Tour de la Croix des Pechs
FortressHidden Treasure
A mysterious medieval tower on the outskirts of Sarlat, the Tour de la Croix des Pechs is intriguing because of its uncanny resemblance to the famous lantern of the dead and its hypothetical use as a funerary hermitage.
History
Standing like a stone enigma in the Périgord landscape, the Tour de la Croix des Pechs is one of those discreet monuments that conceal more questions than answers. Erected on the outskirts of Sarlat-la-Canéda, this fortified tower, listed as a Historic Monument since 1961, fascinates visitors with its singular architecture and the persistent debate over its original function. Away from the crowds that flock to the neighbouring medieval city, it offers the attentive visitor an intimate encounter with a raw heritage that receives little media coverage, making it all the more precious. What makes this building truly unique is the fundamental ambiguity that surrounds it. Its silhouette is irresistibly reminiscent of the Lantern of the Dead in Sarlat - one of the most beautiful in France - to the extent that specialists have long hesitated as to its exact nature: defensive tower, hermitage or luminous signal for the dead? The documented presence of a cemetery in the immediate vicinity lends credence to the latter hypothesis, giving the site an atmosphere that is both solemn and poetic, somewhere between a remembrance of the dead and a spiritual vigil. Visiting the site is like plunging into the most authentic of Périgord Noir landscapes. Around the tower, the landscape of golden limestone, downy oak and gently undulating meadows forms a backdrop that has remained unchanged for centuries. Take your time to observe the details: the fine 17th-century columns on the crown, some of them broken, bear witness to a bygone era of elegance, while the medieval masonry reveals the patience and skill of the builders of Sarlat. For history buffs and lovers of rural heritage, the Tour de la Croix des Pechs is an invaluable stop-off point on any tour of medieval Sarlat and its monumental satellites. It's a monument to be tamed slowly, in silence, to grasp its full depth.
Architecture
The Tour de la Croix des Pechs is a massive, tightly-packed structure typical of rural defensive and liturgical buildings in medieval Périgord. Built from local limestone rubble and carefully dressed, it has a marked vertical rise that gives it its distinctive silhouette, halfway between a lantern tower and a hermitage tower. Its roof, the most distinctive feature of the building, is made up of a succession of ashlars separated by projecting ridges forming horizontal rings - a rare technique that accentuates the impression of stacking and reinforces the comparison with the lanterns of the Périgord dead. Inside, the space is organised into several levels, once separated by wooden floors, whose notches in the masonry have survived. The walls have square openings, sometimes interpreted as storage niches (cupboards), sometimes as pigeon houses - a hypothesis that the relatively large size of the openings tends to rule out. The current openings - doors and windows - date from the 17th century and betray a sober classical aesthetic, with finely worked ashlar frames. The tower is crowned by a partially broken colonnade, a 17th-century addition that was originally intended to form a loggia or open gallery at the top of the building. This classically inspired architectural detail contrasts with the rough Romanesque body of the tower, and illustrates the successive layers of a monument reinterpreted for each era. The upper part of the tower is now open, although it appears to have originally ended in a cone or sugar loaf shape, consistent with its function as a lantern for the dead.
Related Figures
Moines bénédictins de l'abbaye de Sarlat — probables commanditaires ou utilisateurs de l'édifice au XIIe siècleErmite anonyme — figure tutélaire selon la tradition locale, aurait habité la tour à une époque indéterminée du Moyen ÂgeProsper Mérimée — inspecteur général des Monuments Historiques, dont les travaux de recensement du patrimoine périgourdin ont posé les bases de la protection ultérieure de la tourAbbé de Sarlat (XIIe siècle) — figure de l'essor religieux régional dans lequel s'inscrit vraisemblablement la construction
