Chapelle Saint-Jacques

English translation

The text above is the record as published by the Ministère de la Culture, in French. The English below is a machine translation made by TreeAlive, not by the Ministère de la Culture; it has not been checked by a person. Where the two differ, the original is the record. Report a translation error: privacy@treealive.com

History

The only surviving remnant of the first establishment of Bordeaux dedicated to the lodging of pilgrims of saint James, the foundation of which dates back to the beginning of the 12th century. Located originally outside the ramparts of the city, this hospital moreover comprised a cemetery, a chapel, a garden, and the establishment also possessed considerable landed property. Management difficulties however afflicted the hospital at the end of the Middle Ages, and the management of the latter was entrusted from 1572 onwards to the Jesuits who attached it to their college in 1573. The Jesuits were expelled in 1761 and the hospital Saint-Jacques, first attached to the College of Guyenne, saw its church sold to the architects Laclotte in the 1770s. With the Revolution, an apartment building was erected against the church whose street facade disappeared, engulfed by this new construction. The church was converted into a theatre (the Théâtre Molière) in 1792 and hosted performances until 1830 before being recovered by the fathers of Mercy who remained there until the last quarter of the 19th century. Since then the building has belonged to private individuals and currently serves as a garage.

Description

The former church comprises a single nave ended by a polygonal chevet. Its presence in the urban layout is very difficult to detect, particularly since its street facade is masked by a neo-classical apartment building. A study published in the Bulletin monumental in 2015 notes that it presents particularly exceptional proportions for the Gironde region with its single nave of eight bays of more than thirty metres long for ten wide. It comprises two small chapels to the North and South, the study of a plan drawn in the 18th century after old documents and the 1822 cadastre revealing that the North chapel was completed by another extension now disappeared, and that the South chapel was moved. The vault of its nave, dating from the 19th century, is a broken barrel vault, and that of the choir collapsed in the 2000s. The church however comprises several testimonies to its sculptured decoration from the end of the Middle Ages, as well as several elements from the 19th century