La Corroirie is a fortified feudal stronghold belonging to the neighboring Chartreuse du Liget, located in the commune of Chemillé-sur-Indrois, in the Indre-et-Loire department, Centre-Val de Loire region.

Likely founded at the end of the 11th century, it became the Charterhouse's lower house, whose lay brothers were responsible for managing the monastery's extensive agricultural estate (nearly 1,500 hectares at Le Liget, as well as tenant farms in the Loches region).

One of the particularities of La Corroirie is that it was also a fief with legal rights over its territory from the Middle Ages to the French Revolution, as evidenced by the presence of a prison on the site.

Sold as national property during the Revolution, after the last monks had left the Carthusian monastery in early 1791, the Corroirie buildings suffered little damage and are still maintained and inhabited into the 21st century.

The term is a possible but controversial derivative of the "corrier", designating in Lyonnais and Dauphiné, in the Middle Ages, the prosecutor responsible for managing the property of a bishop or an abbot.

[9] This word would itself be formed from the Latin conredium, designating all that relates to the material life of a monk,[10] but this term may have been used by other monastic orders before the foundation of the Charterhouses.

[11] This proposal is more plausible than a reference to corroyage, a stage in the preparation of hide for the manufacture of parchment,[12] or even a post office for couriers, leads mentioned by ancient authors.

[13] The land of Liget seems to have been bought from the Abbey of Villeloin by Henri II of England between 1176 and 1183 and then given to a small Benedictine monastic community on the condition that it join the Carthusian order.

[17][18] The foundation of the chartreuse, in which Henri II took an active part, but, above all, that of Corroirie on the road between Loches and Montrésor, whose donjons were built by Foulques Nerra,[19] reinforced the authority of the house of Anjou which now had three solid positions in the same territory.

According to a seventeenth-century inventory,[25] the domain managed by the Corroirie on behalf of the Carthusian monastery covered almost 1,480 hectares of arable land, meadows, vineyards, woods and ponds, grouped around it.

[30] In 1361, an armed force linked to the English party[nb 2] besieged La Corroirie, but the monks of the upper house who had initially taken refuge there, using an underground passage, were able to successfully escape the siege and flee to Loches.

Once the war was over and the monks had returned, work began on a major project to backfill the entire site, both inside and outside the buildings, up to a height of around 1.5 m, probably to protect the Corroirie from the risk of flooding.

[42] From March 4 to 7, 1589, the "preneurs de Barbetz"[43] attacked La Corroirie, with nearby farmers joining in the raids;[nb 3][45] this episode is reported in two chronicles of that time.

A fortified gatehouse equipped with a drawbridge commanded the entrance, a bretèche was added to the west gable of the cellars, towers and watchtowers were built around the perimeter wall, buttresses supported the most fragile buildings, and a moat was dug.

It was no doubt at this time that La Corroirie's pond was built along the course of the Aubigny River to provide a regular supply of water for the moat, thanks to its spillway.

Two watermills were built in 1671 and subsequently renovated on several occasions; the presence of La Corroirie's pond ensured regular operation of the two bottom-fed wheels, which were initially installed one directly behind the other.

[55] Since then, La Corroirie has remained the property of this family, either directly or by marriage, and is still inhabited in 2018, preserving the buildings from deterioration; part of its premises were converted into guest rooms in the 21st century.

[63] Inside, the keystone sculpture, common in the Western Gothic style, is underlined by a still discernible colored decoration, and the intrados of the vaults also features a black-and-white illusion painting, giving the impression of very regular masonry.

[66] Externally, the restoration work is clearly visible on the southern gutter wall: the original masonry is dressed in tufa stone, while the upper story is made of rubble of various types.

[69] Fifth Phase: when La Corroirie was transformed into a fortified house in the late 16th century, the only modifications made to the church were the addition of a few arrowslits in the apse to cover the shooting blind spots.

[59] A turret, 5 m diameter and 7 m high, covered by a stone dome, isolated in the northern part of the building enclosure, is considered to be a former prison due to its particular layout, even if later alterations render it more difficult to understand.

[18] It was redesigned and enlarged -its entrances were moved upstairs, first to the west, then to the east, on the same level as the hillside-,[74] raised several times and attached to the upper floor of the church.

[76] The driving wheels of these watermills were fed by a canal originating from the Corroirie pond, which runs along the foot of the hillside to the east of the site; in modern times, it was filled in.

It may have seemed simpler to the builders to take advantage of existing buildings to create this gateway, rather than constructing it from scratch on the south side of the enclosure, where the abbey gate had stood until then.

However, its defensive capacity was limited,[84] especially as the security of La Corroirie on its flank was guaranteed by the presence of the steep hillside, which had to be reinforced by a wall with buttresses.

An underground passage, dug into the hillside and perhaps connected to the east gable of the cellar, has a large room and several passageways, one of which leads to the open air on the northern side of the buildings.

[32] The short film Les Condiments irréguliers, loosely based on the life of the Marquise de Brinvilliers, was partly shot at La Corroirie in 2009.

[87] Several episodes of Mary Play-Parlange's crime novel Clair-obscur en chartreuse: une enquête à tiroirs (2013) are set at La Corroirie or evoke historical events that took place there.

In 1897, Louis-Auguste Bossebœuf recounts an excursion made by members of the Société archéologique de Touraine (SAT) to the Lochois region; he devotes a few pages of this publication to a brief evocation of the history and description of the Corroirie's main buildings.

[90] In 2000, Gérard Fleury carried out a detailed architectural study of the church and cellars at La Corrioirie, providing a more precise chronology for the construction of these buildings.