Château de Tournoël
The Château de Tournoël is a medieval fortified castle partly in ruins in the commune of Volvic, in the Puy-de-Dôme département of France.
The Château de Tournoël is privately owned and has been listed as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture since 1889.
[1] The castle, by dominating the Limagne plains, watched over the surroundings of the “bonne ville” (which means a town with a peculiar status with the king) of Riom which was the commercial and legal capital city of the Basse-Auvergne, and the royal Mozac Abbey.
Moreover, the castle was known to be “unassailable” or “impregnable, defended on the outside by extremely high slopes, very deep valleys, multiple towers and walls, filled with armed men and supplies” as described by William the Breton at the beginning of the 13th century.
In this certificate, Bertrannus (Bertrand in French), Lord of “Tournoile” (toponym at that time), had taken the church of Cébazat that he gave back to the cathedral chapter of Clermont.
Whereas Guy II favored the claims of Richard the Lionheart to the Auvergne, his brother Robert, bishop of Clermont, sided with King Philip-Augustus.
At the end of 1212, the French king sent his army led by Guy of Dampierre, lord of Bourbon, who besieged and took the castle.
In 1306, King Philip the Fair concluded an agreement with the heirs of Geraud Maulmont (or Maumont), a noble Limousin family who owned Saint-Julien-Maumont.
When the nobles rose up against Louis XI, creating the League of the Public Weal, Antoine de La Roche did not join Charles the Bold's followers.
A competition began between him and his suzerain, John II, Duke of Bourbon, who did participate in the League of the Public Weal.
In 1478, as Antoine refused to give homage to him, John II of Bourbon sent him to jail in Moulins, then to the Conciergerie of Paris.
Two years later, in 1480, the Duke was ordered to return the castle to Antoine de La Roche by the Parliament of Paris but he seized it once again in 1487 giving as an excuse that people had been manhandled.
