Videos of the castle
Bouillon castle belonged to Godfrey of Bouillon who inherited it from his uncle. He sold it to finance his departure on the first crusade to the Holy Land. The fortress was built to protect the Duchy of Lower Lotharingia, strategically situated on the line between Rheims, Liège and Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle). The fortress housed up to 200 soldiers and is located above a loop of the Semois. As it had the reputation of occupying an impregnable position on its rocky spur, the enemy preferred to apply siege techniques to starve out the defenders, especially in winter. But inside the castle, everything had been planned. They had access to a source of drinking water and stocks of food were hoisted along a tunnel 30 m deep. The pulley was worked by the soldiers who ran in a circle in a kind of wooden roundabout. The castle steward had a vital role: it was he who calculated the quantity of food needed to withstand a siege.