Chateau Chalus and the final days of Richard the Lion Heart

We take you visiting the chateau where King Richard 1rst of England perished and how he was a little buried there..
Discover the strange story of his embalmed hart.
Learn about an other great warrior who, much later, came to this chateau on his twentieth birthday.

hello everybody today we are in the liouan in other words in the department of laen 35 km Southwest of Lio and uh the target for today is uh the discovery of Castle the chatau shalu shab uh sooner you should uh be able to see it dominating the surroundings look at it right now and exploring the chatau will give us the opportunity to meet again to worldwide known characters both and coming from uh across the channel and both came to shalu the town of shalu which is close to the Chateau long time ago the first was English although not so much and the other one was British [Music] so we are now in the chatau shalu shab at last The Chateau is reopen to the public uh you see that the place where the Chateau is built is quite interesting it is uh dominating the the surroundings and uh from right from here we can uh discover what is remaining of this chatau first to the right you will discover the ruins of an a chapel a Romanesque Chapel it is quite important then after you see in the middle the round Tower which is about 25 M high and uh behind there are two battlements the most interesting is a Battlement which is to the left this uh very solid old building the walls are about 7 ft uh wide and this building at one angle is kind of reinforced by a solid round Tower with a lot of uh Arrow SS let’s get inside the oldest remains of the chatau date back to the 11th century uh actually the reason why it was built by the viscounts of Lio uh the reason why is to to build a stronghold in order to control the road between Peru and Lio of course since the 11th century there were many uh destructions Restorations there were four SES and the Shau of course has been transformed which makes that uh the Battlement we are going to tour is very difficult to architecturally uh read there is only one room at this level of the Battlement uh according to the proportions it’s absolutely magnificent Place uh we can uh imagine that it is what was called the AA in other words the reception room where the Lord of shalu shab was welcoming the the VIPs but underneath there is another level where we’re going to find other rooms probably uh reserves or a kitchen we are going to see that and now here is this uh level well actually we are on a wooden floor maybe there was another Underground Level if you follow me here you can see another beautiful room you see this uh important uh fireplace we can imagine that it is the kitchen you can see an exit which uh of course make us think that uh originally the plan of the chatau was much more complex than what it is now okay let’s go to the to the tower the arlit tower and here as I told you we are now in this uh round tower that is stuck to the Battlement very sick walls you can see some Arrow slits this one is better condition it is what we call a cross shaped Arrow slit the angle was uh wider here and you could also shoot towards the the ground and now let’s go just beside to a small room I think that you’re gonna guess what was the the purpose of such a a small room for me it’s a it’s a Lattin here you can see kind of a well where all that was evacuated of course there was a kind of big flat stone with a hole in the in the middle all that was broken let’s go to the to the upper l and uh here we are on the this platform which was not the top of this Tower since uh one can see the beginning of other staircase nevertheless the view is uh Splendid and please uh note the presence of another ruin cast we will uh explore it soon and again we find another room with exactly the same uh system the same lines the difference is that uh this kind of uh well is much deeper about easily 15 m so sorry to to insist on uh this uh matter but from outside you can see the the building of the latrines which was uh built and stuck to the Battlement and the tower if you come closer you can see those two openings it is the the bottom of the the lrin and those two square openings above for me are just the the vents in order to to give some air to to irate the latrines in front of us is the The Well of the Fortress absolutely necessary in case of Siege and behind is This Magnificent keep a Romanesque round Tower with all the characteristics of this uh time and the main characteristic of this kind of uh Romanesque keep is uh right in front of us the unique entrance very narrow and always opening high above of the ground level in order to make it more difficult to get in for an enemy okay follow me if you want to leave of course there was a a lower room this lower room is very deep and it’s incredible you you can feel the the Airstream coming from that room and actually in the bottom there is a a tel allowing to reach the well that we that we saw of course in case of siege that was quite important to have some water supply another characteristic of those Romanesque Towers is the the absence uh or at least the the openings are very scarce and always very narrow and another characteristic is the fact that there was a staircase a staircase that was uh installed in the the sickness of the wall themselves it is a very narrow staircase allowing to reach the last platform let’s go well I just told you that the openings were very narrow here they are quite wide it is because we are now higher Out Of Reach of uh of flooders for example and this particular uh opening was uh an access to a holding in other words to a wooden platform overhanging and from this wooden platform it was much easier to control and to but the entrance to the keep another staircase it’s quite uh high now as I told you 25 M this is the the platform where the view is absolutely uh Splendid and uh this Tower is the the one that our uh first character who is the the king of England Richard the first Richard The Lion Heart discovered from a distance when uh he arrived in in shalu what was he doing here actually we have to remember that uh there was a long very long struggle between Richard and his ex best friend who became his uh deadly foe the king of France Philip August Philip August actually is trying to take back the Continental possessions of the king of England the main positions were the Duke of Normandy and the Duke of aquan where we are now and uh Richard during his Reign spent spent most of his time to to subdue the the Rebellion the rebels his vassels who rebelled against him these Rebels were uh helped were shouldered were probably financed by the king of France Philip August and well this is exactly what is happening in March 1199 the Viscount of Lio uh betrayed Richard for the king of France and as soon as he rebelled uh Richard sent an Army in this area this Army was commanded by a terrible guy a Routier as we say in French in other words a a mercenary very cruel whose name was mercadi and when King Richard arrives near the Chateau merad is already besieging shalu he besieged at the same time plenty of other castles belonging to the viscon of Lio uh trying to destroy them as a punishment to the to the Viscount actually we came back to the to this beautiful room the the AA because it’s really agreeable to speak here and uh yes to continue the the story of course this story what we know about these events was transmitted by several chroniclers like Gom Le Bron for the French or Roger thean for for the English and well sometimes they are partial sometimes they are impartial uh well let’s say say that it is a kind of sythesis of what probably happened so when uh Richard arrives in Shalo only the keep is still resisting to the soldiers of mercadi inside the skip are about 40 persons a small garison and women and children and they are all under the the command of two local Knights one is Pierre BR and the other one is Pierre basil well I cannot resist telling you a little anecdotes about this Pierre Bazil according to the legend he’s standing on the very top of the tower at this moment the tower was 10 m higher and from the top of the tower is kind of mocking or defying the English archers using a a frying pan in order to deflect the arrows and the King Richard who is U looking at such a funny scene is not at all upset he’s applauding the the young Warrior one could see across the king’s uploads a kind of uh friendship transnational case friendship between Warriors The Old King the old Invincible Warrior is kind of uh showing some amused respect to another young audacious Warrior but according to the chroniclers it is the same Pier Bazil who a few hours later will shoot the deadly crossbow bolt which will first wound King Richard then King Richard is transported uh in front of the the fireplace of the kitchen of shalu and there mercadi sent his surgeon in order to cure the king but uh despite or because of uh these this surgeon efforts the Harrow head cannot be taken out of the wood and the wood is going to to be infected and then comes Gang Green and after a few days Richard felt that he was about to die what he did was to um first send Messengers to his mother to font and his mother Queen aleno We will uh come fast enough to be there when the king will die he also pardoned the shooter who by the meantime had surrendered and he organized his own funerals something he asked uh Once Dead of course is that his uh cops to be separated U for example he said he ordered his heart to be taken out of the corpse and bombed and sent to Wu the capital of normandi he ordered his body to be transported in font where it would lie beside his father King Henry II and font was becoming the necropolis of the plantag family and the last but not least he ordered that his uh guts not emptied he precised would be offered to those damn French actually the the entrails of the king were buried in the presence of Queen alienor in the chapel of chatau shalu shabor all that happened on the 6th of April 1199 about Richard’s heart there is something interesting to say the heart as I told you was embed and transported to war and buried in the cor of the Cathedral of War where after a while it was well forbidden anyway in 1838 one uh lead box was found there was uh something written on the lead box here is the heart of Richard King of England this box was only containing some uh some dust all that was carefully kept and it is only in 2011 that a French forensic pathologist specialist Dr Philip charer decided to analyze the contents of the the box and the result is quite uh surprising because besides some uh remains of textile linen he found plenty of other materials like uh Myrtle like Pine like Oak like Daisy like like Bell flow like creot like plantain like Quicksilver and incense makes a lot for for a small embalming after all and of course some of these materials like lime were used in order to preserve to preserve the the heart others like the flowers were used for their very powerful fragrance and and uh the aim was to give a good smell to the heart and symbolically to to to Richard um in order to to give him uh the order of sanctity by order of sanctity I speak of the belief that uh after death the Saints the holy bodies instead of uh having a the batsman that one can imagine would exhale a delicious fragrance so why did they want Richard to smell good that’s a good question actually we have to forget the cliche of King Richard that were kind of transmitted to our our culture by the movies of Hollywood Robin Hood and and so on Richard was not very loved by his people and he was uh certainly The Greatest Warrior of Middle Ages but he was extremely brutal and cruel well you can’t tell me that all the the Warriors of this time were brutal and warriors that they were all uh war criminals we would say today uh certainly but what can be forgiven to a man like merad cannot be forgiven to a very Christian King a great king like Richard who in addition went to the Holy Land in order to to free the grave of Christ even if he did not succeed in freeing it in addition something that the church could not tolerate was the pride the huge pride of this uh of this character and surely today we would say that Richard’s ego was was huge and all that all this Pride was kind of uh favored by the fact that Richard was almost never beaten on the battlefield so he probably had the feeling of being invincible and invulnerable and that was not acceptable uh by the church and for this reason the church decided that Richard could not go to paradise before uh you say that a short period in pergatory in order to ease this time in purgatory and to e uh his access to Paradise uh Richard had to be helped and to be kind of to to be made uh comparable to to Christ to a holy person that’s the reason why they use those perfumes even more I spoke of incense incense in the 12th century is a very rare extremely expensive ingredient and kind of sacred only used in ceremonies uh involving the presence of Christ so using incense for each other signified that his case was quite serious and even more it is the the AR Archbishop of Rochester who will be in charge of the case of Richard he’s the one who will decide how many years Richard will spent in in the Purgatory and you know how many years 33 years and of course 33 years it’s the age of Christ when he died and before leaving let’s make a a quick stop in what is remaining of what was a a beautiful little Romanesque uh Chapel the chapel of chatau shalu and according to the to the chronicle it is in this Chapel in the presence as I already told you in the presence of aleno faken that uh the entrails of Richard were uh were offered at least they were buried probably here in the in the ABS in the core of the the chapel there’s probably still a underneath unless there is a a crypt who knows and our second character is a young uh British students who Ares in shalu downtown where we are now and take a room in l hoteli which was standing right by the other side of the of the street but now I would like to to show you the second castle of shalu so this young uh British student is in France for the third time he has uh undertaken a long trip by a bicycle in order to better his knowledge about French chat for because is preparing a thesis which title is the influence of Crusades on European military architecture in the 12th century uh well this uh trip will last 2 months he will uh cycle more than 3,500 kilm which uh already shows you the uncommon energy of this character who is the so-called te lawence in other words Lawrence of Arabia once Lawrence took his room in a grand hotel deidi he looked for a guide he found him and this guy took him to the place where we are now in order to show him the chatau of shalu the problem is that it’s not the right chatau this one is chatau Shalo m more and today we know that it was built about 100 years after Richard The Lion Heart time so it’s not the right the right Castle in addition to a doubtful lawence the guide showed a kind of rock kind of stone lying in the middle of the valley where supposedly King Richard was standing when he was wounded it was not difficult at all for Lawrence to see that this rock was absolutely out of wrench of the best crossbow of this time so you can imagine the surprise of uh Lawrence one can imagine the surprise and the the deception too of uh Lawrence because uh he did not uh choose the 16th of August 1908 to visit it the chatau of shalu because this day is the day when he is 20 it is his birth day and uh well I think it’s not randomly that it chosed this this day uh we can even imagine that uh our Lawrence made a kind of pilgrimage here in order to find the place where the King Richard died because we know that he was a kind of admiring this this King what is also interesting is to see to understand that both men knew their best Glory as soldiers when they were in the Holy Land Richard the lionart who was the victor of Saladin and uh Lawrence of Arabia who was the the leader of the the Arabic tribes who were the victors of the Turks Viva prosper [Music]