We visit an entirely new tower 7-7-15

I've been reading about the 'Tour Jean-sans-Peur' on various sites, it's a 15th century tower that was built by the Duke of Burgundy.  Jean sans Peur was a nickname of the time meaning 'Fearless Jean' however the duke built it as a defensive tower so obviously he feared something.  And he should have since he assassinated his cousin the Duke of Orleans, but then every family has it's ups and downs. Anyway he then ascended to the regency of France, until he in his turn was assassinated by the late Duke of Orleans supporters.   His tower has survived and it's now a national heritage site, and very interesting indeed.  It is not terribly large as the interior rooms are about 12 by 20 feet in area with a circular staircase at one end,  The kitchen is located in the basement and the Duke's chamber is on the top floor just below the attic.

We did learn the derivation of a French word (Copain, a word to denote a neighbor) it came from the medieval practice of baking bread into a two lobe configuration which at a feast would be shared by two people sitting next to one another.




What was most interesting to both Deb and I were the mason's marks in the various stone blocks.  In medieval times most of the stonemasons worked on a piece-rate basis and got paid by the number of stone blocks they supplied to the building.  So in order to be sure of being paid properly for their work they marked each stone with their unique mark (of course nobody ever thought of rustling stones I'm sure) but at the end of the day the project supervisor would go through and count the number of blocks supplied by each worker and that would be tallied to their credit.  I don't know whether they were paid daily or not.  Anyway one of the ways that they know that the tower is original is the mason's marks that are very low down in the first courses and also appear in the courses at the top of the building.  It became a treasure hunt to find marks throughout the building.


We then had lunch nearby and then headed back to the apartment to watch the unfolding of the Tour de France.
I'm rooting for T J Van Garderen but frankly I'm not sure he he'll be able to match the attacks of the anointed few, Froome, Contador, Nibali, and Quintana.  Time will tell.