Bourbonnais roman: l’abbatiale bénédictine Saint-Léger d’Ébreuil (last photos)
On March 15, 906, a group of Benedictine monks, fleeing a bloody Viking raid and carrying the holy remains of the saints Maixent and Léger, left their abbey of Saint Maixent in the Poitou (western France) to seek refuge with the King Charles III in the small town of Ébreuil. Located in the old province of Bourbonnais, nowadays the département of Allier and thus incorporated into the region of Auvergne (central France), Ébreuil was then one of the five official royal places of residence established by King Louis the First (also called “the Pious” or “the Debonair”) a century before, in the early 800s.
Charles received them and gave them shelter in the royal chapel. The monks kept the holy relics of Saint Léger but had to surrender those of Maixent to King Solomon of Brittany, who installed them in a monastery in Plélan.
The monks settled in Ébreuil subsequently received land donated by King Lothair and began erecting a first monastery and church in 926. As the relics of Léger were so venerated and made so many miracles, the influence of the new monastery grew rapidly, and in 1080, Pope Gregory VII made it a full-fledged abbey belonging to the Order of Saint Benedict.
The church we can see today is the second built on the site. Construction began probably around 1040, when it became obvious that the original one, built between 961 and 1025, had become much too small to accommodate all the pilgrims that thronged to venerate the relics of Léger, in addition to the 50+ monks of the abbey. The church incorporates elements from the late Carolingian period, as well as the Romanesque Era, and even a few elements from the emerging Gothic Age, making it a very interesting example of all those architectural styles.
The nave and the transept are purely Romanesque, from the 11th century, while the apse, mostly late Romanesque, features a coupe of flying buttresses (“arcs-boutants”) that denote a Gothic inspiration. While some columns and capitals in the nave are from the late 900s, the alfresco paintings on the walls, particularly well preserved, were created between 1085 and 1120.
Finally, the massive clocher-porche (“bell tower-porch”) is reminiscent of an Ottonian westwerk, and of course of the same structure built in the abbey church of Fleury in La Charité-sur-Loire, a very famous place we visited some time ago. I will post a photo of that clocher-porche below the first photo in this current series about Ébreuil.
Decorative motifs and sculpted capitals on the side of the clocher-porche.
Bourbonnais roman: l’abbatiale bénédictine Saint-Léger d’Ébreuil (last photos)
On March 15, 906, a group of Benedictine monks, fleeing a bloody Viking raid and carrying the holy remains of the saints Maixent and Léger, left their abbey of Saint Maixent in the Poitou (western France) to seek refuge with the King Charles III in the small town of Ébreuil. Located in the old province of Bourbonnais, nowadays the département of Allier and thus incorporated into the region of Auvergne (central France), Ébreuil was then one of the five official royal places of residence established by King Louis the First (also called “the Pious” or “the Debonair”) a century before, in the early 800s.
Charles received them and gave them shelter in the royal chapel. The monks kept the holy relics of Saint Léger but had to surrender those of Maixent to King Solomon of Brittany, who installed them in a monastery in Plélan.
The monks settled in Ébreuil subsequently received land donated by King Lothair and began erecting a first monastery and church in 926. As the relics of Léger were so venerated and made so many miracles, the influence of the new monastery grew rapidly, and in 1080, Pope Gregory VII made it a full-fledged abbey belonging to the Order of Saint Benedict.
The church we can see today is the second built on the site. Construction began probably around 1040, when it became obvious that the original one, built between 961 and 1025, had become much too small to accommodate all the pilgrims that thronged to venerate the relics of Léger, in addition to the 50+ monks of the abbey. The church incorporates elements from the late Carolingian period, as well as the Romanesque Era, and even a few elements from the emerging Gothic Age, making it a very interesting example of all those architectural styles.
The nave and the transept are purely Romanesque, from the 11th century, while the apse, mostly late Romanesque, features a coupe of flying buttresses (“arcs-boutants”) that denote a Gothic inspiration. While some columns and capitals in the nave are from the late 900s, the alfresco paintings on the walls, particularly well preserved, were created between 1085 and 1120.
Finally, the massive clocher-porche (“bell tower-porch”) is reminiscent of an Ottonian westwerk, and of course of the same structure built in the abbey church of Fleury in La Charité-sur-Loire, a very famous place we visited some time ago. I will post a photo of that clocher-porche below the first photo in this current series about Ébreuil.
Decorative motifs and sculpted capitals on the side of the clocher-porche.