Uzès Cathedral: A Former Cathedral and Parish Church in France
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- French
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page11 sections
History
Uzès Cathedral is a former Catholic cathedral in France, dedicated to Saint Theodorit, a priest and martyr associated with Euchaita. Its present building dates chiefly from the seventeenth century, while the site preserves Romanesque remains from an earlier church and a nineteenth-century neo-Romanesque façade. The church stands on the site of a Gallo-Roman temple and served as the seat of the former Diocese of Uzès until the reorganization of the French Church in 1801.
From the Gallo-Roman site to the medieval cathedral
The first Christian church on the temple site was begun around 1090. Its Romanesque architecture was influenced by the Cluniac order, a reform movement within Western Benedictine monasticism whose churches helped spread Romanesque forms and religious practices across medieval Europe. The building was partly destroyed in 1177 during the Albigensian Crusade, a campaign in southern France against Cathar communities and their supporters, and was subsequently rebuilt.
Tradition says that the relics of Saint Theodorit were brought back from the Crusades by the lord of Uzès. This attribution remains uncertain, but the association helped shape the cathedral’s religious identity. The medieval church continued to serve the bishop and cathedral chapter, the body of clergy that assisted the bishop and administered worship and cathedral affairs, until it was destroyed during the Wars of Religion, the sixteenth-century conflicts between Catholics and Protestants in France.
Seventeenth-century reconstruction
When the medieval cathedral was destroyed, only the lower part of the Fenestrelle tower survived. A royal order dated 28 November 1637 directed that the cathedral be rebuilt and allocated 20,000 pounds for the work. The reconstruction took place between 1642 and 1663, although the final cost reached 62,000 pounds. The original allocation was intended to be raised through an eight-year tax of two sous on each pound of meat.
The rebuilding produced the chiefly seventeenth-century structure visible today. The adjacent episcopal residence was also destroyed with the medieval cathedral, but its reconstruction did not begin until 1671. The new church followed the ordered classical forms associated with the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic reform movement that followed the Protestant Reformation, and with the reign of Louis XIV.
Religious change and the end of the bishopric
After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, galleries were added in the choir for the “New Converts”, Protestants who had converted or had been officially required to convert to Catholicism. These works altered the interior to accommodate the changed conditions of worship. Much of the cathedral’s furnishing disappeared during the French Revolution, although the organ survived.
The Concordat of 1801, an agreement between Napoleonic France and the papacy that reorganized the French Church, abolished the Diocese of Uzès and its cathedral chapter. The building became a parish church in 1801, and the former diocesan territory was initially assigned to Avignon before being transferred to the Diocese of Nîmes in 1877. The choir, originally designed for episcopal worship, was substantially reduced for parish use.
Protection and later restoration
The Fenestrelle tower was listed as a historic monument in 1862, and the entire cathedral received the same protection in 1963. A neo-Romanesque façade was placed over the seventeenth-century front in 1873. The great organ, regarded as among the finest in the region, was restored in 1964 by Alfred Kern & fils.
Remains
Uzès Cathedral combines a seventeenth-century basilica with the surviving Romanesque Fenestrelle tower and a nineteenth-century façade. The interior is organized around three aisles, galleries, and a transept, the cross-arm that intersects the nave. Rib vaulting, a vaulted ceiling supported by intersecting masonry ribs, rises to approximately 18 metres. The building’s different phases remain legible in its exterior stonework, tower, interior fittings, and furnishings.
Exterior and Romanesque tower
The present façade was added in 1873 over the earlier seventeenth-century front. Its stone differs from that of the older building, and its sculpture and moulding are relatively shallow. An arcade rests on columns, while three windows, two side blind arches, and a large upper blind arch containing two round-headed windows structure the front. Large blind ornaments fill the gable and the side fields. Saint Peter holding the keys and Saint Paul occupy the side niches, and the tympanum depicts the Virgin and Child with Saints Firmin and Ferréol, both described as sixth-century bishops of Uzès.
Fenestrelle tower
The Fenestrelle tower is approximately 42 metres high and functions as the bell tower. It is a cylindrical Romanesque campanile, or bell tower, in the Lombard style associated with northern Italian Romanesque traditions. Partly reconstructed in the seventeenth century, it retains its original style and lower levels, which survived the destruction of the medieval cathedral. The tower was shortened by two storeys. Its name refers to the numerous paired openings arranged through its stages, and its roof is covered with yellow and green glazed tiles. It is described as the only round or cylindrical church tower in France.
Interior, galleries, and choir
The interior has three aisles, galleries, and a transept, with rib vaulting reaching about 18 metres. Its severe classical character reflects Counter-Reformation architecture and the reign of Louis XIV. The galleries have richly worked grey-and-gold wrought-iron balconies. Additional galleries in the choir were installed after 1685 for the “New Converts”. Chapels around the choir retain traces of painted decoration on their ceilings and walls. The north side is associated with Saint Firmin, while the south side is dedicated to Saint Theodorit.
Altar and apse
The white-marble communion table dates from 1891 and bears the arms of the pope, the bishop, the chapter, and the cathedral. Paul Foussat donated it. The marble high altar dates from 1827 and follows the model of the altar in Saint-Pierre church in Avignon. The choir floor was laid in 1936, and a later altar faces the congregation. A light-coloured celebrant’s stall corresponds to the bishop’s former throne, which has been removed.
Behind the high altar in the apse, the rounded end of the church, hangs Lair’s monumental 1827 painting of the Descent from the Cross, donated by the government. It is surmounted by a triangle representing the Trinity and the Hebrew name of God. Decoration from the Restoration period obscures the central window.
Organ and bells
The great organ has a painted and gilded double seventeenth-century case with its original shutters. Finely carved in ash-grey wood and partly gilded, the case is described as exceptionally rare in France. The instrument contains 45 stops and 2,722 pipes. During Lent, when organ playing was not permitted, the shutters were formerly closed. Alfred Kern & fils restored the organ in 1964.
Four swinging bells serve the cathedral. Three are housed in the Fenestrelle tower: a 789-kilogram bell cast in 1810, Yvona-Anna-Maria-Aloysia-Julia weighing 427 kilograms and cast by Paccard of Annecy in 1932, and Jeanna-Magdalena-Ferdinanda-Clementia weighing 192 kilograms and also cast by Paccard in 1932. A fourth bell, weighing 110 kilograms and cast in 1600, hangs in a small turret above the western façade on its left side.
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