Sauveterre-de-Béarn is a pretty medieval village perched above the Gave d'Oloron and facing the Pyrennes in south-western France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. It is a commune

Communes of France

The commune is the lowest level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are roughly equivalent to incorporated municipalities or villages in the United States or Gemeinden in Germany...

 in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques

Pyrénées-Atlantiques

Pyrénées-Atlantiques is a department in the southwest of France which takes its name from the Pyrenees mountains and the Atlantic Ocean.- History :...

 department.

History

Built originally as a walled refuge ("sauveté" hence "Sauveterre") from the turbulent times of the Dark Ages, Sauveterre grew in importance as its old bridge was on one of the main routes to Spain, used by pilgrims on the way to Santiago de Compostela

Santiago de Compostela

Santiago de Compostela is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia, Spain.The city's Cathedral is the destination today, as it has been throughout history, of the important 9th century medieval pilgrimage route, the Way of St. James...

, and others. In the Middle Ages it was to keep a watch from its lofty heights on Navarre

Navarre

Navarre , officially the Chartered Community of Navarre is an autonomous community in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Country, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and Aquitaine in France...

 and Gascony.

It was from the bridge that in 1170 Queen Sancie, widow of the recently deceased Gaston V of the Béarn, was submitted to the judgement of God and thrown into the river, hands and feet tied, after being accused of the murder of her newly born and malformed son. She survived and was declared innocent.

The fortifications suffered from the religious wars, but enough remains to fire the imagination of what this once important town must have been.

Miscellaneous

Sauveterre de Bearn appeared in the Trevanian

Trevanian

Rodney William Whitaker was an American film scholar and writer who wrote several successful novels under the pen name Trevanian. Whitaker also published works as Nicholas Seare, Beñat Le Cagot and Edoard Moran...

 (aka Rod Whitaker) novel The Summer of Katya under the name Alos. In the book, it is where the Festival of the Drowned Virgin takes place.