The Church of St Philibert, Tournus, is a medieval church, the main surviving building of a former

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

abbey An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns. The conce ...

, the Abbey of St Philibert, in

Tournus Tournus () is a commune in the Saône-et-Loire department in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in eastern France. Geography Tournus is located on the right bank of the Saône, 20 km. northeast of Mâcon on the Paris-Lyon railway. Pop ...

Saône-et-Loire Saône-et-Loire (; Arpitan: ''Sona-et-Lêre'') is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in France. It is named after the rivers Saône and Loire, between which it lies, in the country's central-eastern part. Saône-et-Loire is Bo ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. It is of national importance as an example of

Romanesque architecture Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of medieval Europe characterized by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque style, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 11th century, this lat ...

History

In 875

Charles the Bald Charles the Bald (french: Charles le Chauve; 13 June 823 – 6 October 877), also known as Charles II, was a 9th-century king of West Francia (843–877), king of Italy (875–877) and emperor of the Carolingian Empire (875–877). After a ser ...

gave Tournus to a community of monks who came to the locality with the relics of Saint Philibert. The monks had fled

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

raids on

Noirmoutier Noirmoutier (also French language, French: Île de Noirmoutier, ; br, Nervouster, ) is a tidal island off the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of France in the Vendée Departments of France, department (85). History Noirmoutier was the locatio ...

, and had previously stopped at

Saint-Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu Saint-Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu (; br, Sant-Filberzh-Deaz) is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France. It is about 400 km southwest of Paris, via Chartres, Le Mans, Angers, and Nantes. The town is twinned with the ...

. Noirmoutier was the location of the first recorded

raid on continental Europe, when raiders attacked the monastery in 799. Around 863 the monk Ermentarius wrote a history of the transfer of the monastery and the relics of Philibert of Jumièges. The abbey was damaged by a Hungarian invasion in 936/937. The abbey was closed in the seventeenth century and St Philibert became a

collegiate church In Christianity, a collegiate church is a church where the daily office of worship is maintained by a college of canons: a non-monastic or "secular" community of clergy, organised as a self-governing corporate body, which may be presided over by a ...

. Like many other churches in France, it was secularised as a

Temple of Reason A Temple of Reason (French: ''Temple de la Raison'') was, during the French Revolution, a temple for a new belief system created to replace Christianity: the Cult of Reason, which was based on the ideals of reason, virtue, and liberty. This "relig ...

during the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

worship resumed after the

Concordat of 1801 The Concordat of 1801 was an agreement between Napoleon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII, signed on 15 July 1801 in Paris. It remained in effect until 1905, except in Alsace-Lorraine, where it remains in force. It sought national reconciliation b ...

formally ended the period of dechristianisation.

Architecture

According to a tradition, a tenth-century abbot began construction of the present building. Some sources follow tradition in suggesting that construction began before 1000. However, current thinking is that the earliest parts of the church are eleventh century. It is in the early

First Romanesque One of the first streams of Romanesque architecture in Europe from the 10th century and the beginning of 11th century is called First Romanesque or Lombard Romanesque. It took place in the region of Lombardy (at that time the term encompassing ...

style of

Burgundy Burgundy (; french: link=no, Bourgogne ) is a historical territory and former administrative region and province of east-central France. The province was once home to the Dukes of Burgundy from the early 11th until the late 15th century. The c ...

, which began to use further Romanesque and early

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

styles during the beginning of the 11th century. The church is set in a fortified enclosure, and defence was evidently a factor in the design of the building. The

west West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sunset, Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic languages, German ...

front can be described as "lithic" in that it has heavy masonry walls and few windows.

Interior

The

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

is roofed with

barrel vault A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault, wagon vault or wagonhead vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The curves are ...

ing, supported on tall cylindrical columns. The barrel vault is unusual in that it is transveral: instead of one long barrel running along nave, the vault consists of multiple smaller barrels running across the nave. This arrangement helps the engineering by avoiding lateral thrust but it "is not beautiful and was never repeated."Sutton, Ian. A Survey of Western Architecture. 1999.

Conservation

The church was included in the

List of historic monuments of 1840 The List of historic monuments protected in 1840 is a list of the historic monuments of France created in 1840 by the French Commission for Historical Monuments (''Commission des monuments historiques''). It was the first protection of this type i ...

. Like others on the list, the building required conservation work which it received under the direction of the preservationist architect

Charles-Auguste Questel Charles-Auguste Questel (19 September 1807 – 30 January 1888) was a French architect and teacher. As well as designing new buildings, his projects included the preservation of historical monuments. He worked on several historical monuments i ...

References

Books

* * *

External links

First Romanesque in France, Pictures of St. Philibert at Tournus and St. Martin at Chapaize
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Philibert, Tournus Benedictine monasteries in France Christian monasteries established in the 9th century 11th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in France Churches in Saône-et-Loire Monuments historiques of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté Romanesque architecture in Burgundy