Saint-Sever, a town born of an abbey

In 988, Count William Sanche of Gascony founds a Benedictine abbey dedicated to Saint Severus. He does not set it on the Morlanne promontory, which holds the counts' residence, but on a neighbouring hill. Its charter grants it a territory stretching “from the Alpheus, now called the Adour, to the Gabas”. Around the monastery and the ducal residence, which earns the place its title of “Cap de Gascogne”, a town takes shape.

Around 1060, Abbot Gregory of Montaner has a commentary on the Apocalypse illuminated at the abbey. Its map of the world gives the abbey of Saint-Sever a central place, as a new Jerusalem of the West. It was under the same abbot that the abbey church with seven staggered apses is thought to have been planned. The manuscript is kept at the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Between 1092 and 1106, Abbot Suavius grants statutes to the inhabitants. They already describe a true town and mention its ramparts: Saint-Sever encloses itself within a first wall around the abbey. Only one arch survives, that of the Touron gate, probably 13th-century.

In 1280, three Dominican friars are sent to Saint-Sever to found a friary. The Benedictines agree on condition that it stays outside the walls, in the Guillerie suburb. The church and cloister rise around 1300; rebuilt in the 17th century, the friary has housed the town museum since 1974.

During the wars of Guyenne and the Hundred Years' War, the town suffers many attacks. In 1442, the troops of Charles VII storm it through the Guillerie suburb: Saint-Sever joins the kingdom of France for good.

In 1450, a letter from Charles VII notes the growth of the suburbs and authorises their fortification. That same year, the jurats sign contracts with masons. Of this second wall, pierced by gates such as the Guillerie gate, two towers remain, including that of the Hôtel de Bourrouilhan, the base of a watchtower on place Louis-Fournier, and stretches of wall a metre and a half thick.

In 1569, the Protestant troops of Gabriel de Montgomery sack Saint-Sever. Three years later, a royal inquiry describes the abbey as “desmoli” (demolished) and the Jacobin friary as “ruined”. In 1615, a report on the state of the walls still counts three towers and six gates.

From the early 16th century, noble families settle in the town and build mansions there. In the 17th century, the Ursulines and the Capuchins found their convents with the abbey's consent. The Capuchins, allowed in 1617 to settle near the Guillerie gate, neighbours of the Hôtel de Bourrouilhan, will see their convent become the town hospital in 1828.

In the 18th century, the walls lose their purpose: in 1722, the town council agrees to openings being cut through them, and the laying-out of place du Cap-du-Pouy, from 1768, sweeps away two gates. The Revolution dismantles the walls, whose stones are reused, and a street alignment plan is adopted in 1809. The town then spills over into its suburbs.