Exposure. The work, entitled “Haute-Marne, gateway to the kingdom of France: the castles at the time of Jean de Joinville” is on display at Les Halles from Saturday January 25. Nine remarkable sites in the territory at the time of the powerful lordships are told and revealed.
From January 25 to April 27, 2025, the Chaumont halls will host the exhibition designed for roaming and produced by the Haute-Marne Attractiveness Agency. It was presented for the first time at the Château de Joinville in the fall of 2024 on the occasion of the 800th anniversary of the birth of Jean de Joinville (1224-1317), an ideal opportunity to recall the important status which was that of the department and promote several emblematic sites of the department's medieval castle heritage. Jean de Joinville, or Jean Sire, came from the high Champagne nobility, and became seneschal of Champagne, a now hereditary title, upon the death of his father. Joinville, a very pious man who was diligent in administering his region well, joined the court of the King of France, then Louis IX, future Saint-Louis.
Wealth and influence of local lords
The commemoration of the birth of the great man is the ideal opportunity to delve into the Haute-Marne of the time. Dependent largely on the county of Champagne in the Middle Ages, the territory corresponding to Haute-Marne formed a border of the Kingdom of France. It hosted a significant number of fortified sites, proof of the affluence and influence of local lords. The XIIIe century is thus a pivotal period in terms of architecture, which evolves, and now turns towards the desire to defend the Kingdom of France. It is this period that the exhibition chose to illustrate, by revealing buildings, disappeared or preserved, and components of the history of the territory, the structuring of space and society, often having left traces traces in the landscape of the department.
Échenay, Vignory, Chaumont, Châteauvillain, Bourmont…
Nine sites are presented under the expertise of Anne Braud, François Griot, and Julien Marasi, all historians of local heritage: this is how the castles of Saint-Dizier, Joinville, Échenay, Vignory, Chaumont, Châteauvillain, Bourmont, Lafauche and Clefmont. Hear dungeons, drawbridges and loopholes. Even if the time, its habitus sociological, and other conquering or warlike customs can leave you speechless in certain aspects, the architectural prowess of the builders of yesteryear and the contemplation of centuries-old methods and materials do not defy fashion and admiration. The architecture dedicated to defense was therefore invested with the aim of efficiency rather than pageantry. Rediscover the little-known medieval castle of Saint-Dizier, that of Clefmont, probably built during the 10th centurye century, or that of Echenay, about which one wrote: “A little further on, a square tower, the last remains of the Middle Ages, still dominates the old postern, with its two doors, that of the horsemen, that of the pedestrians , and their thick leaves studded with enormous nails. On the tower we read: God save France, Joan of Arc, going to find the King, passes through Echenay – 1423.” What can we say about the so-called “castle d'en-haut” of Joinville, the first traces of which date back to the year 1027, which became a vast fortress completely dismembered during the Revolution, and excavations of the site, undertaken in the 2000s, revealed a Merovingian necropolis? This exhibition does not aim to detail everything, to reveal everything, but, in all probability, to trigger the desire to discover more of the many riches of Haut-Marne.
-Elise Sylvester
An exhibition designed for roaming
At the initiative of the Attractiveness Agency, this exhibition, led by Julie Piron, was designed to be relatively modest in size to be easily transportable, and transposable to all types of places. Thirty-seven panels aim to provide a text presenting the sites (origins, morphology, history, etc.), as well as graphic, iconographic elements and contemporary photos. With “Haute-Marne, gateway to the kingdom of France: the castles at the time of Jean de Joinville”, it is the heritage that comes to the public, and not the opposite. The exhibition is visible every Saturday morning starting January 25 during the market and at each event.
