An unexpected discovery

Recently we visited an artisan in Bonnay, who produces miniature wooden things. Not only does he make tiny little toys and elaborate knickknacks, very popular in the sixties to be displayed in type cases, no, next to his workshop he has a small museum where he displays all the items he has made in the past. He keeps one specimen of everything he has ever fabricated for this museum.

Everything moves!

One of the cutest things for sale at the moment is a tiny workbench of not higher than 2 inches, of which the vice actually can be operated by a thin wooden handle. Apart from items for sale he has a beautiful collection of music boxes, a merry-go-round, a clock (of which the only part not made of wood is the protective glass casing), a large wall cabinet with many small doors carrying the names of professions; opening a door will bring a violin maker into action, etc. etc.
This museum is certainly worth a visit, and to get an impression of the work of Joël and Maryse Dedianne, click here.

The old bell tower (left)

One of the walls of the museum is covered with information about Bonnay and surroundings. A picture of a piece of wall in opus spicatum caught my eye, the only part still existing of the original Romanesque church of Bonnay. Next to it a blow-up of an old picture postcard was displayed, showing the bell tower of that church next to the new church. The tower still existed around 1935.
I am now 100% convinced that the piece of wall, about which I once wrote a blog, indeed belonged to a church one day!


Bonnay is at cycling distance from La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Church spotting

L'Abergement-de-Cuisery

I have kept myself busy for quite some time now composing an interactive map of (amongst others) Saône-et-Loire, which enables the user to easily spot where exactly to find Romanesque churches. Basis for this job was the inventory of Romanesque churches in Burgundy to be found on "Le site sur l'Art Roman en Bourgogne".
That sounds simpler then it is in reality.
Firstly one starts off with a place name and preferably a postal code.
Those two pieces of information will locate at least the village or the town quite accurately in Google maps or in Geoportail, the French equivalent of Google Earth.

Chapaize

For villages one has to start looking for a church on the satellite map. A church is often recognisable (but not always!) from its cross shaped plan, from the fact that a church is often (more or less) orientated along a west-east axis, and from the often semicircular chevet which closes off the body of the church on the east side. If the map gives street names, a street name contaning the word "église" is a give-away as well. An excellent example of such a church is the one in L'Abergement-de-Cuisery.
Another give-away is that lots of churches are located on or next to a graveyard, like the church in Chapaize.

Cathédrale - Autun

That not all churches are to be found so easily can be seen from the aerial picture of Autun Cathedral. The orientation is more north-south than west-east, it does not show a clear cross shaped plan and the semicircular chevet can hardly be recognised on the picture. Fortunately Google maps locates the church for you when you enter "Autun Cathedral" in the search window.

Trivy

Another interesting example is the church in Trivy. This church is easily recognisable as a church, however, it is even more clearly north-south orientated than Autun Cathedral. The eastern arm of the cross has a semicircular ending. This church was once a "normal" church, and orientated west-east. The present semicircular chapel was once the chevet of the church; when the church became too small the nave was demolished, and a new nave was built in north-south direction because there was more space available than in the "correct" direction. the old chevet hence became a side chapel.

Chapelle Saint-Nicolas - Autun

A chapel is often even more difficult to find. It is quite often rectangular, hence not having a semicircular chevet, and the orientation is sometimes random. This is clearly the case with the Chapelle Saint-Nicolas in Autun. Again, searching in Google maps for a street name or for "Chapelle Saint-Nicolas", or asking somebody who has sufficient knowledge or literature will solve this problem.

IGN zoom level 1 - Chazelle

Ordinary road maps can also be of help. The Michelin road maps and the IGN walking maps indicate churches quite accurately, showing the researcher at least on which side of a road or of a village one can find the church. The aforementioned site Geopotail.fr offers even better options. When starting up this site it offers a satellite map; however, in the lefthand menu it offers a variety of maps to choose from. The first option is the IGN map. To illustrate the use of Geoportail I have chosen to look for the church of Chazelle, because I can find this church in real life with my eyes closed.

IGN zoom level 2 - Chazelle

When I enter "71460 Chazelle, Cormatin" in the search window, I end up at zoom level 1. the picture shows roughly where the church can be found in relation to the main roads.
Zooming in further, I end up on the ordinary IGN walking map.
This zoom level 2 shows more accurately where the church is, although at this scale one can only pinpoint the church quickly when one knows from zoom level 1 where to look.

IGN zoom level 3 - Chazelle

Zooming in even further to level 3 shows the church very clearly, when one knows that grave yards are coloured violet, and churches are coloured purple. Once this far, Chazelle church can easily be traced on the satellite picture as well.

Satellite picture - Chazelle

Most of the above I have found out by trial and error. Certainly when I started off with these maps like the one of Saône-et-Loire I had to ask Eduard van Boxtel, the webmaster of "Le site sur l'Art Roman in Bourgogne" many a question concerning the location of certain churches.
But, at the end of the day both of us can say that together we have cracked the system!

Chazelle church can also be found easily by asking for it at the owners of La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

The Beaujolais revisited

The last time we were in the Beaujolais was not just to visit some Romanesque churches; we were also on a pilgrimage to Clochemerle. And because the ability of a human being to absorb Romanesque churches is indeed limited, we decided to leave the remaining churches worth a visit in the area for what they were, and simply return some other time.
So on a fine day we packed the car and drove again to the Beaujolais area. The first port of call was Beaujeu, the "capital" of the Beaujolais. The travel guide indicated that the bell tower of the Saint-Nicoals in Beaujeu (1130) was something special, and that certainly turned out to be true.

Clocher - Beaujeu

From Beaujeu we continued our quest to the north, with Avenas as the first stop after Beaujeu. The old roman road connecting Autun with Lyon runs throug this picturesque village, which has a 12th century church, the Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption. The church itself is interesting, but what makes it really worth the detour is the white limestone altar. The front shows Christ, seated in a mandorla with on the four corners the tetramorph.
On each side of the mandorla 6 apostles are shown seated. The sides of the altar show scenes from the life of Mary (left hand side) and a depiction of the donor (right hand side), possibly King Louis VII, although the inscription at the bottom does not mention him.

Altar - Avenas

The last two churches, those of Ouroux and Saint-Mamert are not even mentioned in my Michelin guide, hence I cannot say much more about them than that these are nice churches.
The Saint-Antoine in Ouroux has some interesting arcatures in the apse. The original nave seems to have been replaced by a new one.

Arcature - Ouroux

The Saint-Jean-Baptiste in Saint-Mamert preserves, with the exception of the nave, its original state. The old nave was wider, which is obvious when one considers one of the bricked-up passages berrichons. I found a brochure in the church about its history, hence the accurate information about the date of construction.

Passage berrichon - Saint-Mamert

An overview of a number of churches in the Beaujolais is given on this map.

And again we managed to do it, during this second trip through the area: driving through lush vineyards, and returning home without having drunk even one sip of Beaujolais wine!

For our own website, click here.

The Beaujolais

The Beaujolais is outside France well known for its wines, in particular for its Beaujolais Nouveau which is promoted abroad each year with vigour.

Double identity

Beaujolais is also well known in France, however, I think that many Frenchmen will associate the Beaujolais area first with the book Clochemerle, and only in second instance with the wine region. Clochemerle is the title of a book by Gabriel Chevallier set in the fictive village of the same name in the Beaujolais. But is it really fictive?
Rumour has it that Chevallier had modelled Clochemerle after the real village Vaux-en-Beaujolais. He not only used the lay-out of the village, but he also used the characters of some of the villagers. Another rumour had it that in some cases he did not even bother to change the names of the villagers!

Urinal with trompe l'oeil in the background

Since I have read the book (with pleasure) at least 3 times, in English, Dutch and French, it seemed like a good idea to combine a visit to some Romanesque churches in the area with a pilgrimage to Vaux-en-Beaujolais. On entering the village it becomes very clear that the rumours are not really rumours. This impression was reinforced when we saw the village square. In the middle of it a public urinal had been erected as an homage to Chevallier, similar to the one that played a main role in the book and the building of which split the village into two camps. Overlooking the square stands a building on which a trompe l'oeil has been painted showing scenes from the book.

The fine bell tower of Vaux-en-Beaaujolais

In a word, Vaux-en-Beaujolais ís Clochemerle, and obviously the village does not mind to use the similarity between the two villages to attract some tourists.
Although this blog is more about reality and fiction than about Romanesque architecture (which should be the subject of the blogs), even in Vaux-en-Beaujolais one can find traces of the Romanesque period. The local church has a fine bell tower, an interesting portal that gives the impression to have been re-employed when the facade was renewed and two (not very common in this area) passages berrichons.

A re-employed portal?

During our round trip we also visited Saint-Etienne-la-Varenne, Saint-Georges-de-Reneins, Salles-Arbuissonnas-en-Beaujolais and Belleville.
Certainly the last village boasts a beautiful church, not in the least because of the stunning sculpted columns.
The semicircular engaged columns adorning the nave appeared to have, halfway between the column base and the capital, strange reliefs, showing human or animal figures. The apse also has some beautifully carved pilasters.

View on choir, apse and passages berrichons

For a detailed map showing some of the churches in the Beaujolais, click here.

Even though we did not drink one sip of local wine during our trip, this particular visit appeared to leave an excellent impression of the area.
The Beaujolais lies at less than an hour's drive from La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Old, older, ancient

This spring the population of Cluny and other people interested were given the opportunity to have a look at the most recent discoveries in Cluny's former abbey church. A huge team of archaeologists works there, day in day out, year in, year out, discovering more and more of the remains of Cluny III, this immense building demolished around the year 1800.

Grand portail - Musée Ochier Cluny

Although not part of this year's tour, trying to fit together the tiny bits and pieces left over from the "Grand Portail" was one of the chores of previous years. This portail was one of the highlights of Romanesque architecture and sculpture, until an explosion blew the portail to smithereens in 1810. Whatever has been saved and could be located can now be admired in the Musée Ochier in Cluny.

This year's tour emphasized heavily on the discovery and restoration of the lavabo (a covered area with hand wash basins in use by the monks - they utilized them before a service), and of the pedestal of the altar of Cluny II, the predecessor of its much bigger sister Cluny III.

Petit cloître - Ensam Cluny

The picture shows a corridor, known as the "petit cloître". This is the former 18th century chapter house, at the side of which a number of columns of the medieval chapter house were found (the recesses on the right hand side). Behind the low gate lies the sanctuary of Cluny II.

This sanctuary once possessed some relics of the apostles Peter and Paul, of whom the church carried the names. The remains of these apostles, who play a major role in the perception of the Roman-Catholics, is the reason why Cluny became a very important place of pilgrimage.

Sanctuaire Cluny II

The conductor of the tour, the administrateur or head of the archaeologists, put quite a bit of emphasis on the friction that exists between the National Monument Body on one hand and the town council of Cluny, the Haras (National Stud) and the Ensam (a very prestigious university) on the other hand, and how the skirmishes between those parties are solved by giving and taking a little. Each of those bodies either owns or uses a certain part of the area occupied by Cluny III. If only North Korea and the USA could follow their example....

Lavabo - Cluny

Never give up the first time

North-west of Saint-Gengoux-le-National one can find some villages with interesting churches, such as Saint-Martin-du-Tartre, Genouilly and Germagny. The hamlet Maizeray, near Saint-Martin-du-Tartre, hosts a former church according to Le site sur l'Art Roman en Bourgogne. After we had seen the church in Saint-Martin-du-Tartre, and before we carried on with our sightseeing tour it seemed logical to drive through Maizeray in search of that church.

Was this priory the church I was looking for?

Not all hamlets around here are tiny. Some, like this one, are even bigger than the commune they fall under. After a trip along all the roads entering and leaving the village we still had not spotted anything slightly resembling a church. But luck and chance sometimes lend a helping hand. Just when we were about to give up we saw a young man doing some work outside his house. And that is sheer luck, because most of these places are deserted when you want someone. We asked him for a church or the remains there of, and at first instant he referred to the church of saint-Martin-du-Tartre. We told him that we had just seen that one, so he went inside to check with his girl friend.

The oratoire in Maizeray

When he came back he told us that there had been a priory in Maizeray once, and that the remains of that building were owned by the neighbour on the other side of the road. That neighbour was not in, but this guy knew how to enter the premises without breaking and entering through a non-locked gate, and in we went. And that is how we found the remains of an old priory. After I had taken some pictures there, we went off to visit the church of Genouilly, which turned out to be a very interesting one.
When we came home I contacted the webmaster of "Le site sur l'Art Roman en Bourgogne", who replied promptly. He did not know what the church looked like, or in what state it was, but he was quite adamant that the church was near the oratoire in the village. He even sent me a photo of this oratoire, which to me looked like a cross between a war memorial and one of those road chapel one sees a lot in Germany. In any case, the priory was not what he was looking for, and that is why I put Maizeray for the time being on hold.

The remains of a church wall?

Not long after this we made another trip along a number of interesting churches in that part of the world, amongst them the ruin of Le Puley, and again we passed through Maizeray. This time we knew what the oratoire looked like, and it turned out to be not difficult to find. Eduard had more or less suggested that a wall which was now part of the oratoire might well have belonged to the church we were looking for. In those instants the boy scout (which I never was!) surfaces, and looking around there the following matters were brought to light.

Cadole or chapel?

1. Behind the semicircular wall there were several traces of rubble, which might well be the remains of a wall.

2. In front of the oratoire there was a cadole (a semicircular agricultural shed, often built in dry stone) as you can find by the dozen in the fields around here. Someone with an overabundance of fantasy could see the remains of a chapel in this thing.

3. Finally we found, near the oratoire some sort of milestone with strange inscriptions. With my ever present fantasy I could recognise the papal keys in the coat of arms of Cluny.

Mile stone? Papal keys?

There was not much more to see there, and after having duly photographed every stone that might have any relevance, we got into the car, left the parking area near the oratoire, and turned into the road leading home. And that is where it happened; from the corner of my eye I spotted a church window in the facade of a house standing at the bottom of the knoll the oratoire was on. I shouted stop, the driver made an emergency stop, and we were able to photograph this Romanesque gem, in able to preserve it for posterity.
The moral of this story : don't give up too easily, at the end of the day it is dogged that does it!

Practical information (courtesy of Eduard van Boxtel) : Church Saint-Pierre in Genouilly, 11th century, 3*
Church Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption in Germagny, 12th century, 3*
Former abbey (Maison Chaumont) in Germagny, 12th century, ?*
Former church (ruin) Saint-Christophe in Le Puley, 12th century, 4*
Former church (habitat) Saint-? in Maizeray (Saint-Martin-du-Tartre), ?th century, 0*
Church Saint-Martin in Saint-Martin-du-Tartre, 11th century, 3*

For our own website, click here. 

Found, the former church of Maizeay!

Announcement

Since early August 2013 the original URL to the site "Le site sur l'Art Roman en Bourgogne" is no longer valid. In various blogs and on the interactive maps of Romanesque churches in Burgundy I rather abundantly refer to this website; obviously these links do not work anymore either. The problems around that site have been solved; click here to find the new "Le site sur l'Art Roman en Bourgogne". The links on my maps have been changed accordingly.

Again, killing two birds with one stone

Pierreclos

Just like the chapel in the previous blog, this one also belongs to a castle. Although not as stunningly located as Berzé-le-Châtel, Pierreclos is certainly worth a visit, and not only for of the castle. The chapel on the castle grounds is a jewel of Romanesque art. The castle lies outside the village, about 1 km south of it.
We had also visited this château previously, years ago. In those days one had to take a guided tour, and a wine tasting was also included in the tour. Even though the caves are beautiful (Pierreclos, like Berzé-le-Châtel grows its own wine), we were not very impressed with their wines. Nowadays (2013) they have a in my opinion a better system. There is no longer a guided tour, and one can choose to buy just an entrance ticket (€ 7.50), just a dégustation (€ 3.00) or a combination (€ 9.00).

The chapel

Needless to say that we went for the first option. Our first port of call was the chapel, which has been decorated from top to bottom in the 19th century. Even though they also painted the Romanesque capitals at the same time, the colour combination of those fits in quite well with the rest of the chapel. The capitals are very interesting, and show a mix of floral, human and animal motifs.
A number of rooms of the castle can be visited; visiting the donjon and the view from there are certainly worth the climb, and also the wine cellars are worth a visit. The arms room has a coat of mail (a replica I assume) that visitors can try on, and only trying to lift the blooming thing almost gave me a slipped disc...

For a number of pictures of Pierreclos, click here

Practical information (courtesy of Eduard van Boxtel) :
Former chapel Saint-? (castle chapel) in Pierreclos, 12th century, 3*

For our own website, click here.

Two capitals

A two storey chapel

Berzé-le-Châtel

In this part of Burgundy there are quite a few chapels situated inside a castle or on the castle grounds. An earlier blog was dedicated to Sercy, and although Sercy has an interesting castle, it is no match for that of Berzé-le-Châtel, high towering over the surrounding landscape.
We had seen the château a long time ago, but neither of us remembered having seen the chapel that was mentioned on Le site sur l'Art Roman en Bourgogne. Reason enough to go back one day.

The chapel

Again this château is private property, and there are only a restricted number of spaces to be visited. Despite this the castle is worth the visit, if only for the explanations of how such a castle was operated, for the splendid views and for the beautiful gardens. This time (we had asked this implicitly) the chapel was open. It was originally a chapel with two storeys, but of the stair leading to the top floor only the bottom steps were still intact. And from what I could gather, the top part had been partially destroyed and filled with earth. Unless of course the top storey, under the merlons simply had been a very low room. Originally the lower chapel had no windows.

For those visiting this area, this castle is certainly a must, and besides, the Chapelle des Moines in Berzé-la-Ville with its beautiful frescos is nearby as well. Unfortunately, inside that chapel photographing is not allowed.

To get an impession of both Berzés, click here, here and here.

Practical information (courtesy of Eduard van Boxtel) :
Church Notre-Dame-de-la-Purification in Berzé-la-Ville, 11th century, 0*
Former chapel Saint-? (Chapelle des moines) in Berzé-la-Ville, 11th century, 5*
Former chapel Saint-Sébastien (castle chapel) in Berzé-le-Châtel, 10th century, 3*

For our own website, click here.

The chapel, interior

Don't you have anything better to do???

As I did describe in a previous blog, I have been busy for quite a while composing an interactive map of department 71 (Saône-et-Loire), containing all romanesque buildings in this area.

Saône-et-loire (71)

In the mean time however I have extended my action radius to the other departments of Burgundy as well, and although not 100% ready, I now have maps available for the whole of Burgundy. It seemed logical to stick to the set-up of Eduard van Boxtel's website, and that is exactly what I did. And, as usual with these sort of chores, the final product differs quite a bit from the first set-up.

Côte-d'Or (21)

The status at this moment in time:
Saône-et-Loire (71) is ready. Everything that is found on van Boxtel's site can simply be found on this map. The left hand menu gives the place names in alphabetical order. By zooming in or out one can easily see whether there are any more buildings in the vicinity of the place name, and if yes, how interesting they are. For that purpose I used the rating system of van Boxtel. In order not to duplicate blogs I have incorporated the "Instructions for use" of the maps in my "Glossary of romanesque Archirtecture". The link here after gives direct access to the "Instructions for Use for Department 71" (these instructions are however also valid for the remaning departments))

Nièvre (58)

The link to the maps themselves is given below:


Interactive map Saône-et-Loire (71)

Interactive map Côte-d'Or (21)

Interactive map Nièvre (58)

Interactive map Yonne (89)

Yonne (89)

Côte d'Or (21), Nièvre (58) and Yonne (89) are now also completely ready.

Slow and steady wins the race

Eduard van Boxtel, the moving spirit behind Le site sur l'Art Roman en Bourgogne manages a database with buildings that are or might be Romanesque, but not all these building can be found on his website.

Is that tiny window high up a maybe a church window?

Entries in his database marked with a question mark do not appear on his site unless the question mark is replaced by a positve "yes, this is Romanesque", or "yes, this building really exists". Concerning a remark about Romanesque churches within our Postal Code area (71460, 34 communes, hence a multiple of 34 hamlets), I received an email from which I quote:

"Confrançon is also a question mark. I do not have a picture, but it has been described in the list of Alain Guerreau which I passed on to you earlier. He says :'it is a chapel comparable to Ougy, Chapelle', but I can't believe that. It is possibly a former church, now habitat. Maybe you can do something with this information?"

No, not really. We often drive through this hamlet, but we had never spotted anything church like. One day we drove through there slower than usual, and turned into the few side streets there are. At the edge of the village we saw a man and asked him whether he knew anything about a church in Cortevaix, but he referred us to the church in the commune of Cortevaix. We reported defeat to van Boxtel, and that was it. We thought...

Or maybe this one?

Until I was looking on the internet, in search of a completely different church. There I stumbled on the site Observatoire du Patrimoine Religieux, which mentioned quite a few churches of which the only entry I knew of came from van Boxtel. And Confrançon was mentioned here as well, making it more likely that we simply had missed this church.
And again, one fine day we drove through Confrançon, but this time we parked the car there and systematically walked down every street and alley in the village. The satellite picture shows that Confrançon may be small, but also that is has quite a few buildings. Extra difficulty was that OPR described the status of the church as a ruin, and that van Boxtel could not produce any other leads than he already had done. So we marched through the village, peeking over garden walls, avoiding barking and possibly biting dogs, hoping to find a heap of rubble, or even better, a few walls with at least some window openings....

The former church of Confrançon

We had investigated all the gardens and buildings in Confrançon, except for the last couple of houses along the D14 direction Cortevaix, when Sue literally at the one but last house in the top of the gable spotted a small window with what could well be a statue of the Virgin Mary, and when I, coming from the other side in the other gable spotted a bigger window opening with a round arch and a square window. Had we struck gold?
When I looked at the facade Sue had found, I saw another big door opening, also with a round arch. And while I was taking pictures, the owner came out, asking what we were looking for. She was curious and possibly a bit worried as well. However, when we told her that we were looking for the church of Confrançon, she confirmed that this was the former church. She had bought half the church, her neighbour owned the other half. She also told us that the old church bell was now displayed in the church of Cortevaix.
Who would still like to deny that slow and steady wins the race?

Practical information (courtesy of Eduard van Boxtel) :
Former church (habitat) Saint-? in Confrançon (Cortevaix), 12th century, 0*

For our own website, click here.

The bell of Confrançon in the church of Cortevaix

A chance hit

After having been to a food fair (I must say, it sounds better in French: Marché des Plaisirs Gourmands) in Mâcon we decided to visit a church in that corner; indeed the church (not) described two blogs ago, the Saint-Denis in Saint-Maurice-de-Satonnay. It was going to be the first but certainly not the last time we found that door closed.

De Chapelle Sait-Benoît in Les Renauds

Between Mâcon and Saint-Maurice-de-Satonnay we drove through the hamlet Les Renauds in the commune of Charbonnières, near Mâcon's golf court.
In this village we found, along the road side, a residence of which one half still strongly resembled a church or chapel.
This happened to be, and I quote Wikipedia, maybe not the oldest, but certainly one of the oldest still existing Romanesque chapels in Burgundy, dedicated to Saint-Benoît. Wikipedia mentions the year 960, just after the construction of Cluny abbey.
The chapel has a bell-gable like one sees often in the south of France, a clocher à peigne.
During this trip we did not find what we were looking for, but at least we had found something else, and something unexpected.

Practical information (courtesy of Eduard van Boxtel) :
Former chapel (habitat) Saint-Benoît in Les Renauds (Charbonnnières), 10th century, 0*

For our own website, click here.

De clocher à peigne

A fortress within a fortress

When you are the owner of a registered monument, you have the obligation to open your property to the public. You are however, allowed to ask for an entrance fee, and you are more or less free to determine the opening dates and times.

Château and chapelle

For example, the remains of the oldest existing church in Cluny, the Saint-Odilon, are inside someone's residence. In the past, the owner possibly had applied for a subsidy for a restauration, and opens her entrance hall, where a few columns, capitals and arches can be seen, to the public on the two European Heritage Days per year, at a modest entrance fee of 1 or 2 € per person.
In La Chapelle-de-Bragny the castle is privately owned, and within the castle walls one finds a fortified chapel. The set-up is not dissimilar to that of Bezorney (see previous blog). La Chapelle-de-Bragny also once was a doyenné of the abbey of Cluny.
This château has very restricted opening periods. Château as well as church or chapel are open in the afternoon from 1-14 July and from 1-30 September, at a fee of 4 € per person.

The chapel

In my innocence I assumed that the village was named after the chapel, but that is not the case. The Lords of Bragny had as a family name de la Chapelle, and that is where the place name comes from. The church is a beautiful example of early Romanesque architecture. Most likely the church, of which only the apse still stands, was built by a Lombard master builder.
Characteristic are the Lombard bands inside and outside, and the "frise de dents d'engrenage" (saw tooth frieze, my own translation).
During the middle ages there were quite some conflicts between the various Lords, such as the Lords de la Chapelle and the Lords d'Huxelles-Brancion, and in that period the church was fortified to protect the villagers once the Lords were feuding again.

Lombard band and saw tooth frieze

Anyway, our local paper (Le Journal de Saône-et-Loire) publishes every Friday a supplement with all the exhibitions, festivities etc. in the area for the coming week. Ironically this supplement is called Samedi & Cie, dating back to the time when it was indeed published on Saturday. We buy the newspaper every Friday, and that is the reason I found out when the chapel and castle were temporarily opened to the public.
And I certainly did not regret heeding that call!

For a few more pictures of castle and chapel, click here.


Practical information (courtesy of Eduard van Boxtel) :
Former chapel Saint-? (castle chapel) in La Chapelle-de-Bragny, 11th century, 3*

For our own website, click here.