The original town evolved around its Chateau, below the cemetery, but apart from a few stables,
nothing of the Chateau remains.
One of the four older sons of Aimon – Alchier The Deaf – probably founded the town a thousand
years ago.
The houses of Turenne, Talleyrand and Bergerac successively governed the town, which reached the height of its importance under Marie de Foix de Candale, grand daughter of Marguerite d’Albret. But the civil wars of the 14th Century obliged her to seek refuge, exhausted, in the neighbouring Chateau of Montagrier. Following an instinctive sense of survival, the first inhabitants gravitated towards the manor house, to rue du Four and rue Notre Dame. Later, as the population grew, it spread as far as the banks of the Ribéraguet. For many centuries the Ribéraçois – by nature not very inquisitive were at the beck and call of successive lords. It was not until well after the Revolution that they made the move to the slopes of the opposite bank of the river, thereby proclaiming their independence. |
The troubadour Arnaut DANIEL
Held to be the originator of Provençal poetry, he was born in the Chateau at Ribérac in the middle of the 12th Century. Adopted at the
court of King Alphonse IX, this globe-trotter knew both misery and riches before becoming a monk.
Hailed by Dante and Petrarque he was rediscovered, along with others, in a work written in 1941 by Louis Aragon entitled “The Ribérac Lesson, or French Europe”. In rediscovering the work of this medieval hero, the 20th Century poet praises the necessity for adventure and the irrepressible need to revolt, which were already latent in the words of Arnaut Daniel, which had previously been looked on as rather fusty. Aragon took from the words of Daniel the strength to call for a revolution. |
| The work of Doctor Dussolier (available for reference in the
Media Library)
at Ribérac) offers a wealth of information on Ribérac’s 1000year history to those wanting to know
more.
Nicolas PLATON Guide Périgord Fanlac |