Motte castrale et prison du bailliage

English translation

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History

This motte, the most important in the Saint-Omer region by its diameter and one of the few preserved in an urban setting, is a strong symbol of the origins of Saint-Omer and the affirmation of comtal, then royal, power in the city. In turn a residence of the castellan, representative of the count of Flanders, then of the bailiffs of the king of France, the place preserves this link with the royal bailiage, when the latter had his prison built there in 1762, very probably on the site of the former castle, even on its own foundations. This ensemble of motte and bailiage prison thus perpetuates today the memory of political, then judicial authority as it could be exercised in the city since the 11th century. Furthermore, the adjoining cathedral ensemble constitutes with the castellan motte a significant example of the bipolarity of spiritual and temporal powers that assert themselves at the origin of the city whose traces are still very legible in the design of the current plot divisions.