Les Andelys is a commune in the Eure department in Haute-Normandie in northern France.The two fishing villages of Great and Little Andelys, already an important religious centre in the Gallo-roman period, grew towards each other over the centuries to form the present town.
In a strategic position overlooking a meander of the Seine, Les Andelys were bound to arouse the envy of the French Crown, in need of a route to the sea, so between 1196 and 1198 Richard the Lionheart, Duke of Normandy as well as king of England, built Château Gaillard on a cliff to protect the Duchy and its capital, Rouen. The fortress was a veritable masterpiece of military architecture, and very advanced for its time, but it nonetheless failed to resist the attacks of the French king Philippe Auguste in 1204. Retaken by the English during the Hundred Years War, the castle was finally abandoned when developments in artillery made it obsolete.
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