St-Quentin
The Basilica of St-Quentin is a Roman Catholic minor basilica in the northern French city of Saint-Quentin . It is dedicated to Quintin , a martyr of the 3rd century, and has been classified as a monument historique since 1840 . It emerged from the Saint-Quentin Abbey , which was dedicated to the protection of relics and which became the core of today's city of Saint-Quentin.
Saint-Quentin Abbey
The Romans had given up the Gallic oppidum Vermand and founded the city of Augusta Viromanduorum further east . A bishop is attested here in 511, but his seat was soon moved to Noyon . The relics of Quintinus, who died a martyr around 285, remained in the city . In the 4th century the remains of the saint were exhumed and reburied in a chapel built for him on a plateau outside the city. Bishop Eligius von Noyon (Saint Éloi) had the chapel enlarged and the tomb decorated around 641. In the 8th century monks settled here who served in this chapel.
The abbots of the monastery soon came from the Carolingian family . The first was Hieronymus, an illegitimate son of Karl Martell , who is attested in 754 and around 775. He was followed by his son Fulrad, who held office in 771 and died in 826. In 822/823, Hugo († 844), an illegitimate son of Emperor Charlemagne, was appointed abbot. Shortly after he took office, in 823, a new church was consecrated over the grave, which was soon supplemented by a crypt that housed the relics. Hugo was followed by Ludwig († 867), a grandson of the emperor. Also in the 9th century, the office of the Count of Vermandois was combined with that of the lay abbot of Saint-Quentin. After a Norman attack in 883, a wall was built around the church and the abbey between 886 and 893 by Count Theodericus of Vermandois. When Count Heribert I († 900/907) then took his seat in Saint-Quentin, the population began to move from the Roman Augusta Viromanduorum to the more protected wall ring. In 942 the church was rebuilt and Count Heribert II was buried in the following year . In the second half of the 10th century it was Hugo Capet who held the office of lay abbot. Count Heribert IV († around 1080) gave the citizens of Saint-Quentin a first communal constitution, so that from now on the count's abbey and the bourgeois population competed for power in the city.
By inheritance, the abbey, town and county then came to a younger line of Capetians and finally, via the House of Flanders, to the Domaine royal , the French crown domain.
Saint-Quentin Church
The growing importance of pilgrimages and thus also the Quentin relics made it necessary to adapt the presentation of the relics to their importance. At the end of the 12th century, the monastery chapter decided to start building a new church, which was only completed three centuries later. Wars, epidemics and financial bottlenecks explain the unusual duration of the work, which was also not completed because the planned facade was never built. The style of the building belongs to the Gothic , the development of which can also be traced on it.
The Saint-Quentin basilica with its two transepts and five portals is 123 meters long, the nave and choir are 34 meters high and 52 meters wide. Due to its size and equipment, it is an ambitious building. It was started on a porch with a tower, but the work soon shifted to the apse with a rather chaotic construction progress. In 1257 King Louis the Saint took part in the translation of the relics into the choir . After that, work slowed down due to technical and financial problems. The longship was completed in the second half of the 15th century. The south arm of the transept, which threatened to collapse, was built between 1477 and 1487 by Colard Noël, the architect of Louis XI. newly built. In 1509 the foundation stone was laid for a facade flanked by two towers, which was supposed to replace an existing tower. This part of the project was quickly abandoned due to lack of funds. Fire damage to the church (1545 and 1669) required repairs, which in 1682 were accompanied by baroque additions to the roof; the organ stage dates from the 1690s. During the revolution , the church served as a horse stable and warehouse for cattle feed. In 1840 the church was added to the list of Monuments historiques, in 1876 Pope Pius IX awarded the church. her rank of basilica.
During the First World War , the basilica was badly damaged and the roof and roof structure destroyed. The stained glass windows from the 13th century and the Renaissance were intact. Art Nouveau windows were installed in the interwar period . From 1975 to 1983 the church got a new spire over the crossing . The work in autumn 2006 renovated the external cladding and restored the porch of the portal as it had been in the 17th century.
Since the end of the 15th century, pilgrims have been able to follow the path on a labyrinth behind the entrance portal . It is an octagonal labyrinth with a distance of around 260 meters.
The organ goes back to an instrument that was built in 1699 by the organ builder Robert Clicquot in an organ case by Jean Bérain. The instrument suffered damage in the First World War. In 1967 the organ builder Haerpfer-Erman built a new organ in the historic organ body. The instrument has 74 registers , divided into four manual works and a pedal . The playing and stop actions are electric.
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Personalities
- Dudo of Saint-Quentin (around 1000), Dean of Saint-Quentin in Chronicler
literature
- Laurent Morelle: Saint-Quentin . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages , Volume 7 . Metzler, Stuttgart 1999, column 1196/97.
- Dictionnaire des églises de France, Belgique, Luxembourg, Suisse, Volume 4-D . Robert Laffont, Paris 1968, pp. 162-163.
- Jacques Thiébaut: Northern Gothic (Les monuments de la France Gothic). Picard, Paris 2006, ISBN 2-7084-0738-4 , pp. 390-405.
Individual evidence
Web links
- Regional Council of Picardy; Inventaire du Patrimoine Culturel de Picardie ( Memento from June 1, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- Structurae.de
- Architecture religieuse en occident
- Plan of the basilica
Coordinates: 49 ° 50 ′ 52 ″ N , 3 ° 17 ′ 24 ″ E