Notre-Dame-St-Cyprien (Château-Larcher)
Notre-Dame and Saint-Cyprien Church is the Romanesque parish church of the parish of Château-Larcher . It is classified as a historic monument ( Monument historique ). The building was changed several times due to the effects of war and weather and the subsequent repairs.
History
The fact that there was a forerunner of today's church in the 10th century or even earlier cannot be ruled out, as there is a document from the year 969, in which it was about the establishment of a priory of the former place Mesgon (or Metgon), of the later Château-Larcher goes. This document mentions a "chapel" dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and an enclave in the castle grounds (the convent rooms ). Its use was granted to four Benedictine monks. It also mentions the Mesgon mill, which the monks were also allowed to use.
The “chapel” or another previous building would then have to have been built by Ebbon , Lord von Mesgon, or by his son Achard , who gave the castle and the later town of Château-Larcher its name.
Most of the components that are preserved today, such as the facade and the portal, but also the largely destroyed head end with the three apses, were built in the style of the transition from pre-Romanesque to Romanesque , one can assume under Hugo IX. von Lusignan and Lord of Château-Larcher from 1196 to 1223.
The church, like the fortress, was subjected to several sieges in the 14th century. A manuscript from 1454 describes the state of decline. The damage was repaired fairly well by Jeanne de Maillé .
A century later, the Huguenot Wars (1562–1598) broke out, which were very bloody in Poitou . After the siege and capture of Lusignan Castle (July 20, 1569), the Huguenots moved into Poitiers under the leadership of Admiral Gaspard II. De Coligny . Before they retreated, they ransacked the city and burned everything down. The Church of Notre-Dame and Saint-Cyprien, which had just been restored, was also set on fire.
When peace was made in Poitou, René de Rochechouart, son and successor of François de Rochechouart, both masters of Château-Larcher, began repairs to the destroyed buildings. In 1572 they restored the roof structure and the vaults that were raised in the side aisles.
Twenty-six years later, a thunderstorm in the village collapsed several private houses and robbed the church of its roof.
In 1668 another accident struck the building. Either through the "insults of time" or the effects of the sieges, or even an earthquake, the head of the church as a whole subsided, causing the central apse , the north apse and the bell tower to collapse . The upper part of the southern apse was damaged. It was not until twelve years after this catastrophe, in 1680, that the possibility of recovery was considered.
Louis de Rochechouart, Marshal of Vivonne and Lord of Château-Larcher, gave "50 feet of oak for the roof truss". The apses were replaced by a straight wall made of quarry stone.
The repair of the roof structure, especially the roof ridge , was obviously not carried out with sufficient care. In 1760, when the Church was almost about to be consecrated again, it was still some time before the required sum of £ 1,200 was raised. As soon as this was done, lightning struck the church tower in August and caused considerable damage again. In the following year, the bell tower and the roof structure could be repaired with the financial support of the residents.
In 1871, during the restoration of the church tower, it was found that the tallest slates were dated 1761 and the names of Lord von Blom, Lord Maugué and von Écrouzilles.
During the French Revolution (1789) the church, like many others, was desecrated by popular assemblies. The sculptures were destroyed, the altars and the pulpit burned. From 1793 to 1801 there were no services.
The church building
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Some dimensions (without pillar templates):
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The church originally had a basilica elevation with a central nave and side aisles about 1.50 m lower . In length, the ships are divided into three yokes . The aisles of the first two bays are very narrow, but the third bay is almost twice as wide. The floor plan here simulates a transept . However, the supposed "transept arms" are widened third yokes of the aisles. They are also arched lengthways. The very low dividing arches of the third yoke also do not give the impression of a transept.
Over the years, collapsed vaults were renewed and in some cases changed. There were probably also problems with the introduction of the horizontal shear forces of the vaults into the outer walls, as these were subsequently reinforced with wall templates, regardless of the position of the belt arches separating the yokes . In 1572, after a collapse of the narrow aisle vaults in yokes one and two, the new vaults were placed about 1.50 m higher, which changed the basilica character of the elevation, but only in these two bays. The above-mentioned pillar templates were not extended by this piece.
The approximately 6.80 m wide central nave is vaulted by a semicircular barrel , the three yokes of which are separated by rectangular belt arches. The yoke lengths are different, namely yoke one 4.90 m, yoke two 5.40 m and yoke three 6.65 m. The edges of the cutting arches that carry the barrels have one and two right-angled setbacks in yoke. The much deeper separating arches in yoke three have simple right-angled edges. The side aisles in yoke one and two are 2.30 m wide and three in yoke 5.40 m wide are vaulted with semicircular barrels, which are divided by belt arches like in the central nave. The vaults on the walls of the ships are marked with a horizontally profiled cantilever cornice . A window installed at a later date above the entrance door illuminates the nave.
The two bundles of pillars between yokes one and two consist of square cores and are clad with semicircular services on all four sides . The two bundles of pillars between yokes two and three again consist of a square core, but only have the semicircular column cladding on three sides. On the eastern side of the pillar bundle, right-angled wall pieces are connected, which merge into the simple dividing arches of the third yoke. At the upper end of the semicircular services and under the arches there are often very simply designed capital sculptures .
The former choir with apse and the aisle apse flanking it to the north have almost completely collapsed and disappeared due to a subsidence in the floor in 1668. A small remnant of the southern side wall of the choir remained. The choir was slightly narrower than the central nave and consisted of a yoke vaulted with a barrel and a semicircular apse vaulted with a half-dome. There were three small arched windows here. Yoke and apse were separated by a belt arch on wall templates. The two aisle apses had a semicircular floor plan and were vaulted with a semi-dome. The southern apse still largely exists, but is inaccessible and presumably heavily eroded on the inside because it lacks the protective roof. All apses had vertical subdivisions on the outside by simple pillars. The large wall openings that resulted from the collapse of the choir and the northern apse and the still intact arched opening of the southern apse were closed with smooth walls at the end of the 17th century, in which two small arched windows were left open. The northern choir wall that had been dropped was replaced by a supporting pillar with a sloping exterior.
Externally it can be clearly seen from the southeast that the south aisle in yokes one and two had been raised once. The old corbels of the former eaves , over which a considerable piece of wall was raised, still bear witness to this . In the area of the third bay, the roofs of the side aisle are arranged much lower, which leads to an upper cave zone on the walls of the central nave , but without a window (basilical elevation). From the east there is a demolished image of the former choir head. Instead of the choir and its round apse, only the angular gable of the third bay of the central nave can be seen. A monopitch roof is attached to each of its two sides and covers the arch of the third yoke of the aisle. The apse of the southern chapel can still be seen on the south side of the former choir. It is evidently still vaulted by half a dome, which is no longer protected by a roof.
facade
The facade was changed in the 14th century by adding a fortress tower on the southwest corner. The tower has a diameter of 10.30 m and covers the area of the south aisle including the thickness of the central nave wall. But he remains high under the eaves of the church. The upper contour of the facade was probably also adjusted with the increase in the vaults of the side aisles at the end of the 16th century. The facade was originally divided vertically into three sections by wall templates reaching up to about the height of the eaves, with right-angled setbacks, in a roughly one to two to one ratio. This roughly corresponds to the width of the ships behind it. Just below the eaves, a setback of the gable section runs across the entire width of the facade, the cover plates of which protrude slightly. The gable field had a rectangular window in the middle, but it was bricked up with a slight recess. The verges are covered by the tiles of the slightly sloping roof.
The middle section of the facade is again divided horizontally just under half its height by a cantilever cornice, which is supported by carved corbels. The three-step archivolt portal has slightly sharpened arches with a right-angled cross-section, the wedges of which are individually sculpted in a radial arrangement. The arches stand on thick, profiled fighters , which are continued to the side of the portal as a cornice and still extend over the wall templates. The fighters rest on carved capitals . Below that are three cylindrical columns on each side, the inner ones being almost twice as thick as the others. The columns are accompanied by ornamented wall corners.
In the second zone of the central field, a round-arched window opens, the archivolt arch of which extends below the gable field. The window is immediately framed by smooth stones and wedge stones of the back offset of the wall. Farther out there is the edging with an archivolt on profiled fighters, which are laterally led as a cornice strip horizontally up to the wall templates. The carved capitals are supported by round columns with profiled bases.
Arcade to the south side aisle yoke 3
North aisle
Capital ship piers
Capital ship pillar, fighter with roller frieze
The facade sculpture
Portal capital 1 left, inside
Portal capital 3 left, outside
Portal capital 2 right, center
Portal capital 1 right, inside
The archivolt capitals of the main portal (numbering from inside to outside)
Left side:
- Capital 1 is surrounded by two animals with cat heads, whose legs merge into the capital edge above and below.
- Chapter 2 is adorned with tendrils that grow from the jaws of a fantastic animal.
- Chapter 3 is decorated with two animals leaning against each other on the corner. Their tails meet in a common mouth.
Right side:
- Capital 1 is decorated with two birds (great egrets). They hold a fruit in their beak that they have taken from a palmette.
- Chapter 2 shows two griffins with a common head, with mouths at the end of their wings. Their tails end in snake heads.
- Chapter 3 shows four birds whose wings end in palmettes. They collect fruit in pairs with their beaks.
Jewelry of the fighters and their continued ribbons:
On the left side the fighters and their extensions are ornamented purely with plants. The same goes for the right-wing fighters who are badly damaged. The ribbon leading further to the right carries a row of tendrils tied in wreaths, which contain small portraits of heads at different distances.
Archivolt arches main portal
Archivolt arches, parting
- The archivolt arches of the main portal
Only the front of the wedge stones carry sculptures. Their insides are smooth, their inner edges are rounded and profiled.
- Arch 1 (inside): The wedge stones show a triangular, fanned-out leaf and tendril work in particularly elaborate stone carving. Unfortunately, some stones are damaged.
- Sheet 2: 27 animals can be counted on it, some are staggered twice on top of each other. Presumably the stonemason wanted to depict pigs. They sit and stand opposite each other in pairs, their tails between their legs or pointing upwards.
- Sheet 3: The somewhat wider wedge stones again show similar foliage and tendrils as on sheet 1. The outer archivolt arch is encompassed by a decorative ribbon with vegetable ornamentation.
Facade, cantilevered cornice, corbels 1 + 2 and metopes
Facade, relief to the right of the center
- The cantilevered cornice over the main portal
The wall surface above the fighter band and the outer archivolt arch up to the cantilevered cornice is clad with diagonally laid square stone slabs, each of which is divided into four smaller squares by carving dummy joints. At the height of the top of the arch, a rectangular stone slab with a flat animal relief sculpture is embedded on both sides . The cantilever cornice, bounded on both sides by the pillars, was supported by ten corbels, seven of which are still preserved. Her sculpture consists mainly of animal heads, but also of human faces. A monkey (upper body) plays a kind of panpipe. Between the corbels, the cantilevered cornice is rounded in the manner of a cove, and in some cases also sculpted. The wall surfaces between the corbels, the so-called metopes , consist of rectangular and square panels, each of which is decorated with different flat reliefs, which together form a continuous frieze . You can see twisting animal bodies, plant tendrils, animal heads and other things. Much is badly weathered.
Web links
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Coordinates: 46 ° 24 ′ 57.5 ″ N , 0 ° 18 ′ 44.6 ″ E