Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye

The Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye (French pronunciation: [ʃɑto d(ə) sɛ̃ ʒɛʁmɛ̃ ɑ̃ lɛ]) is a former royal palace in the commune of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, in the department of Yvelines, about 19 km west of Paris, France. Today, it houses the Musée d'Archéologie nationale (National Museum of Archaeology).

The first castle, named the Grand Châtelet, was built on the site by Louis VI in 1124. The castle was expanded by Louis IX in the 1230s.

The Saint Louis chapel at the castle belongs to the Rayonnant phase of French Gothic architecture. A 1238 charter of Louis IX instituting a regular religious service at the chapel is the first mention of a chapel having been built at the royal castle. This was a Sainte Chapelle, to house a relic of the Crown of Thorns or the True Cross. Its plan and architecture prefigure the major Sainte-Chapelle which Louis built within the Palais de la Cité at Paris between 1240 and 1248. Both buildings were built by Louis's favourite architect Pierre de Montreuil, who adapted the architectural formulae invented at Saint Germain for use in Paris.

A single nave ends in a chevet, with almost all the wall areas filled by tall narrow glass windows, between which are large exterior buttresses. The ogives of the vault rest on columns between the bays and the column bases are placed behind a low isolated arcade. The building can thus be open and empty of all internal supports. This large number of windows is also enabled by the pierre armée technique, with metal elements built into the structure of the walls to ensure the stones' stability. The west wall is adorned by a large Gothic rose window in the Rayonnant Gothic style. It was in this chapel in 1238 that Baldwin II of Constantinople presented Louis with the relic of the crown of thorns and, though they were intended for the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, they were housed here until the Paris chapel was consecrated in April 1248.

The castle was burned by Edward the Black Prince in 1346; of it, only the Gothic chapel remains from the site's medieval phase. This Château Vieux was rebuilt by Charles V in the 1360s on the old foundations.

The oldest parts of the current château were reconstructed by Francis I in 1539, and have subsequently been expanded several times. On 10 July 1547 a political rivalry came to a head in a legal duel here.

Text adapted from “Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye ranks #166 of 7,738 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #22 of the 469 mapped in France. Founded 1124, it is older than 86% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 544 atlas entries founded in the 12th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 23,215 times in the last 60 days, more than 97% of the atlas. 35 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Paris, 19 km away. See how France compares in the castle statistics.

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