Garrigue villages

As early as the 11th century there are mentions of a church of Sainte-Marie de Sestairanègues (or Cesteirargues) in the Montarnéen area. It appears to date back to a Gallo-Roman foundation. In the course of the 12th century a certain Arnaldus was given or seized by force the land on which the village of Montarnaud now stands. He chose to build his fortress on a rocky spur.

The fortress has nowadays undergone changes but still dominates the village. This is why, in 1111, for the first time, ‘el castel de Montarnalt’ is mentioned in the cartulary of the counts Guilhem de Montpellier. It appears as ‘Montarnault’ in 1626 and then as ‘Montarnaud’ in 1648.

Throughout the 12th century, the population of the village seems to have gathered its dwellings at the foot of the château, thus placing themselves physically under the protection of their lord. Sainte-Marie de Cestairargues, the first rural parish became progressively depopulated in favour of a new church, a chapel for the castle, from 1150 known as Notre-Dame de Montarnaud.

However, this geographical population shift does not appear to have affected the predominant position of worship in the parish itself; this continued to take place at Sainte-Marie de Cestairargues. The village was within the domains of the counts Guilhem de Montpellier, dependant on the Viscounts of Aumelas, and its history in the Middle Ages is closely linked to that of the villages of Le Pouget, Aumelas, Tressan, Vendémian, Popian etc…

It was therefore also one of the places ruled by the Kings of Aragon and Majorca during the period from 1204 to 1349 when they had control of Montpellier and its inland dependencies. There then followed two troubled periods: the Hundred Years War and the Wars of Religion less than a century later. In the 17th and 18th centuries the cultivated areas of the commune’s land did not even amount to half the total and the agricultural economy was largely based on cereals.

However, since the soil in the commune was not of very good quality, the people of the village preferred to devote their energies to raising sheep for wool. Animal husbandry was an essential part of the life for the people of Montarnaud. It provided an important market and a means of fertilising even the most uncultivated areas. The modern-day village has retained its medieval identity but has also acquired a new church, built in the 19th century. It is in the neo-classical style the interior being decorated with trompe l’œil paintings. It too is the church of ‘Notre-Dame’, and proclaims once more the village people’s devotion to the Virgin.


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