Poitiers - Saint-Hilaire le Grand

The first church here was an oratorium, erected around 370 over a Roman graveyard and dedicated to St. Hilary, the first bishop of Poitiers.

This chapel was destroyed by Vandals in 412, got rebuilt and got destroyed again by the Huns in 453. After that a convent settled here and rebuilt the oratorium, but it got again pillaged and ruined by Moorish and later Norman troops.

The large church seen today dates mostly from the 11th century. A fire around 1100 destroyed the wooden roof. The new roof was from stone. It was so heavy that an extra row of columns on each side of the nave had to be build at that time.

Thanks to the tomb of Saint-Hilaire, the church attracted many pilgrims following the Via Turonensis on their way to Santiago de Compostela. This tradition goes on, as even today there is a special "tampon" for the visiting "pelerins".

Protestant troops damaged and pillaged the church in 1572 and when the tower collapsed in 1590, the facade and aisles were badly damaged. More damage and pillaging took place during the Revolution in 1793.

The church was restored in 1870. The western part of the nave got demolished, the shortened nave (seen here) got rebuilt from the ground up. Seen from here is a part of the crypt. Here once were the relics of Saint Hilaire. When the Normans approached Poitiers in the 9th century, the relics were "translated" to Le Puy-en-Velay, where they were re-discovered in 1655.

Only one single bone was given back - and so only this bone can be venerated in the crypt. This crypt was locked, as I was too late.