Gisors

Gisors guarded the Norman Vexin, a frontier contested by the dukes of Normandy and kings of France. Its castle, with a great keep on a mound and successive circuits of walls, watched over the town and the surrounding countryside. After the French conquest of Normandy, it became a royal residence as well as a fortress.

English troops captured Gisors after a three-week siege in 1419, holding it until 1449. Once it returned to French hands, its defences were altered to meet the threat of artillery, with earthworks and a bastion added to the older walls. The town expanded beyond its earlier enclosure. In 1599, after the Wars of Religion, the castle was removed from the list of French military strongholds, and some of its buildings became prisons.