Templar Chapel in Metz: A Surviving Medieval Commandery Chapel
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Modern
- Civilizations
- Crusader, Holy Roman Empire, Knights Templar
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Chapel
On this page13 sections
History
The Templar Chapel in Metz, France, is a late Romanesque building with Gothic elements, constructed from approximately the late twelfth to the early thirteenth century by the Templars, a medieval military religious order founded to protect and support Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land. It formed part of a Templar commandery, a local administrative and residential establishment of the order, and is now the only surviving part of that complex.
Foundation and Templar administration
The Templars established themselves in Metz during the latter decades of the twelfth century. Their commandery was financed through donations, with the earliest known gift dating to 1147. This donation was associated with Gerard and Guerin de Bosanville, who took part in the Second Crusade, and with the preaching of Bernard of Clairvaux, a prominent Cistercian abbot and preacher of the period.
During construction of the chapel, Metz belonged to the prince-bishopric of Metz. In 1224, the city became a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire. Other military religious orders also operated in Metz, including the Hospitallers of Petit-Saint-Jean and the Teutonic Order of Sainte-Élisabeth. At the end of the thirteenth century, the Templar commandery moved its headquarters to the south-west of the city, near Saint-Pierre-aux-Nonnains.
Suppression and transfer to the Hospitallers
The Templar Order was dissolved in 1312, and the Templars had disappeared from Metz by about 1319. The commandery’s property was redistributed. Its buildings and part of its assets passed to the Hospitallers, also known as the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, another military religious order that inherited many Templar properties after the suppression of the Templars. Some former Templar commanders retained their titles and privileges under Hospitaller protection.
Military transformation and preservation
The construction of the Metz citadel in 1556 destroyed the Hospitaller commandery apart from a building identified as the chapter house or refectory. The chapel survived and was subsequently used by French royal troops as a storehouse for gunpowder and lead.
France placed the chapel on its first list of historic monuments in 1840. In 1859, it was threatened with demolition for the construction of a military magazine, but Prosper Mérimée, then inspector general of historic monuments, intervened. Restoration began in 1863–1864, and further work followed in 1875 after water again penetrated the building.
After the German military took over the complex in 1871, the chapel was converted in 1882 into a military telephone exchange or telegraph station. The German army sold it to the city of Metz in 1905, and another restoration took place in 1908. During the First World War, German authorities moved the altarpiece from the collegiate church of Saint-Maur at Hattonchâtel into the chapel for safekeeping while fighting devastated the village.
The chapel was restored again in 1927 and remained largely intact during the Second World War, despite the fighting in Metz in 1944. In 1957, the city leased it to the French Ministry of Defence for military chaplaincy purposes. On 9 June 1990, it regained the appearance of the original chapel of the former commandery. It currently serves as an exhibition hall.
Remains
Octagonal chapel and choir
The chapel has a central octagonal plan measuring 8.30 metres in diameter. Its principal space is linked to a rectangular choir on the eastern side. The choir is lower than the octagonal nave and ends in a small semicircular apse covered by a half-dome, a quarter-sphere-shaped vault commonly used over an apse. A rib vault, whose framework consists of intersecting stone ribs, covers the choir.
Octagonal nave
The thick walls of the octagonal space retain Romanesque features, including narrow round-headed windows. Round-headed openings are placed at mid-height in each side of the octagon. The seven outer wall sections contain shallow apsidal niches that are not visible from outside. The building’s Gothic elements include rib vaulting supported by engaged colonnettes, slender attached columns, with carved capitals.
Choir and eastern apse
The rectangular choir provides the chapel’s eastern extension and is architecturally distinct from the larger octagonal space. Its lower height, rib vault, and small semicircular apse give the eastern end a separate form within the central plan. The apse is covered by the half-dome, while the carved central keystone of the chapel depicts the dove of the Holy Spirit.
The plan is associated with architectural traditions of the Rhineland and Aachen, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and Templar central-plan architecture. The Templar chapel at Laon served as a model for the building.
Murals, windows, and carved features
Medieval murals
The interior walls were covered with murals. The original frescoes date from the first half of the fourteenth century and remain partly visible after heavy degradation. In a small niche in the southern wall of the octagon, one surviving scene shows the Virgin Mary beneath a trefoil arch. She holds a crucifix and points towards Christ. Nearby, part of the wheel associated with Saint Catherine’s martyrdom survives, together with the figure of a bishop carrying a mitre, a liturgical headdress, and a crozier, the bishop’s pastoral staff.
Twentieth-century painted decoration
Friedrich Schwarting of Hanover partially restored the murals between 1910 and 1913 under a project directed by Hermann Schaper. The church windows also date from this period and depict episodes from the life of Christ.
Funerary recesses and Templar doorway
Two later funerary recesses with trefoil arcades occupy one side of the octagon. An enfeu, a recessed arched funerary niche, forms this type of burial feature. On the exterior wall opposite the choir, the trace of an earlier round-headed vault marks the position of a vanished building that originally contained a chapter house with painted historical scenes.
A doorway beneath the former vault has a carved lintel bearing a cross pattée, whose arms widen towards their outer ends and which is strongly associated with the Templar Order. A gravestone found behind the chapel in 1861 bears a partial inscription mentioning a chaplain brother who was master of the Temple’s masons.
Former chapter house or refectory
Near or behind the chapel stood a single-storey building probably dating from the first half of the thirteenth century. It has been identified as the Templar chapter house or refectory. The building contained two aisles, a wooden ceiling, stone columns, and painted decoration. It was demolished in 1904, while fragments of its paintings survive in the Metz museum.
