St-Tudy (Loctudy)

St-Tudy, look at the choir

View through the nave

St-Tudy is a Roman Catholic parish church in Loctudy ( Département Finistère ). The building is one of the most outstanding Romanesque monuments in Brittany . The church has been classified as a monument historique since 1846 .

history

The church consecrated to St. Tudy , who worked as a Christian missionary in Brittany in the 5th century, was built as a parish church with a collegiate monastery from the second half of the 11th century . The gentlemen of Pont-l'Abbé , who claimed the right of patronage, appeared as patrons of the monastery . However, there was a dispute between the noble donors and the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Gildas-en-Rhuys over the ownership rights to St-Tudy. This dispute was settled in 1220 by Bishop Rainaud der Cornouaille . The agreement stipulated that Saint-Gildas Abbey would henceforth be able to send a canon. The parish of Loctudy at that time covered a large area including Pont-l'Abbé and the castle there. Research is also controversial as to whether the church could have been owned by the Knights Templar between 1127 and 1308 .

The fact that the church was not only the parish, but also a collegiate likely, its outstanding architectural form explain, including the representative, unusual for Brittany in the Romanesque Bauepoche ambulatory . The oldest part of the church is the exterior of the rugged and unstructured choir, reminiscent of the abbey church of Saint-Gildas, from the 11th century with its three apsidioles that are arranged in a semicircle around the ambulatory. The pillars and the eastern walls of the nave also date from around 1200. The Gothic vestibule on the south side dates from the 15th century, the baroque west facade with the tower and the sacristy from the 18th century. The western parts of the nave walls were re-listed in the 19th century.