You need to know that Sanadoire…was once proudly crowned by a formidable fortress, of which not a trace remains. Reputed to be impregnable, it was used as a hideout by a garrison of Englishmen who were desolating the Auvergne…
– Mélanie Bourotte
Of all Auvergne’s mountains, few are more sublime than Roche Tuillière and Roche Sanadoire. As one stands before these volcanic colossi, watching the sunlight slip in and out of the clouds while cries of raptors periodically pierce the air, sobering thoughts intrude on the mind. Over the wind, in transcendental verses never uttered by mortal tongues, Nature herself seems to proclaim that peace can only be found in her solitudes. Tuillière and Sanadoire serve as her evangelists. Together, they communicate a resounding, aspirational poetry, making their beholder feel like the cane-holding mountaineer in Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer above a Sea of Fog.
The Routiers and the Hundred Years’ War
Modern visitors to the landmark might be surprised to learn, however, that one of these mountains — Sanadoire — formerly had quite a different reputation. In fact, an old tradition holds that over half a millennium ago, Sanadoire was occupied by hundreds of mercenary soldiers allied with the English crown. Known as routiers, these battle-hardened men reportedly maintained a near-inaccessible stronghold in Sanadoire’s cliffs. Their reign took place during the Hundred Years’ War, towards the end of the fourteenth century, when sporadic hostilities between the French and English kings and their armies were commonplace on French soil.
Led by none other than the English soldier Robert Knolles (sometimes called Robinus Canola or Robert Chennel), one of England’s most feared warlords, Sanadoire’s routiers were the boogeymen of the surrounding hills and countryside. Like Wild West outlaws, they plundered and subjugated neighbouring towns, then retreated with their spoils to their eyrie-like fortress atop Sanadoire. The area’s remoteness provided the means for their cycle of violence to continue unabatingly. According to the chronicler Jean Cabaret d’Orville, the end of the their campaign of fear came about only through the intervention of Louis II, the Duke of Bourbon.
The legendary siege of Sanadoire
In Cabaret’s La Chronique du duc Louis II de Bourbon, the King of France orders Louis, his nephew, to destroy a series of English castles on French territory, including the Sanadoire fortress. The Duke and his army subsequently arrive in Diocese of Clermont and summon local lords to their cause. Afterwards, the coalition of noblesse ascend the Sancy mountains and mount a valiant assault on Sanadoire. Eventually, Louis’s men manage to gain the upper hand. They scale the cliff and breach the enemy palisade, slaying many of the mercenaries. The knights also capture several English captains, including Robert Knolles and a certain Richard Coedo, who Cabaret describes as “the son of the mayor of London”. In the aftermath, six of these captains are sent to a the Monnaie Tower prison in Clermont, which makes the townspeople “very happy and proud”. Cabaret’s chronicle says nothing more about their ultimate fate.
Cabaret’s account, which was written in the 1420s (some fifty odd years after the reputed siege of Sanadoire), is the only extant narrative that provides details on the Sanadoire siege. An earlier anecdote, which appears in Christine de Pizan’s Le Livre des faits et bonnes mœurs du sage roi Charles V (written in 1404) does not name any of the French or English combatants and simply describes the siege as a “like a miracle”. More curious, however, is the fact that the siege is not mentioned in Jean Froissart’s Chroniques, which is widely seen one of the most extensive sources on the Hundred Years’ War and medieval culture in general. If the siege had happened as Cabaret said it had, why would Froissart — a well-travelled courtier and contemporary of Sanadoire’s purported hero, Louis II — not write about it? There’s also the question of physical evidence. If there once was a fortress on Sanadoire’s summit, where are its remains?
A closer look at the Sanadoire narrative
First, it’s worth pointing out that Christine and Cabaret — the main sources for the story of the siege — were on the payroll of Bourbon monarchs. Like other aristocrats at the time, members of the House of Bourbon appointed certain writers to build narratives attesting to their forebears’ glorious and courageous deeds. Such hagiographic-like works had a practical function for a ruler. They bolstered his public image at home and abroad, adding legitimacy to his reign.
Does this mean that Christine and Cabaret deliberately assumed the role of myth-makers, generating the Sanadoire tale out of thin air to satisfy the vanity of their patrons? Not necessarily. It’s an established fact that a number of castles in Auvergne were attacked or captured by English soldiers during the Hundred Years’ War. It’s quite likely that the writers were in contact with persons who relayed to them their own garbled memories of these traumatic events.
In La Chronique du duc Louis II de Bourbon, however, Cabaret did actively employ strategic embellishment to convey Louis II’s chivalrous nature. In true Homeric fashion, Louis fights not against a nameless, unimportant, mercenary but against Robert Knolles, one of the most feared and renowned warriors in France. Cabaret’s message to readers is clear: the Duke was a one-of-a-kind hero who achieved great things at impossible odds. This is doubtless the kind of image that Cabaret’s patron, Charles I, Duke of Bourbon (Louis’s grandson) wanted to convey.
One question remains: if we assume that the events of Sanadoire transpired more or less like Christine and Cabaret said they did, where are the ruins of the fortress? Surely something of the mighty château fort should be visible today? If a fortified hideout ever graced Sanadoire’s sublime peaks, its disappearance could be attributed to earthquakes.
Major tremors struck the region in 1477 and 1490, damaging various buildings, such as the nearby Basilica of Orcival. After these natural disasters, whatever remained of the ruins might have been scavenged by locals and used to augment or build other structures. Spoliation was a common practice in pre-modern Auvergne; why would the fortress of Sanadoire not also suffer the same fate? Of course, archaeologists have the the final say on the matter. Pending any major excavations, Sanadoire’s warlords, stuck in a limbo of myth and reality, will persist as the mountain’s legendary mascots.
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