The siren | ©Anecdotrip.com / CC-BY-NC-SAAn 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...