After having bought the castle from Jacques Cœur, Charles de Bigny built a pre-Renaissance Louis XII style chateaux from 1500 to 1505.

[4] The castle property is mentioned in a cartulary in Champagne at the end of the 11th century, naming a member of the House of Bourbon (rulers of Bourbonnais) and a brother of Charles Martel.

It then passed into the ownership of Pierre Barres and his brother, Guillaume, who won fame for their family by saving the French king at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214.

Similarly, it lost all military importance with the French victory at the end of the Hundred Years' War.

[5] Château d'Ainay-le-Vieil comprises two distinct parts: one medieval, and one pre-Renaissance in the Louis XII style.