares.According to the calculations of Jules de la Martinière (L'enceinte romaine de Vannes), this enclosure measured for an encompassed area of 4.916 hectares. The work of Claudie Herbaut, Gérard Danet, and Christophe Le Pennec (Les remparts de Vannes, Découverte d'une ville fortifiée des origines à nos jours) mentions a perimeter of for an area approaching 5 hectares.
Sources then dry up for the following centuries. What is certain is that a fortress is attested in the 10th century on the northern wall. Some sources mention the 5th or 6th centuries as a possible period for its construction, as it seems that , semi-legendary king of Vannes, was already using this castle as a residence at the beginning of the 6th century. This fortress was named Château de la Motte. Its etymology is not settled: perhaps due to its dominant position over the city or due to significant earthworks during construction. The Château de la Motte later became the residence of the counts of Vannes, then of some of the kings and dukes of Brittany, including , Waroch II, Nominoë, John I, and Peter Mauclerc.
The incessant wars of the duke with his neighbors during the weakened the ramparts. Thus, the city was besieged five times between 1156 and 1175, twice by Henry Plantagenêt (in 1168 and 1175). As a result, Duke John I decided to undertake the restoration of the ramparts starting in 1237. The earthquake of 1287 prompted his successor, John II, to continue the work, which was completed in 1305. The Château de la Motte, too damaged by the earthquake, was then ceded to the bishop . He decided to rebuild it starting in 1288 to make it the episcopal manor of la Motte, the residence of the city’s bishops.
In 1342, during the War of the Breton Succession, the city endured four more sieges, changing hands several times between the party of Charles of Blois, supported by the French, and that of John of Montfort. The Vannes residents, who declared themselves in favor of John of Montfort in 1341, surrendered to the army of Charles of Blois at the beginning of 1342, but an English army, commanded by Robert III of Artois, retook the city in August. A few days later, Olivier de Clisson recaptured the city for the French after another siege in which Robert d’Artois was mortally wounded. The city successfully resisted a final siege led by Edward III in November.
Access to the walled city during the High Middle Ages was through five gates: Saint-Patern, Saint-Salomon, Bali, Saint-Jean, and Mariolle.
The Second Enclosure
After the war, John IV, son of John of Montfort, designated Duke of Brittany by the Treaty of Guérande, repaired and expanded the ramparts southward to encompass the city’s suburbs. The area of the walled city then increased from 5 to 13 hectares. Two gates and their barbicans, Calmont and Gréguennic, were added to the enclosure; the city also acquired three towers around the mid-15th century: the Executioner’s Tower, the Powder Tower, and the Joliette Tower. The work was not fully completed until the reigns of John V and Francis II.
John IV added to this reinforcement of the city’s defenses the construction of his new residence, the Château de l’Hermine, built between 1380 and 1385. To do so, he exchanged the mill he owned at Pencastel (Arzon) for the one at Garenne, belonging to the . As evidence of the growing importance of this new residence, births and marriages took place there at the end of the century and the beginning of the next: John V was born there in 1389, and Joan of Navarre married Henry IV of England by proxy there in 1402. It became the near-permanent residence of the subsequent dukes until Francis II, who preferred staying in Nantes, where he had a new château built. The Château de l’Hermine then became a place of refuge or detention, depending on the duke’s will and the status of his “guests”: a residence for Charles of France in his struggle against his brother Louis XI between 1466 and 1467, or for Henry Tudor in 1483–1484, and a prison for , former chancellor of Brittany, between 1481 and 1484.
The war reignited a few years later, and the city was besieged and captured five times between 1487 and 1490. The Breton defeat in this war marked the end of Breton independence, formalized nearly forty years later, on , with the request of the Estates of Brittany, at the Château de la Motte, to the King of France Francis I for the
This miniature by Jean de Wavrin depicts the second capture of Vannes in 1342 by John of Montfort and the English camp. The battle takes place in the city’s moats between the Powder Tower and the Prison Gate. Anachronistic since these elements were built after 1430 and the Romanesque tower of the cathedral in the background was rebuilt only after 1450, this depiction is nevertheless faithful to the ramparts of the mid-15th century. The soldiers’ weapons (swords and bows) are typical of the mid-14th century, while the arrow slits are adapted to artillery fire (mid-15th century).
Final reinforcements to partial dismantling
The integration of Brittany into the Kingdom of France brought a certain calm, both economic and military. The utility of the ramparts became less certain, but the city continued to maintain them to some extent in the 17th century, although the demolition of the Château de l’Hermine was decided during this period.
At the end of the 16th century, during the Wars of Religion, several strategic cities in Brittany adopted the principle of bastioned fortifications, a necessity due to improvements in artillery. Under the Catholic League, Vannes sided with the Duke of Mercœur, governor of Brittany and a Leaguer. During his stay in Vannes in 1592, he employed his engineers and architects to improve the city’s fortifications. The city then strengthened the ramparts with the bastions of Gréguennic, Brozillay, and Haute-Folie in the southeast of the enclosure. To the south, an opening was made for communication with the port. This was the Kaër-Calmont gate, which became the Saint-Vincent gate a few decades later. Between 1594 and 1598, Spanish troops were stationed in the city at the request of the Duke of Mercœur and the governor of Vannes, . The city’s coffers were empty, and the work remained unfinished by the end of the 16th century
After the failure of the League, Vannes suffered the repercussions of political instability and events along the Atlantic coast. Although the city no longer had a strategic role, its enclosure received final defensive improvements in the early decades of the 17th century. The bastions hastily erected under the League were improved between 1611 and 1619. Jean Bugeau rebuilt the Notre-Dame bastion in stone. The Haute-Folie bastion was rebuilt using piles by André Bugeau. The Saint-Salomon gate was also supposed to receive a bastion, but the project was abandoned.
Between 1622 and 1624, Jean Bugeau was in charge of the construction of the bridge and the Kaër-Calmont (Ker-Calmont) gate. The work was completed in 1624, and the gate was renamed Saint-Vincent Gate in homage to the preacher Saint Vincent Ferrer, who died in Vannes in 1419. The Garenne spur, intended to protect the passage of the Poterne gate, was built by the Vannes architect Antoine Angueneau between 1626 and 1628 after the withdrawal of the Nantes architect Jacques Corbineau.
Vannes experienced urban expansion in the second half of the 17th century, thanks to strong economic and religious growth and the establishment of the Parliament of Brittany in the city between 1675 and 1689. To accommodate the steadily increasing population and facilitate movement within the intra-muros, the city undertook various developments. With the construction, between 1678 and 1688, of the Poterne and Saint-Jean gates by the architect François Cosnier, the city now had six gates.
The bishop rebuilt the manor of la Motte starting in 1654, but in 1688, its dismantling was decided. In 1697, the remains of the Château de l’Hermine were donated to the city by the King of France Louis XIV. These, along with the sections of the wall being demolished, served as a quarry for the restoration of municipal buildings. At the end of the 18th century, the city planned the destruction of parts of the ramparts to prevent the risk of collapse of the least well-maintained elements and to widen traffic routes. In 1784, the Notre-Dame gate and part of the bastion of the same name were demolished. During the Revolution, in 1791, the Saint-Salomon gate collapsed.
Julien Lagorce, a caterer, purchased the site of the former Château de l’Hermine to build a hotel in 1785. In 1791, the manor of la Motte was abandoned by the bishop of the time, . Nine years later, the Morbihan prefecture services moved in. However, poorly maintained, it continued to deteriorate. A section of the wall collapsed in 1860, prompting the departure of the prefectural services, which moved to the in 1865.