St-Trojan (Rétaud)
The Saint-Trojan church in the municipality of Rétaud is an exceptionally uniform church building in the Saintonge ; it is dedicated to St. Trojanus of Saintes , a 6th century bishop .
location
The church is located about eleven and a half kilometers southwest of Saintes in the Charente-Maritime department in the cultural landscape of the Charente in southwest France, which is extremely rich in imposing Romanesque church buildings .
Building history
No data or other information (e.g. about the client, building purpose, etc.) has been passed on to the building history of the Romanesque church of Saint-Trojan. In view of the richly structured apse and the elaborate decoration, it can be assumed that the building must have been a former priory church ; The monastery of Saint-Eutrope in Saintes is often mentioned as their mother monastery , but this was itself a priory of Clunys . The exact stone work and the sophisticated architectural jewelry make a date in the 3rd quarter of the 12th century probable. The crossing tower - despite its inconspicuous and unadorned exterior - was not erected until the 15th century. The church was already classified as a monument historique in 1862 .
architecture
Stone material
The nearby broken light sandstone of the Saintonge was used to build the church . This stone material is precisely carved on all visible components and offset almost seamlessly.
apse
The apse , which has a polygonal break on the outside, is structured in the corners by presented services; the wall surfaces are richly loosened up by large blind arches and free-standing triple arcades and also adorned by sloping masonry, various columns and richly decorated arches. The central window and thus the framing blind arch is slightly higher than the side windows; the middle two of the normally four columns in the arcade zone are doubled in the yokes alternately. The one and a half choir bays are not illuminated through windows, but are otherwise included in the architectural decor of the apse. The richly decorated panels ( metopes ) between the - partly figurative - console frieze under the eaves are particularly noteworthy .
Crossing tower
The octagonal crossing tower, which was added later and is only slightly structured and provided only with narrow sound openings, dates from the 15th century; it still serves as a bell tower to this day. The crossing area is visually widened by four massive buttresses, which had to absorb the additional load of the tower. The unadorned outer walls of the nave are divided into three parts, each with a window, by two mighty buttresses.
West facade
The ground floor of the west facade is structured by four half-column templates, which end in a console frieze that occupies the entire width of the church facade - figurative in the middle, but with vegetal or abstract design on the sides; In the decorative fields between the slightly protruding consoles, an immensely rich decorative element of checkerboard patterns , plaited ribbons , stone chain fabrics and vegetable shapes unfolds . The archivolts, stepped back three times, of the central portal and the simple arches of the two side - slightly sharpened - blind arcades do not have any figurative ornamentation, but in the variety of decorative motifs and the delicacy of the stone work they do not need to hide themselves from the large church buildings in Saintes. The upper floor of the facade only has a narrow window opening; underneath there is a console stone, on which a sculpture may once have stood.
inner space
The single nave nave of the church is divided into three bays ; It has a pointed barrel vault and a large - later added - richly profiled Gothic choir arch at the transition to the ribbed crossing . The nave should also have a rib vault - the approaches to this have already been established. Interesting is a painted band ( liter funéraire ) running around window height , the colors and motifs of which, however, have darkened considerably; a similar band is found in the churches of Rioux and Authon . Some of the capitals show figurative motifs. The interior of the apse, which is no longer polygonal, but rather semicircular, is illuminated through five windows with set columns, of which the middle one is slightly higher than the other four; all windows are framed by beautifully decorated blind arcades.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Église Saint-Trojan in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
literature
- Thorsten Droste: Poitou. Western France between Poitiers and Angoulême - the Atlantic coast from the Loire to the Gironde. DuMont-Verlag, Cologne 1999, p. 217f, ISBN 3-7701-4456-2 .
- François Eygun: Saintonge romane. Zodiaque, Saint-Léger-Vauban 1970
Web links
- Church of Saint-Trojan - photos + info (in French)
- Saint-Trojan Church - photos + brief information (French)
- Church of Saint-Trojan - photos + brief information (French)
- Saint-Trojan Church - Photos
- Saint-Trojan Church - Photos
- Romanesque churches in Saintonge - photos
Coordinates: 45 ° 40 ′ 39.9 " N , 0 ° 43 ′ 42" W.