Collégiale des Roches-Tranchelion: A Collegiate Church and Castle Ruins in France
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
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- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- French
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page9 sections
History
The Collégiale des Roches-Tranchelion in France, at Avon-les-Roches, is a sixteenth-century collegiate church built by Lancelot de la Tousche on the site of a fifteenth-century castle chapel. The church was created as both a place of worship and a family burial church, while the estate became associated with the Tranchelion, la Tousche, Montgomery, and Durfort families.
From Les Roches to Roches-Tranchelion
The estate was formerly known as Les Roches. Its name changed as ownership passed between families, although the surviving record of its proprietors is incomplete. The Tranchelion family came from Pierre-Buffière in Limousin. Three traditions explain the family name, and all connect it with the cutting off of a lion’s head.
Before 1365, Huguenin, also called Hugues, de Tranchelion married Jeanne Payen or Payenne. Through her mother, Jeanne held the fief of Palluau, a feudal estate. On 12 November 1365, Huguenin acknowledged that he held the lordship of Palluau through his wife.
A descendant, Guillaume de Tranchelion, later expanded the family’s position in Touraine. Lord of Palluau and chamberlain to Kings Charles VI and Charles VII, he married Guillemette Horric, heiress of the Roches fief at Avon-les-Roches, around 1425. Guillaume took possession of the estate and assumed its title, after which it became known as Les Roches-Tranchelion.
Guillaume de Tranchelion and Charles VII
Guillaume built the castle and established a chapel there in 1440, dedicating it to Mary Magdalene. On 4 January 1441, Charles VII, king of France from 1422 to 1461, authorized him to strengthen the fortifications.
The castle acquired a direct place in the political history of the later Hundred Years’ War, the conflict in which France and England contested the French crown and territories. Charles VII held his council there on 17 and 31 July 1449, with Guillaume acting as host and member of the council. After the council concluded that the English had broken the truce, it resolved to resume the war. The campaign opened with the successful siege of Rouen, continued with the recovery of Normandy in 1450, and contributed to the conflict’s end in 1453.
Charles VII stayed at Les Roches-Tranchelion in 1446, 1447, 1449, 1458, 1459, 1460, and 1461. The castle was one of his favored hunting places. Local tradition also places Charles VII and his favorite, Agnès Sorel, together at several castles in Touraine and Berry, including Les Roches-Tranchelion, although this association is uncertain.
The la Tousche lordship
Hardouin de la Tousche held the estate by 1469 and had made a feudal acknowledgment concerning it on 7 February 1468. Under Louis XI, who ruled France from 1461 to 1483, he served as a royal pantler, an officer responsible for aspects of the royal table. He later entered the service of René of Anjou, the fifteenth-century prince known as Good King René, and became maître d’hôtel to René’s second wife, Jeanne de Laval. Louis XI visited Les Roches-Tranchelion on 26 July 1473.
Hardouin’s son Lancelot succeeded him in 1508 as lord of Les Roches-Tranchelion. Around 1510, Lancelot began replacing the castle chapel with a collegiate church. The construction continued for about fifteen years. Martin de Beaune, archbishop of Tours, consecrated the completed church in 1527 in honor of God, the Virgin Mary, and Saint John the Baptist.
A collegiate church is served by an organized body of clergy rather than solely by a monastic community. At Roches-Tranchelion, five chaplains formed this college. The church served the family’s funerary needs while also functioning as a parish church. The fief and church, which were also called Roches-l’Archidiacre, later came under the châtellenie of L’Île-Bouchard, a territorial jurisdiction administered from a castle under a lord’s authority.
Montgomery and later owners
Lancelot de la Tousche died before 11 March 1539. His son, also named Lancelot and known as François, inherited the lordship. In 1550, his daughter Isabeau married Gabriel de Lorges, count of Montgomery, transferring the lordship to Montgomery through the marriage.
Gabriel de Lorges was captain of the Scottish Guard of Henry II. During a tournament in Paris in 1559, he unintentionally caused the king’s death. Fearing retaliation from Catherine de Medici, the queen consort and later regent of France, he quickly sold Les Roches-Tranchelion to Jacques Ferrant, clerk of the provostship of Loudun, while retaining an option to repurchase it. Gabriel then went into exile in England; his later return to France ended in his death.
The Montgomery family eventually recovered the property. Marguerite de Montgomery de Lorges, the granddaughter of Gabriel and Isabeau, transferred her rights to her husband, Jacques de Durfort, marquis of Duras, whom she married in 1603. Their descendants retained the estate until Jacques-Henri de Durfort de Duras, marshal and duke, sold it on 8 March 1683 to Gabriel-Henri de Beauvau, lord of Crissé and Montgoger.
Through inheritance and marriage, ownership later passed to Henriette-Louise de Beauvau, Hubert de Choiseul-Chevigny-La Rivière, César Gabriel de Choiseul, first duke of Praslin, and Renaud César de Choiseul, second duke of Praslin. Renaud César held the estate until 1791.
Decline, rediscovery, and protection
The collegiate church suffered during the Wars of Religion, the sixteenth-century conflicts between Catholics and Protestants in France. From around 1600 it was neglected and received irregular use until the French Revolution, after which it was completely abandoned.
In 1966, volunteers landscaping the surroundings uncovered 214 gold coins weighing one kilogram in total. The coins had been buried after 1619. They were first deposited at the Cabinet des Médailles of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and some were dispersed through the Hôtel Drouot in 1968.
The castle and collegiate church ruins were classified as historic monuments by an order of 9 May 1914, as privately owned property. The association Les Amis des Roches Tranchelion was founded on 14 December 2013 to promote the collegiate church culturally and for tourism. Concern has also centered on the condition and safety of the ruins, especially the apparently vulnerable vault over the northern transept.
Remains
The site combines scattered remains of a fifteenth-century castle with the more substantial ruins of a sixteenth-century collegiate church. The castle occupied the earlier defensive foundation, while the church was built in pale tuffeau, a relatively soft limestone widely used in the Loire region. The surviving church rises on a Latin-cross plan, the traditional arrangement of a long nave crossed by a transept, and its vaults reach more than twelve metres.
Castle remains
The castle survives in several wall sections and the remains of a corner tower, much of which is concealed by vegetation. A cadastral plan from 1831 already showed only three wall sections and two towers. These fragments nevertheless indicate the approximate scale of the original building. The church was constructed over the substructure of this earlier castle, whose lower rooms were equipped with loopholes.
Collegiate church
The church is oriented from west to east. Its broad nave contains two bays, has no side aisles, and is covered by rib vaulting. Openings in the south wall supplied light. Beyond the crossing, the church ends in an apse, the terminal part of the building. The northern arm of the transept is accompanied by a hexagonal stair tower, while a vaulted crypt lies beneath the choir.
The western entrance façade is dominated by a large arcade extending through its full height and occupying about one-third of the façade’s width. Its ornament brings together Flamboyant Gothic, a late Gothic style known for elaborate tracery, and early Renaissance decoration. On each side of the arcade, two registers are separated vertically by pilasters bearing lozenges and rosettes. Each upper register contains two profile medallions and a rosette with acanthus leaves.
Seraphim, or heavenly beings, fill the compartments of the archivolt and are surmounted by shells. Beneath the apex, a high-relief image shows God the Father seated on a throne, wearing a tiara and long beard, blessing with his right hand and holding a terrestrial globe on his left knee. Two standing angels accompany him. An oculus below the relief preserves the beginnings of a vanished feature, possibly a rose window. Numerous statue niches remain in the façade, most now empty.
The church’s style and decoration are broadly contemporary with the Sainte-Chapelle at Champigny-sur-Veude, the chapel of Ussé Castle, and Saint John the Baptist Church at Montrésor.
