Still in the Indre department of the Centre region, we stopped briefly at Saint-Benoît-du-Sault, a medieval village overlooking the Portefeuille River. In 974 CE, some benedictine monks of Sacierges-Saint-Martin took refuge on a granite spur, where they founded a priory - the future Saint-Benoît-du-Sault.From the 10th to the 17th century, the history of the priory (and the entire village for that matter) is peppered with bouts of resistance against feudal neighbors including the Limoges and de Brosse family. The town was surrounded by a double line of ramparts. The first protected the priory, the church and the fort, while the second, built in the 15th century, encompassed the entire commercial area.
Like the majority of small rural communities visited on this trip, populations have roughly halved over the last two hundred years. Saint Benoît is currently hovering around 600 souls. See more of this unique little village.
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