1 favorite     0 comments    216 visits

Location

Lat, Lng:  
You can copy the above to your favourite mapping app.
Address:  unknown

 View on map

See also...

Medieval Europe Medieval Europe


Eglises de France Eglises de France


See more...

Keywords

07
Fredegonde
Saint-Étienne de Mélas
Mélas
Le Teil
Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
octogonal
baptisterium
Rhone-Alpes
baptistery
Ardèche
France
rotunda
rotunde
achteckig


Authorizations, license

Visible by: Everyone
All rights reserved

216 visits


Le Teil - Saint-Étienne de Mélas

Le Teil - Saint-Étienne de Mélas
A church is known in Mélas (now part of Le Teil), located at the Roman road connecting Lyon and Nîmes, since merovingien times. A noble lady named Fredegonde founded a nunnery in Mélas end of the 6th century, dedicated to Saint-Étienne and Saint Saturnin.

Today´s church is younger. It consists out of three parts built in different times.

The oldest part is an octogonal chapel, dated the the 9th/10th century.

The chapel could have been a baptistery or a burial chapel. I tend to the "baptistery" side, though the location is somehow odd, but the place around was sureley different about a thousand years around. The church, that we see now, did not exist - and there was of course no parking lot on a niveau way higher than that on which the chapel was erected.

Marco F. Delminho has particularly liked this photo


Comments

Sign-in to write a comment.