The Saint-Léger de Cheylade Church, in Cheylade, a small French commune of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, is a Romanesque religious edifice erected in the 11th century, ruined during the Hundred Years' War, rebuilt and remodeled several times between the 15th and 17th centuries, and touched up again in the 19th century.
Consecrated to Leodegar of Poitiers and dedicated to Catholic worship, the church long belonged to the diocese of Clermont, but since the French Revolution has been under the diocese of Saint-Flour.
Modest in design and size, like many of the region's churches it is built of volcanic rock, with a slate roof. Although the interior is almost devoid of sculpted ornamentation and features few remarkable works of art or furnishings, it is distinguished by a highly original wooden coffered ceiling: 1,360 squares probably painted in the 18th century with polychrome motifs, simple in style but imbued with Christian symbols. It was these paintings, done on the three vaults by an anonymous artist, that enabled the church to be listed as a historic monument in 1963.
History The history of the Saint-Léger church in Cheylade remains shrouded in uncertainty, despite some research, of which the 2004 booklet published by the Valrhue association offers the most recent assessment.
From primitive church to Romanesque building While the existence of an earlier Christian church in Cheylade is well documented, the Romanesque building itself has been dated with some certainty to the early 11th century.
The Christianization of Gaul spread to Auvergne, presumably thanks to Austromoine de Clermont, around the 2nd and 4th centuries. The Cheylade valley is mentioned in the forged charters from around the 11th century, in which Theodechilde, granddaughter of Clovis, was supposed to have settled a dispute between the priory of Mauriac and the abbey of Saint-Pierre-le-Vif in Sens, five centuries earlier: a village certainly existed there in the 11th century, but there's no evidence that this remote area had already benefited from a place of worship.Maronne and Rochemonteix 2004, p. 4.
By the 9th century, however, the conditions appeared to be right: the sparse population of the Petite Rhue valley had grown sufficiently to justify a parish church in the eyes of the bishopric,Baritou 1979, p. 17. and the lords of "Chaszlada", from the powerful Nonette family, had the means to finance its construction.Baritou 1979, p. 18. The existence of a church in Cheylade around the year 900 seems to be confirmed by the Sauxillanges cartulary: it includes a copy of the deed by which the knight Étienne 1er donated the church of Cheylade and "everything visibly connected with it", which he had inherited from his father and then passed on to his sons, who confirmed the donation,Maronne and Rochemonteix 2004, p. 5.Baritou 1979, p. 19. to this Cluniac abbey when he became a monk there in 1029. Dedicated to the martyred bishop Saint Léger, no doubt because of his fame in the region, this first building appears to have quickly become too small.Maronne and Rochemonteix 2004, p. 6.
Little is known about the history of the Romanesque church that replaced it. It was built, if not at the crossroads of the 11th and 12th centuries,Moulier 2001, p. 168. at least at the beginning of the latter, when the lords of Cheylade gained the title of Comptours de Valrus.Maronne and Rochemonteix 2004, p. 9. Built from the valley's volcanic rock,Maronne and Rochemonteix 2004, p. 15. it probably consisted of a central nave, two quarter-circle-vaulted side aisles, and a choir flanked by two non-communicating apsidioles: Opened before the end of the medieval period, these semi-dome apsidioles, together with the slightly broken barrel-vaulted choir typical of the Mauriac district, the apse and its rectangular chevet, a few interlacing and corded capitals and part of the north wall, make up what remains of the 11th century.Rochemonteix 1902, p. 107.Maronne and Rochemonteix 2004, p. 11.
Destructions and reconstructions In addition to natural deterioration, Cheylade's Romanesque church has suffered from a troubled historical context, resulting in several restorations and architectural additions.
Right up until the end of the 14th century, in the midst of the Hundred Years' War and despite the Treaty of Brétigny, English armed bands scoured the Auvergne, occupying the Petite Rhue valley as early as 1357. Local feudal conflicts, as well as the ravages of choleraBaritou 1979, p. 39. and the Black Death,Maronne and Rochemonteix 2004, p. 41. added to this insecurity, which benefited the exactions of other plunderers: around 1359–1360, the church was badly damaged.Baritou 1979, p. 41.
Hypotheses concerning its restoration are divergent, but not irreconcilable. Either the church remained in ruins after the English raids, or it underwent repairs, which could be indicated by the fact that in 1368, two lords of the valley asked John, Duke of Berry for authorization to affix their shields to it:Moulier 2001, p. 169.Baritou 1979, p. 42. in any case, the Treaty of Brétigny was not enough to stem the chaos in the region,Baritou 1979, p. 43. and it was only a century later, thanks to economic and demographic recovery, that it was enlarged,Baritou 1979, p. 49–51. if not raised.
Reconstruction in the 15th century included four rib-vaulted side chapels and a porch on the south side, supporting a square bell tower served at the time by a spiral staircase cut into the wall; lined with two stone benches forming a single unit with its side walls, this porch must have served as a "common house". With no money to rebuild the nave and aisles under a stone vault, the timber roof truss remained visible. It caught fire a century later, either accidentally or as a result of the Wars of Religion, prompting a much more extensive restoration campaign at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries – a sign of renewed prosperity.Baritou 1979, p. 82.
A renowned architect active in Auvergne, Pierre Levesville, was called in: Contracts signed with the Toulouse notary Parrouton prove that he supervised the work from May 11, 1610, to March 27, 1614, directing the stonemasons himself but delegating a certain Jean Tardieu, master mason, to oversee the supply of stones, sand, lime and flagstones.Maronne and Rochemonteix 2004, p. 13. The names of those who commissioned the work are unknown,Maronne and Rochemonteix 2004, p. 44. as are the exact nature and scope of the work, apart from the creation of four pillars separating the nave from the aisles, and the repair of the roof, framework, and vault. The latter is entirely paneled in fir wood, using one-inch-thick, toise-long staves divided by 33 × 33 cm square moldings.Maronne and Rochemonteix 2004, p. 26.Rochemonteix 1902, p. 110.
Regarding the decoration of the coffering, Louis Baritou, whose historical monograph devotes little space to the church, believes they are contemporary with these major 17th-century works, citing ceilings of the same type found in the Maison Consulaire in Montauban and the Chapelle des Pénitents Bleus in Toulouse, also by Levesville. Michel Maronne and Antoine de Rochemonteix, on the other hand, assert that the panelling was first coated with a uniform light paint,Maronne and Rochemonteix 2004, p. 28. and that it was painted much later, by an unknown artist, probably Italian. Popular memory and nineteenth-century documents place his intervention around 1740, based on an inscription -"finis opus 1743"-Rochemonteix 1902, p. 108. which would have been covered up in 1884: that year, in fact, the construction of two false towers and a tribune in the west end of the church caused dozens of the original 1,428 caissons to disappear.Maronne and Rochemonteix 2004, p. 17.
Between 1834 and 1866, the sacristy, which may have adjoined the chevet to the north, was built behind it on the east side.Maronne and Rochemonteix 2004, p. 14.
In his monograph on the churches of Haute-Auvergne, Adolphe de Chalvet de Rochemonteix concludes that, in the course of a turbulent history that obliged its inhabitants to rebuild it each time in the taste of the moment,Rochemonteix 1902, p. 106. Saint-Léger de Cheylade was influenced "by the Auvergne school, mitigated by the Limousin style" for its barely broken vaults, and by the more distant Velay school, through the arcatures linking the choir to the apsidioles.Rochemonteix 1902, p. 111.
Saint-Léger and its parish Originally part of the diocese of Auvergne, the parish of Cheylade was successively attached to that of Clermont and then Saint-Flour.
In the 14th century, the parish became part of the archpriesthood of Ardes, in the archdeaconry of Saint-Flour. In the 13th century, the church and lordship of Valrus, ceded at an unknown date by the abbey of Sauxillanges, became the personal property of the bishops of Clermont. When the diocese of Auvergne was divided in 1317, Cheylade became part of the diocese of Clermont, like all the other surrounding parishes. Until the French Revolution, Cheylade belonged to this bishopric, while the land of Valrus, sold in 1592 by bishop François de La Rochefoucauld, had various owners before being seized as national property.
During the French Revolution, Cheylade's church may have suffered some damage, and was certainly closed for a few years,Baritou 1979, p. 21. especially as its parish priest seems to have recanted his oath to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.Maronne and Rochemonteix 2004, p. 46. Following a decree in 1791, the four bells were taken to Murat for casting, and the belfry only received three new ones around 1830. In 1790, with the creation of the French departements, the church and parish were definitively attached to the diocese of Saint-Flour. The age-old custom of depositing provisions in front of the presbytery on the eve of Saint Léger's feast day, so that he could grant the community's wishes, was still attested to in the mid-19th century by Henri Durif.(fr) Henri Durif, Guide historique, archéologique, statistique et pittoresque du voyageur dans le département du Cantal, Aurillac, Éditions de la Butte-aux-Cailles, 1860 (repr. 1990), p. 401.
The present-day church
External appearance With the exception of the sacristy, the exterior of Saint-Léger is more or less as it was when restored in the 17th century.Maronne and Rochemonteix 2004, p. 14.
Now off-center on the western edge of the "balcony village" of Cheylade, the church overlooks the valleyMaronne and Rochemonteix 2004, p. 3. and, like many others in Auvergne, has a short, squat silhouette:Maronne and Rochemonteix 2004, p. 1. its eight-bay bell tower, topped by a low, four-sided spire, towers just above it. The edifice is built entirely of rhyolite, a volcanic rock whose color varies from gray to pinkish beige, while the steep roofs are covered with phonolite flagstones, a igneous rock with an almost crystalline sound.
The modern sacristy, a hemicycle adjoining the flat wall of the chevet, extends the latter, giving it "the shape of classical Romanesque chevets"; the adjoining building may be the site of the former sacristy. The modillions at the top of the apsidioles are still quite crude, whether ribbed, twisted or carved with human or animal heads.Moulier 2001, p. 170.
While the chevet traditionally faces east by a few degrees, the entrance is from the south and not from the west façade. The two-bay rib-vaulted porch, still lined with its narrow stone benches, bears in its center an escutcheon marked ITIS ("In Terra Ierusalem Socii"), recalling the participation of the valley's inhabitants in the First Crusade. It leads into the church through a portal whose archivolt is made up of five simple voussoirs, the last of which forms a tiny brace beneath a statuette of the Virgin Mary.
Interior architecture