Vicdessos/Arconac - Communes de Val de Sos

Village of Vicdessos (Municipality of Val-de-Sos)

Altitude: 625m
Location: in the valley of the same name, at the crossroads of the ponds of the valley and the Pyrenean peaks and bordering the town of Auzat
Number of inhabitants: 684
Distances: Tarascon-sur-Ariege 16 km

Vicdessos or "Vic Desos", that is to say the village of the valley of Sos, is a very old town which we know had its first castle at least in the 12th century when it was recovered by the Count of Foix. The old Vicdessos was surrounded by a wall which was rebuilt at the end of the 14th century by the inhabitants to protect themselves from conflicts within the framework of the Hundred Years War.
Certainly older than the castle, the church of Vicdessos is a little away from the old town because the village has slipped into the enclosure at the foot of the castle.This church became in the 12th century a priory of the abbey of Saint-Sernin in Toulouse.

Vicdessos remained until recently the most important village in the upper valley and was the center of a pre-communal administration, a consulate, set up by the counts of Foix in the 13th and 14th centuries and endowed with a fair where they sold the animals that came down from the mountain in September.

This consulate brings together all the village communities of the upper valley and the iron-related activities - around the Rancié mine - made it rich.

At least from the 16th century, perhaps before, the village acted as a town, populated by craftsmen, traders - bourgeois in the proper sense - while the surrounding villages - including Arconac - were mainly populated by peasants .
Town hall opening hours:
Monday, Tuesday and Thursday: 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Wednesday and Friday: 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

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