Église Saint-Léger

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 church of Nouâtre, built around 1483, is a homogeneous church of sober and harmonious volume. It presents a Latin cross plan: a nave consisting of three bays whose vaulted ceilings rest on slender engaged columns, a transept consisting of two vaulted chapels opens onto the choir, whose polygonal apse is closed by a retable forming a screen for the sacristy located behind. It is covered with broad rib vaults and lit by openings surmounted by a tracery of quatrefoils. Its interest, apart from its coherence and integrity, resides in the existence on the walls of the nave of a wall painting relating the legendary life of saint Reverend, whom a local tradition claims lived and died at Nouâtre. This was not the case: his body, brought by monks from Bayeux fleeing the Normans, passed for a century through the previous church of Nouâtre now disappeared, before departing for Poitiers, then Saint-Jean-d'Angély. Inscriptions, much damaged today, explained these scenes, whose iconography is rare.