Lusignan Castle

There is a legend according to which the very first castle was built by a water spirit - the fairy Melusina , the wife of one of the owners of the Lusignan estate - Raimondin. According to legend, it was her magical intervention and assistance in the construction that made the castle so powerful and beautiful. A curse hung allegedly over Melusina: every Saturday it turned into a "golden-winged winged serpent", and the miniature- brothers of the Limburgs in the magnificent duchess of the Duke of Berry depicted her floating in this form over the far right tower of the castle. It can be seen that the so-called Queen's Chambers are adjacent to this tower on the left, and next to it is the Melusine Tower, behind which the Clock Tower stands in the distance.

The castle was built by the Lusignan family in the historic Poitou district of Western France. Known already in the XI century . In 1106 or 1110, Hugo VIII "Old" de Lusignan was born here. ^[1] Especially the genus rose to the end of the XI century. By the end of the XII century , making numerous marriages and acquiring inheritances, the youngest branch of the Lusignan family acquired the crowns of Jerusalem and Cyprus, and the eldest at the beginning of the XIII century owned lands in the counties of La Marsh and Angouleme .

The Lusignan castle in Poitou was a family castle of the family. ^[2]

In the XV century it became the residence of Jean I the Magnificent Berry . Later belonged to Jean Touraine and the French king Charles VII Victorious . During the religious wars in France, most of the castle was destroyed; The Melyuzina tower was rebuilt in the 17th century by the outstanding French military engineer Vauban .