St-Martin (Saint-Martin-des-Puits)

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St Martin Church

The small pre-Romanesque church of St-Martin in Saint-Martin-des-Puits is one of the art-historical gems of Languedoc . It was added to the list of historical monuments in 1951 .

location

The church is located directly on the D 212 in the village of Saint-Martin-des-Puits . Due to the increased street level over the centuries, the formerly existing entrance in the west of the church has been buried.

Building history

The age of the little church is still a mystery. Only this much seems certain: Despite the uniformity of the stone work on the outside, the choir , nave and side chapel come from different construction phases. The client (s) are also unknown - in the case of an early construction period, only a monastery is actually possible; at a late construction period (after 1000) it could also have been the villagers themselves who built the church as a parish church.

architecture

Exterior construction

The church is built almost without mortar from small, roughly hewn limestone from the Corbières . Only the south portal shows an arch made of large, trapezoidal stones with a smooth surface. While the stone layers of the masonry are mostly arranged quite regularly, the stones in the upper area of ​​the nave wall are laid quite chaotically, which suggests a later renovation. A two-part bell gable rises above the completely unadorned west facade .

St-Martin - interior with triumphal arch

inner space

The single nave church interior is plastered and shows neither wall templates nor any other architectural decoration; it is divided into two yokes by an arch and is vaulted. On the south side - directly adjacent to the nave - there is a small chapel from the 11th century, which almost takes on the character of a transept. The choir is narrower and lower than the nave; it has an open roof and is lit through a comparatively large window in the south wall.

A large triumphal arch made of precisely hewn and joined stones is located between the two components . Its ends are drawn in ( horseshoe arch ) and rest on spolia , i.e. H. on reused antique capitals and columns , the lower part of which is still about one meter deep in the ground. On closer inspection, you can see that the lower left end of the arch is about 15 centimeters higher than the right.

Opinions differ on this arch, which is almost oversized for the small church building: While some of the researchers believe they recognize Mozarabic influences, which would result in dating around the year 1000 or a little later, others see even older Visigoth influences at work and dates the arch - and thus also the choir of the church - much earlier (9th or 10th century).

Frescoes

St-Martin - Fresco: The three youths (with square halos ) in the furnace

Another treasure of the church are the remains of Romanesque frescoes in the choir, the age of which (12th century) is largely agreed, although layers of later overpainting have also been found, which ultimately protected the old paintings. In their figure design and their strong colors, these are reminiscent of the frescoes from the Vall de Boí and Val d'Aran , all of which are now kept in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC) in Barcelona . On the French side of Catalonia , Roussillon , something comparable is only preserved in the Chapelle Saint-Martin de Fenollar .

The themes, however, are largely unclear - also because of the poor state of preservation: a scene of the Annunciation can be recognized; Another scene was identified - on the basis of inscriptions - as a representation of the Old Testament theme of the "Three young men in the furnace" ( Dan 3  EU ). The best preserved are three lions.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Église Saint-Martin, Saint-Martin-des-Puits in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : St-Martin (Saint-Martin-des-Puits)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 43 ° 2 '25.9 "  N , 2 ° 34' 5.7"  E