2015-08-10 Lesterps, église Saint-Pierre,Charente, Poitou Charentes

History
There was in Lesterps, in the late the 10th century, a chapel named Stirpis for What is a religious community founded "for the name and the glory of the Holy and Undivided Trinity and St. Peter himself memory Similarly, where dwell the clergy and free and loose people of any service to us, " that Jordan I, lord of Chabanais, gave, with a manse, the Holy See. The authors of the Gallia Christiana, in the seventeenth century, who published the charter of the foundation, undated, the are around 1032. It seems certain, however, that the construction of the monastery was begun some years earlier.
The foundation of the new abbey, under the patronage of St. Peter, was approved by Dia, wife of Jordan I, and their son Jordan II, Boson, who was a monk at Monte Cassino, and Renaud, abbot of Charroux.
Changing status
Some years later, in 1038, according to the abbot Rougerie, Gautier, son of a knight of Confolens, high and become regular canon at St. Dorat in Israel, was called to govern the abbey of Lesterps, where he introduced the rule of St. Augustine, which made it an Augustinian abbey
Wars, looting and destruction
In 1040, Jordan II, denying the words of his father, invaded the monastery and fortifying it, fleeced the country.
Adalbert II, Earl of March, to end this robbery, engaged in Lesterps, with its vassal, a terrible struggle that took a very large number of deaths in which the monastery was put to fire and sword, and church largely destroyed. Gautier, who was traveling to the Holy Land, escaped the massacre with a small number of canons.
Urged by Pope Benedict IX and King Henry I, the Lord of Chabanais and the Count of La Marche last providing for religious annuities for the reconstruction of the monastery, and compensate the inhabitants of the town that had suffered from the war.
Recovered possession of the abbey, Father Gautier devoted himself, with the help of his new benefactors to its restoration.
He carried out the restoration of the church, which he solemnly celebrated the dedication in the presence of the bishops of the province (unknown date ...).
He died in 1070, and was buried in the church. He soon to be numbered among the saints, as the saint Gautier, and while his cult established in 1091 in the church he had raised his name, long object of great veneration was associated with that of St. Peter in the word of the church of Lesterps. At that time, the church was the subject of a new blessing, which might suggest opening a new part of the monument to culte.
Ademar, a brother of Fulk Taillefer Count of Angouleme succeeded him.
Then Ramnulfe was abbot from 1110 to 1140. This seems likely to be related to the great work which, at that time, had to lead to the construction of a sumptuous apse. Indeed, this abbot was buried in the church where his epitaph, engraved on a black stone in uncial ornate, still celebrates its long abbot. Father Ramnulfe built a large ambulatory with radiating chapels, a transept with collateral and double span.
The religious wars were disastrous to the Abbey of Lesterps. In November 1567 a leader of bands Calvinists, Compaignac at the head of the armies of Admiral de Coligny plundered and gave to the flames the town and the monastery.
The abbey remained in ruins until the administration of Charles-François de La Vieuville Rennes bishop and abbot of St. Laumer Blois, abbot of Lesterps of 1657-1676.
He introduced the Canons Regular of the Congregation of France, the Génovéfains, congregation the rigorous rule, also known congregation of France, which was founded by Cardinal François de la Rochefoucauld and restored the regular places; he completely rebuilt the vast building which follows the south transept, and today is limited to the location occupied by the cloister, and settled in 1669.
Despite these restorations, the church of Lesterps, a century later, needed a lot of réparations.
Despite his two chairs of education, a theology and philosophy of another community had difficulties. The church became dangerous and was banned by the bishop of Limoges in 1738, and the Revolution, there were only three monks.
It is sold as national property in 1790.
Around 1815, the choir was still standing; lack of maintenance, it gradually succumbed to the elements. By mid-century, his remains were exploited as a career.

The apse to the east, after restoration in 2011
The abbey church was partly abandoned and partly transformed into a parish church. He currently remains of the abbey church three bays covered with a barrel vault, St. Peter's church, the gray granite, monumental and original with its high bell tower.
There are some carved capitals.
The building is a historical monument
It also contains a painting of St. Peter of the eighteenth century.
The bell tower
All that remains of the original monastery, the imposing bell Galilee, 43 meters high, which is similar to bell-Carolingian porches of the tenth century. It is located west of the building. wp