Conclusion

1What makes a symposium a success? Meetings, the possibilitiy to learn about new, unpublished works, thematic reviews, the design and enumeration of research projects.

2Meetings... for me, who is a former « Director of Prehistoric and Historical Antiquities of the Lorraine, » as my job used to be called, this reunion is a « reconstruction of a dissolved league », judging by all the people I meet again, sometimes after more than three decades; everyone has since deepened his work and enriched his experience; but also judging by the liveliness of the discussions during the breaks, I guess I am not the only one who enjoys the exchange of views. This is very useful for research – research is not done in good conditions without human ties – and we sometimes forget about it in our technocratic times.

3New works… All the contributors have brought some new elements, sometimes by revisiting older works from a thematic angle; and the diversity of situations, from Luxembourg to Rhodes, from Spain to Italy, feeds comparisons, suggests interpretations. Every participant will, from his point of view, privilege the contributions that are of interest to him and will use them in the context he prefers. For my part, I am fascinated by the way changes appear to be correlative, between the technical evolution of artillery and the response in terms of architecture and poliorcetics. This is also true of social transformation (diversification of the technical bodies related to project management, specialization of the military corps and appearance of new professions as seen in the Champagne or in Italy), transformations in the way of conducting battle both for attack and for defense (noting for example the superiority of direct shooting), economic transformations (the creation of central arsenals for the rationalization of investment expenditure, such as the supply of ammunition and, more generally, « stewardship »), political transformations with the modification of the role of citadel towns and « border » fortresses, the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the powers of the state, the establishment of stable local representatives being the greatest move in this period until the end of the seventeenth century. It is obvious that no power can do without the control of such high-performance military equipment and the control of artillery arsenals, an essential element in the management of political risks. This implies a rationalization and a centralization, more necessary than ever, as the study of the Burgundian Netherlands has revealed.

4Technical questions are essential from the point of view of both the archaeologist and the historian of architecture. As long as the texts and vestiges can be interrelated, which is easier for this period than for the previous ones - the establishment of an effective administration, and therefore the multiplication of the written acts, should at least do us a service, isn’t it ? - it is possible to add multiple case studies enabling us to construct coherent images, by elevating our viewpoint. From this perspective, it is worth noting the complementarity between the observation of short-lived sites, such as Château-Pignon built by the Spanish monarchy to control the crossing of the Pyrenees and which served less than fifteen years (this gives us however a precious snapshot), and that of more numerous sites, long occupied and transformed on multiple occasions.

5A thematic review: sure, the subject is not new and publications are numerous as well as the symposiums that dealt with the subject. We just need to mention the papers of Nicolas Faucherre and philippe Bragard, the major referees of this symposium.

6We can discuss the triple administrative, tactical and technical ruptures stated as hypothesis in the introduction of this symposium. Is it really a rupture ? I will take just one example, how the so-called « military » architecture sometimes explicitly integrates symbolic technical devices whose practical functionality is very small if not inexistent. This demonstrative ostentatious function of the power of the owner or the inhabitants, did exist from the birth of the fortification and, without going too far in history, certainly from the first medieval castles. The manifestation of this intention is often found in the archaic architectural forms. Here, by contrast, it is sometimes through innovation that this desire is expressed. Thus, the reinterpretation of the castle of Bonaguil (a less romantic view than the common wisdom) shows us a Bérenger de Roquefeuil, a man passionate about weapons and fortifications, who devotes part of his fortune in a kind of intellectual hobby in a milieu of specialists, the « narrow world of the masters of royal artillery, » trying out the most recent architectural solutions for the extension of his residence. Intellectual curiosity, wish for experimentation ? Probably. Ostentation ? Certainly, since it is the place he chooses to be buried in.

7In fact, it is a continuous evolution that is witnessed for nearly two centuries, with research, trial and error that resulted from various circumstances. The first factor to be considered is the financial power of the owners : rich, they can carry out massive and recognizable transformations because they resort to a few competent contractors ; less wealthy, they are forced to do a gradual adaptation, staged over several years or even decades, contracting with a number of masons or engineers, and reducing the number of their fortified places. In the case of the Neufchatel family, only a third of their castles have seen their defenses adapted to powder artillery. This obviously relates to the administrative function of fortification and the administrative powers that hold it, that are seeking in this continuity, or even in a simple appearance of continuity, a source of their legitimacy. The second factor seems to be that of the complexity of new war techniques. The powder is evidently scary, as can be seen in the mines where its instability, dreaded, slowed down its adoption despite undeniable efficiency and the time saving it allowed. At the time people do not always know the shooting characteristics to be respected, they often fumble, they even make mistakes that require expensive corrections, as examplified by the tower of Navarre in Langres which was built not high enough and had to be transformed. Moreover, the progress in foundry quality and the cannons increasing precision required permanent adaptations, as evidenced by the guns built for the Hospitallers of Saint John in Rhodes and in the Dodecanese in the decades that surround 1500. Shall we conclude that the impression of rupture is mainly due to the effects of our involuntary teleology ? The question is not trivial, for if we can admit the depth of change, its speed is obviously a major argument in the determination of causal factors.

8Over the course of this symposium, several research topics have been privileged. I will just remind you some of them.

9The debate on terminology, where, for example, according to places and times, the term « barbican » is understood to mean a simple wall in front of the defenses, a fence elsewhere called a “mantelet”, or a true defensive massif, is not insignificant or marginal. Of course, it is essential to respect the truth of the texts, and therefore the words used in them, and not to betray particularisms that have their own reasons. However, as the example of the documents on the couleuvrines in Metz shows, can research be carried out, at the risk of confusion, without a common glossary that clarifyes the coherence of terms taking into account the chronology, the linguistic and cultural geography ? Certainly not. This is a task which, according to me, has to be undertaken, and could be the subject of another symposium to come... This question must be linked to that of the chrono-typology, which appears to be insufficiently established, as was underlined for the Alsace region.

10 A promising avenue is the more or less complex or antagonistic relationship that develops between the castral village and the fortification as soon as the need for defense re-appears. Only when the threat starts to materialize - in Dijon, for example, with the arrival of the imperial and Swiss troops – are necessary improvements undertaken, that are obviously costly for the inhabitants and are the subject of harsh discussions with the royal authority. The work being done, it gives in return a greater power to the municipalities. In contrast with the previous period when the castle assumed the defense of the inhabitants, the urban enclosure and its administration play an essential role in the territorial defense. The most prestigious case is Metz with its Seven and Wall Governors, but we can also mention Châtel. The hierarchy of the cities is then affected according to their military and also their financial and architectural capabilities, as is seen in Germany or in Alsace during the 15th and 16th centuries.

11Another interesting question is that of the dissemination of models, that is the genealogy of the technical developments of defense taking into consideration the evolution of techniques of attack and the creative capacity of engineers to resist to it. The new prevalence of technical knowledge and therefore of technicians – and that does not prevent artists, who are at the same time engineers, such as Francesco di Giorgio Martini or Pisanello in the service of the Duke of Calabria or Leonardo da Vinci, from intervening in fortification or design of new pieces of artillery. The multiplicity of actors and the abundance of texts - this symposium has clearly demonstrated that they are far from having revealed all their secrets -, will certainly allow an analysis, not only monographic, site by site or contractor by contractor, but also synthetic. This way we will be able to determine the modalities of innovations, the way they are transmitted, and the relative importance of the players. It would be interesting to have a critical and documented list of them.

12The evolution of the boulevard towards the bastion is well known, as evidenced in the reconstruction of Rodemack after 1492 and also at Arras around 1500 in the polygonal layout of the boulevard Saint-Nicolas. Understanding the possibilities of attack but also of defense, offered by the flat trajectory shooting allowed by the guns performance, which was constantly improved as we can see with the Hospitallers, leads to new architectural forms but also to a transformation of strategies and the use of more and more specialized soldiers. Thus is explained, at the end of the 15th century, the multiplication of fire openings for hacquebutes in the fortifications of the north-east of France.

13Every historian – and I am part of an old school that considers, following Michel de Boüard, that medieval archeology is part of historical science – even though he knows that history cannot replace astrology to predict the future, cannot resist the idea that justifies his existence, i.e. to reflect on the present through experience in past time and space. Today, while science and technology have fundamentally changed the way events develop – think about the role of Internet in the developement of the « Arab Spring » or in the surge of terrorism – the role of technical changes in societies is at the heart of our concerns. Here, of course, we shall note the close correlation between the introduction of powder artillery, poliorcetics and the new architecture of fortification. Furthermore, we can ask if this transformation could not be also at play in other evolutions of the social organization of the Western world, such as the disapperance of the military function of fortifications, the emancipation of the bourgeoisie, or the specialization of the contractors. The obsolescence of fortified castles and fortified urban enclosures forced the authorities to carry out expensive modernisations, which they found difficult to achieve, pushing the burden on the municipalities, even more so than in the twelfth or thirteenth century. In Metz, where archives are quite instructive, the accounts of the Wall Governors reveal that up to one third of the municipal budget is spent annually for defense at the beginning of the 16th century. As a result the power of the communal administration is strengthened.

14Regarding the castles themselves, many of them will not be worth modernizing, and will be abandoned or simply provided with detail adaptations that will prove unable to face a modern siege. Often, as in Présilly, these are modest additions in order to retain a defensive function. Other castles will be massively transformed, by virtue of their political and strategic situation, to become strong places at the frontier. Investments are then concentrated, and sometimes it is preferable to construct ex nihilo, as in Salses, a fortress somehow blocking the way of invasion armies, themselves heavily laden with pieces of artillery. The cost of an army equipped in a modern way, is growing in parallel and the war becomes more and more the business of great princes, in a confrontation between ambitions that will bring for a long time insecurity at the heart of Europe. The war becomes truly professional, and the centralization of intendance managing considerable sums of money goes hand in hand with the modification of imperial, royal and princely administrations. The nobility, which in turn loses most of its power, begins its « domestication » which will be its fate at the end of the 17th century.

15To return for a moment to Châtel, to be very frank, I am anxious to find a way to revive the research there, hopefully around René Elter who organized this symposium. The presence of many historians and archaeologists demonstrates how exemplary this research could be. There are several reasons for this: the site on the Moselle river is strategic; the architecture with its radical extension in the 1440s is, or rather was, spectacular; the fortress is understood in the context of the tormented history of Lorraine, Burgundy and France, and the means of a non-princely family, although of high lineage; the care taken to maintain and improve the fortifications until the 1470s, both for the town - whose defensive capacity is emphasized at the beginning of the 15th century by Jean sans Peur - and for the castle. This happens to the detriment of their other fortified places for financial reasons. All these elements make an exceptional showcase. In adition we have rare findings, a fire stick and a fire pot. Even the methodical destruction by the Marechal de Crequi in 1670 is exceptional - more than a month of work and 26,402 pounds of powder were necessary – and this shows both the symbolic and pragmatic character of this destruction. It is regrettable that research has been virtually interrupted, and, above all, that no monograph has been published documenting the earlier works before traces disappear in the consolidation and restoration work.

16I would like to reiterate here a long-held wish, shared by most of my colleagues present: that the drafting of a monograph be undertaken, which will be based on the recent thesis of Vianney Muller at the University of Lorraine on the Fortified Heritage of the Neufchâtel- Burgundy family (13th-16th centuries), and that, in a form to be defined, a « Collective Research Project » be also undertaken. This could be a project aimed at supplementing the knowledge in terms of relative chronology of the works and understanding of its functions. It is only at this price that the project related to the development of the site as a cultural heritage in the heart of the “Pays d’Art et d’Histoire” will succeed. This project is of course supported by the public authorities, particularly the Community of Agglomeration d’Epinal, the Departmental Council of Vosges, and obviously the Ministry of Culture and Communication.

17I would like to end this short conclusion by than-king all those who participated in our symposium, the speakers who were all concise and above all enthusiastic, all the people who welcomed us and fed us, the Association du Vieux Châtel, the Culture and the Territorial collectivities that subsidized the symposium, René Elter who was the main coordinator, our colleague Nicolas Faucherre to whom we wish a rapid and complete recovery. Finally, I would like to pay a tribute to Chantal1 and Jacques Debry who, forty years ago, have saved the site of Chatel and whose son Gilles is today the efficient President of Association du Vieux Châtel... And I make the wish, as do all the people present, that the Community of Agglomeration d’Epinal, now a happy owner of the fortress of Châtel-sur-Moselle, quickly commits the research, conservation and development programme that this emblematic site deserves. This will be to the benefit of all the history lovers and also to the benefit of all the region inhabitants. Current events demonstrate, whatever may have been said, that time has not come for the « end of history ». History is an inspiration for citizen and history needs traces and signs. The Fortress of Châtel, that reveals an essential part of our regional, national, European history, is such a sign and trace.