Burgundian Tower, Medieval defensive tower in Aigues-Mortes, France
The Burgundian Tower is a medieval defensive tower built into the town walls of Aigues-Mortes, in southern France. It is one of the smaller towers along the fortified perimeter, with thick stone walls and narrow openings that face the surrounding streets.
The walls of Aigues-Mortes were built in the 13th century under King Louis IX, and the tower was part of that original ring of fortifications. During the 15th century, in the course of the Hundred Years War, it became the site of a grim episode involving Burgundian soldiers whose bodies were preserved with salt inside its walls.
The tower's name recalls a violent episode in the town's past, when Burgundian soldiers were killed and their bodies kept inside the structure. Visitors standing in the bare stone room today can sense the weight of that history without any decoration or display to explain it.
The tower is easy to spot from the path that runs along the town walls and fits naturally into a walk around the full fortified perimeter. Parts of the ramparts can be walked, giving a view of the tower from above as well as from street level.
The tower takes its name not from its architecture but from the practice of preserving Burgundian soldiers' bodies inside it with salt, a resource that was plentiful in the surrounding salt flats. That detail shaped the tower's identity for centuries after the event.
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