Basilique Saint-Mathurin de Larchant: A Gothic Pilgrimage Church in France
Site at a Glance
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- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- French
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page12 sections
History
Basilique Saint-Mathurin de Larchant is a Roman Catholic church in France, in the village of Larchant, dedicated to Saint Mathurin. Built in the Gothic tradition of the Île-de-France between the end of the twelfth century and the beginning of the sixteenth, it became an important pilgrimage destination associated with healing and exorcism. Although commonly called a basilica, it has not received the papal designation of minor basilica. The church belongs to the Diocese of Meaux and forms part of the Nemours missionary centre.
Saint Mathurin and the medieval pilgrimage
A medieval legend recorded in a tenth-century manuscript states that Mathurin was born at Larchant at the end of the third century to pagan parents. Bishop Polycarp instructed him in Christianity, and Mathurin became a priest at the age of twenty. According to the legend, Emperor Maximian Hercules summoned him from Gaul to exorcise the demon afflicting the emperor’s stepdaughter, Theodora. Mathurin remained in Rome for three years, where he cured the sick and performed miracles. Before dying there on November 1, he asked for his body to be returned to Larchant.
The miracles attributed to Mathurin’s tomb established the basis for a major medieval pilgrimage. Saint Mathurin became associated with the healing of madness and possession, while a relic, a bodily remain or other object linked to a saint, became an object of religious veneration. The old Route du Midi passed near Larchant, and pilgrims traveling toward Santiago de Compostela stopped at the church to honor the saint’s relics.
Elisabeth Le Riche inherited Larchant from her father, Lisiard Le Riche, around 950. At the beginning of the eleventh century, she donated Larchant to the chapter of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris with the agreement of her son, Renaud de Vendôme, bishop of Paris. A cathedral chapter was a corporate body of canons attached to a cathedral. In this case, the chapter also became Larchant’s seigneur, or territorial lord, and maintained a close connection with the village and its church until the French Revolution of 1789.
The pilgrimage was flourishing by 1324, when the canons used part of the offerings to support the clergy of Notre-Dame de Paris. Its reputation also spread through medieval chansons de geste, narrative poems celebrating heroic deeds. The large number of pilgrims helped prompt construction of the much larger church represented by the present building. Royal pilgrims included Charles IV in 1325, Louis XI in 1467, Charles VIII in 1486, Francis I in 1519 and 1541, Henry II in 1551, Henry III in 1587, and Henry IV in 1599.
Damage, decline, and revival
The pilgrimage reached its height toward the end of the Middle Ages but suffered repeated disruption. During the Wars of Religion, the sixteenth-century conflicts between Catholic and Protestant factions in France, the Chevalier du Boulay plundered the relics in October 1567. The church and village were burned in 1568. In 1585, half of the nave was abandoned to reduce repair costs, leaving the dividing wall still visible today.
Further destruction followed. Storms damaged the roof and stained-glass windows in 1608. Troops of the Baron of Entragues pillaged the village and church in 1652, strong winds destroyed half the roof in 1654, and lightning demolished the nave attic in 1674. On September 25, 1675, the collapse of the great tower’s northwest pillar brought down part of the nave. Pilgrims then became rare, and Larchant developed primarily as an agricultural village. Stones from the nave ruins were offered for sale in 1827, while the church survived in part because demolition proved too difficult.
Urgent and relatively careless repairs were carried out during the nineteenth century so that worship could resume. Prosper Mérimée classified the church as a historic monument in 1846, and it has remained protected as a listed historic monument since that year. A major restoration campaign began at the start of the twentieth century under the architect Albert Bray. Another campaign began in the early 1980s through the initiative of the Cultural Association of Larchant, supported by national, regional, departmental, and municipal authorities.
The pilgrimage disappeared after the Revolution but was revived by priests and parishioners in the early twentieth century. The tradition resumed after the First World War, and a ceremony honoring Saint Mathurin takes place on Whit Monday. In 1601, the church was also the setting for a six-week exorcism conducted in Latin, Breton, Spanish, and English. The possessed man, a baptized man named Mathurin, was made to acknowledge the relics of Saint Mathurin and his parents. The possessing spirit was said to have identified itself as Astaroth, claimed that the saint prevented it from leaving, and refused to explain the meaning of its own name.
Remains
Basilique Saint-Mathurin de Larchant is a cruciform Gothic church in the Île-de-France tradition, with a single nave, transept, and choir ending in a semicircular apse. Construction continued for slightly more than three centuries. The interior measures 57 meters in total length, including the ruined nave; the transept is 29 meters long, the vaults reach 18 meters, and the tower rises to 50 meters. Entry is through the side doors of the transept, while the surviving structure is divided from the ruined part of the nave by the wall created when half the nave was abandoned.
Choir and later chapels
Apse and choir
The choir consists of a single bay continuing into a semicircular apse, the rounded termination of a church. Its exterior has robust buttresses that stabilize the structure and allow the use of thin walls, giving the interior an especially slender treatment. The apse reflects the sobriety associated with the early Gothic phase. The interior was originally lit by two rows of tall, wide windows framed by molded archivolts, decorative bands following the curves of the arches, and resting on small columns. Each transept facade has a group of three tall windows.
Chapel of the Virgin and sacristy
From the fifteenth century onward, the architectural treatment changed with the construction of the polygonal Chapel of the Virgin and the sacristy on opposite sides of the apse. The Chapel of the Virgin has tall windows decorated with gables that formerly supported statues. Ornamented pinnacles and gargoyles add further detail to its exterior.
Tower and portals
Great tower
Construction of the massive bell tower began at the start of the thirteenth century and continued until the fifteenth. Its ground floor forms a porch open on three sides, with enormous pillars that once supported the arches of a vault no longer preserved. Three upper stories rise above it. The north and east facades remain intact, while the west facade is ruined and the south facade has completely collapsed. The failure of the northwest pillar in 1675 caused part of the nave to fall.
Portal of the Last Judgment
Under the tower porch is the Portal of the Last Judgment, whose design has analogies with portals at Notre-Dame de Paris. Its tympanum, the central field enclosed by an arch and lintel, shows Christ enthroned above and at the center, surrounded by four angels carrying censers. One angel also carries the sun and another the moon. Two other angels hold the lance and nails associated with the Passion, beside the crowned Virgin Mary and Saint John. Below them, the dead rise from their coffins.
Sculpted columns on either side of the portal once carried figures of saints. The figures were decapitated, probably during the attacks of 1567 and 1568. They are thought to represent Saint James with a basket of scallop shells, Saint Andrew with his cross, Saint Peter with his epistle book, Saint Paul with his epistle book, and Saint Stephen with a palm frond and Gospel book. A third figure on the right has been missing for centuries.
Calendar reliefs and nave entrance
Small bas-reliefs around the portal represent the months of the year through scenes of everyday labor. The surviving images show January as a man seated at a table, February as a man before a fireplace, March as a man pruning grapevines, October as a man sowing seed, November as the gathering of chestnuts, and December as a man slaughtering a pig. The other monthly scenes were removed during a modification of the portal in 1490. The nave also retains a heavily damaged portal that served as the original entrance before the great tower was built.
Surviving devotional sculpture
Inside the church is a mutilated thirteenth-century statue of Saint Mathurin. Its survival complements the church’s architectural remains and preserves a direct sculptural connection with the saint whose tomb and relics drew pilgrims to Larchant during the Middle Ages.
