Provins - Saint-Quiriace

Odo II, Count of Blois (= "Eudes le Champenois"), who spent his life in endless feudal wars with his neighbours, whose territories he tried to annex, founded a collegiate for Canons Secular here around 1030. When Odo´s son Theobald the Great (= "Thibaut de Blois") tried to introduce the rules of the Canons Regular, he failed. His son Henry I (= "Henri le Libéral") funded the Canons, so that in 1157 the erection of the collegiate church, seen here, started. 10 years later, the choir was already completed. Within the next decades the transept and the nave´s eastern bay followed, before the progress slowed down, due to the dwindeling importance of the "Foires de Champagne", the annual trading faires.

The works completely stopped and the church got finally consecrated in 1504. In 1625 the western facade was created, just by bricking up the nave. After a fire in 1662 the vaults collapsed, the church got rebuilt and a century later got an immense crossing tower.

The early Gothic choir, completed in 1167, seems oversized. If the collegiate church would have been completed according to the floor plan of the mid 12th century, the dimnensions of this church would have been close to that of Notre-Dame in Paris.