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Le Magny and its church: the fortress and its siren

The siren | Anecdotrip.com / CC-BY-NC-SA
Parish church Saint-Michel church in Le Magny

An amazing fortified church!

Guillaume's foundation

We see Saint-Michel church from a long way! That’s because they raised it on a hill.

But not only: it seems pretty massive, rough, medieval, a real little fortress! Come on, let’s visit it…

Consecrated in 1054, the church belonged to a small priory, dependency of the Benedictine abbey of Déols, mentioned for the first time in 937, as a donation of Guillaume of Aquitaine.

The church looks like a fortress, because monks fortified it in the beginning of the 15th c.

Besides, just take the time to go round the church: next to it, we have the priory’s buildings, transformed into a farm! They date back to the 12th c.

A higher soil

The church itself was restored: the nave in the 15th century, the porch and the tower-bell in the beginning of the 18th c, the roof in the 15th to replace Romanesque tiles…

However, remains from the Romanesque era are still standing: the choir, the semi-circular apse, the transept, shaped like a Latin cross.

The soil of the Romanesque part was heightened. Originally, it was 1,30 metres below the current ground!

A siren, a bull and lots of saints

In the apse: here, a limestone statue welcomes us: saint Michael struggling with the dragon (end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th c.)!

Look: the creature has two faces!

Behind the altar, we have nice capitals (end of the 11th c.) with interlacing patterns and little characters…

Did you see them? A kind of siren, a man holding a crucifer globe, saint Luke with a book in his hand and his bull next to him…

The windows frames hide remains of murals (1125-1150): saints with a halo...

About the the author

Vinaigrette
I'm fond of strolls and History, with juicy and spicy details!