Tour Philippe-le-Bel (English: Tower of Philip the Fair) is a medieval tower in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon which marked the French terminus of the Saint-Bénézet Bridge across the Rhone between the Kingdom of France and Papal territory of Avignon. It is named after the French king Philippe-le-Bel (Philip IV "the Fair") who was responsible for its construction. A tower with only two storeys was completed in 1302. In spite of protests from the Count of Provence and the population of Avignon, Philippe-le-Bel pressed ahead and built a gatehouse at the end of the bridge. The tower and gatehouse formed part of a fortress with a curtain wall that enclosed several buildings including a chapel and a residence for the châtelain. A third storey was added to the tower in the middle of the 14th century. The Saint-Bénézet Bridge was abandoned in 1669 and the fortress then ceased to serve any useful function. The French crown continued to pay for repairs, but after the French Revolution the buildings were abandoned and allowed to fall into ruins. In 1822 the town of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon decided to demolish all of the fortress except the present tower. It was listed as a Monument historique in 1862 and is now open to the public.
History
Background The treaty of Meaux-Paris, signed in 1229 at the end of the Albigensian Crusade, handed the French crown land on the right bank of the Rhône from Pont-Saint-Esprit to the Mediterranean and a joint interest in the city of Avignon. In 1290 the French king, Philip IV (Philip the Fair), ceded his claim to Avignon to his father's cousin, Charles II of Naples who was the Count of Provence through his marriage to Beatrice of Provence. As a consequence Philip gave up his share of the strategic Saint-Bénézet Bridge across the Rhone which had been built between 1177 and 1185 by the city of Avignon. The Languedoc end of the bridge was within a kilometer of the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-André on Mount Andaon. The abbey had been founded at the end of the 10th century and possessed extensive property with over 200 churches spread over a wide area of southern France. In 1290 Philip IV instructed Adam de Montcéliard, the sénéchal of Beaucaire, to negotiate an agreement with the abbey to cooperate in the defense of the right bank of the Rhone. The paréage treaty was signed in 1292. It meant that the abbey surrendered temporal power but obtained protection from the unwanted pressure from the city of Avignon which wished to control both banks of the Rhône.
Construction
The 1292 treaty specified that the king could construct a fortress at the western end of the bridge. By 1302, a two-storey fortified tower had been completed. This initial construction work almost certainly included the building of a curtain-wall, a well, a bread oven, a kitchen and some form of lodging for the châtelain and the guards. Charles II, Count of Provence objected to the position of the new fortress and wrote letters protesting that the foundations of the tower were right next to the bridge which was built on his property. In spite of his objections, in 1307 work began on the construction of a gatehouse over the roadway at the end of the bridge. This provoked strong opposition by the inhabitants of Avignon who occupied the tower. Eventually, 9 months later in August 1308 a peaceful settlement was reached allowing the gatehouse to be completed. In March of the following year (1309), Pope Clement V moved from Rome to Avignon. The fortress was overlooked by the nearby Massif des Anges and the Colline des Mourgues making it difficult to defend. Around 1350, during the reign of either Philip VI or his successor John II, an additional storey was added to the tower with a rectangular turret on the top. The tower was crowned with machicolations. A narrow cylindrical watchtower was added at a later date, perhaps in the 16th century. During the period of the Avignon Papacy the fortress saw much activity with high ranking church officials, princes and notables crossing the bridge. Between 1320 and 1350 several cardinals built palaces in Villeneuve, across the bridge from the papal palace in Avignon. On a number of occasions sections of the bridge were destroyed when the Rhône flooded. The bridge then became impassable and the river had to be crossed by ferry. The harbour on the right bank was at the base of the tower. Eighteenth century drawings show that access to both the fortress and the harbour was controlled by gates on the path leading up from the river bank along what is now the Montée de la Tour. When the Avignon bridge was finally abandoned in 1669, the fortress no longer served any useful function. It was nevertheless still maintained but in 1777 a government engineer wrote a short report proposing that the fortress be abandoned. Probably, as a result, in 1787, Quintin de Beuverd, captain of the Corps Royal du Génie, produced a detailed report on the state of the buildings. It included a plan and concluded that the buildings were not required by the king. These events were overtaken by the French Revolution in 1789 but the surviving documents allow historians to study the layout of the fortress.
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