. A royal port built on the Mediterranean coast in the 13th century, Aigues-Mortes was founded because no existing major ports or towns with access to good harbors on the Mediterranean coast of France were susceptible to decisive royal penetration before the end of the reign of Louis VIII. Even when, in the late 1220s and 1230s, the crown made inroads into the independence of a few of these towns after the Albigensian Crusade, it was felt, given the legacy of hostility from the war, that a distinctly royal port would be advantageous. The transformation of this desire into reality came about as a result of Louis IX’s need for an embarkation point for the soldiers who accompanied him on his first crusade (1248-54). Beginning in earnest in the mid-1240s, the king’s men laid out a small town about 20 miles east of Montpellier, in an area facing saltwater lagoons and stagnant pools, which together account for the name given to the settlement, Aigues-Mortes (“Dead Waters”). Laid out on a square grid, the town was a typical foundation of the 13th century except for the extraordinary degree of royal interest in its success. It was heavily fortified with both impressive walls—originally in wood, in the 1270s rebuilt in stone—and an imposing tower, the Tour de Constance, set slightly apart from the walls themselves.
Dredging and canal building were employed to control silting and to give access to the sea. Even at its best, however, the inner harbor could not handle large ships. These were obliged to anchor in the open sea, where they were subjected to the heavy winds characteristic of that part of the Mediterranean.
Aigues-Mortes (Bouches-du-Rhone), city walls. Photograph: Clarence Ward Collection. Courtesy of Oberlin College.
Aigues-Mortes, city plan. After Stierlin.
The townsmen who inhabited Aigues-Mortes received an enormous number of privileges to stimulate the prosperity of the foundation. For example, every ship that came within sight of the port had to put in at Aigues-Mortes. Self-government, on the other hand, was severely circumscribed by the presence of a resident royal governor.
For all its limitations as a physical site, Aigues-Mortes was an important outpost of royal power in the later 13th and early 14th century. No estimate of the number of inhabitants is absolutely trustworthy, but a resident population of 1,000-3,500 seems reasonable. During periods of peak use, such as embarkations for crusades (1248, 1270), this number swelled. Royal fiscal accounts show that the crown expended considerable revenue in keeping the walls in repair and the harbor open. High officials in the government may even have entertained the possibility of diverting a freshwater river to Aigues-Mortes, since the natural water supply was insufficient for a large town.
In the course of the 14th century, older and better ports on the Mediterranean coast either came under French rule or succumbed to more effective royal control. Since the oligarchies of these towns had always resented the favored status of Aigues-Mortes and since the crown, once it established effective control, no longer doubted its ability to work through these oligarchies whenever it needed to discharge obligations that required the use of ports, Aigues-Mortes gradually decreased in importance as a commercial center and as an object of special royal encouragement. It is no doubt due to this decline that the extensive city walls and fortifications of Aigues-Mortes remain largely intact and that the original grid plan of the town is still respected. Together, they make Aigues-Mortes one of the finest surviving examples of 13th-century fortified town planning.
William Chester Jordan
[See also: CRUSADES; LOUIS IX]
Inventaire general des monuments et richesses artistiques de la France. Card. Canton d’Aigues-Mortes. 2 vols. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1973.
Jordan, William. “Supplying Aigues-Mortes for the Crusade of 1248: The Problem of Restructuring Trade.” In Order and Innovation in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of Joseph R. Strayer, ed. William Jordan, Bruce McNab, and Teofilo Ruiz. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976, pp. 165-72.
--. Louis IX and the Challenge ofthe Crusade: A Study in Rulership. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1979.
Salch, Charles-Laurent. L ’atlas des villes et villages fortifies en France. Strasbourg: Pubitotal,
1987, pp. 76-85.
Sournia, Bernard. “Les fortifications d’Aigues-Mortes.” Congres archeologique (Pays d’Arles) 134(1976):9-26.
World History
