The signal-tower hypothesis

The Tour du Canourgue is sometimes described as a “signal tower” similar to the towers near the coast, which allowed locals to watch out for the “Barbary corsairs”, and to communicate using fire. Such a system would have required joint organisation and solidarity between the local lords. This was not exactly the most common scenario in the Cévennes from the 11th to the 14th centuries, when alliances, counter-alliances and conflicts followed one another. The Tour du Canourgue may have been used for sending signals – though no records have so far been found to support this theory – but that was patently not its primary function.