The name of the town comes from Latin castrum,
and means "fortified place". Castres grew up round the Benedictine
abbey of Saint Benoît, which is believed to have been founded in AD 647,
possibly on the site of an old Roman fort (castrum). Castres became an important stop on the international
pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela in Spain because its abbey-church,
built in the 9th century, was keeping the relics of Saint Vincent, the renowned
martyr of Spain. It was a place of some importance as early as the 12th
