Ancienne église Saint-Aurélien, au Vieux Bourg
ChurchHidden Treasure
Ancienne église Saint-Aurélien, au Vieux Bourg, located in Mespaul (Département 29), is a Renaissance château built in the 16th century. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- Church
- Period
- Renaissance (16th century)
- Location
- Mespaul, Département 29, Bretagne
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 48.6225, -4.0228
- Mérimée Reference
- PA29000014
A remnant of the Mespaul parish enclosure, this Renaissance chapel-ossuary from the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries is a rare reminder of a sunken funeral Brittany, converted into a dwelling in 1908.
History
In the heart of the old village of Mespaul, in Finistère, stands a discreet building whose sober stonework conceals a history that is as dense as it is melancholy. The shrine chapel of the former church of Saint-Aurélien is the only vestige of a once complete Breton parish complex, whose mother church was dismantled and sold off stone by stone in 1908. A survivor by accident as much as by grace, it alone embodies the fragility of the Armorican peninsula's funerary heritage. What makes this building truly unique is the finesse of its architectural language. Built at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, it bears the imprint of the Renaissance style in a region where this decorative vocabulary was assimilated with a distinctively Breton originality. Its door and semi-circular bays, with archivolts resting elegantly on pilasters, betray the hand of craftsmen who mastered the Italianate codes then in vogue on the great building sites of the kingdom. Its striking resemblance to the ossuary of Saint Thomas of Canterbury in Landerneau, dated 1635, means that the building is part of a coherent, documented regional building tradition. The history of this ossuary is also that of a metamorphosis: successively chapel, storage space, then private home at the beginning of the twentieth century, it has survived the centuries by changing its skin without ever losing its walls. This domestic conversion, common to many of its Breton counterparts, paradoxically ensured its survival where ecclesiastical rigour or public indifference had condemned its contemporaries to ruin. To visit the shrine-chapel at Mespaul is to enter into an archaeology of everyday Breton life, where the sacred and the profane are superimposed on the same granite façade. You can contemplate the building from the outside, in the silence of the Vieux Bourg, surrounded by the Finistère bocage that gives this corner of Léon an atmosphere of tranquil eternity. For heritage enthusiasts, each carved detail is a window onto the skills of a bygone era.
Architecture
The shrine chapel at Mespaul belongs to the Breton Renaissance movement, a hybrid style that flourished in the Léon and Trégor regions between the end of the 16th and the first third of the 17th centuries. The building has a simple rectangular plan, typical of funerary outbuildings, whose compactness reflects its primary utilitarian function. The façade is the most architecturally elaborate element: the entrance door and bays are executed in semicircular arch, a form inherited from the ancient repertoire and spread to Brittany via the major royal projects. The archivolts - the mouldings framing the arches - rest on pilasters with capitals, direct evidence of the classical vocabulary incorporated by the local sculpture workshops. A comparison with the ossuary of Saint Thomas of Canterbury in Landerneau is illuminating: the same layout of the façade, the same relationship between the central door and the side openings, and the same treatment of the vertical supports. This formal convergence illustrates the vitality of a regional model disseminated by travelling craftsmen who worked from one parish enclosure to another. The materials used are typical of the Léonard region: the local granite, whose hardness dictates a sober but precise sculpture, gives the whole its bluish-grey colour that is characteristic of monuments in North Finistère. The roof, probably in Anjou or local slate, is in keeping with the Breton building tradition of the period.
Related Figures
Saint Aurélien — saint patron de l'église disparue, dont le culte local structurait la vie religieuse de la paroisse de MespaulMaîtres tailleurs de pierre léonards — artisans anonymes de la fin du XVIe ou début du XVIIe siècle, auteurs du décor Renaissance de la chapelleConstructeurs de l'ossuaire de Landerneau (1635) — homologues contemporains dont l'œuvre permet de dater et de contextualiser celle de MespaulParoissiens de Mespaul (XIXe siècle) — communauté qui assiste à la lente agonie puis à la démolition de leur église paroissiale en 1908Autorités des Monuments Historiques (1997) — acteurs de la reconnaissance officielle de la valeur patrimoniale de l'ossuaire par l'arrêté d'inscription du 25 mars 1997
Tags
Nearby castles
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Ancienne église Saint-Aurélien, au Vieux Bourg located?
Ancienne église Saint-Aurélien, au Vieux Bourg is located in Mespaul, Département 29 department, Bretagne region, France.
When was Ancienne église Saint-Aurélien, au Vieux Bourg built?
Ancienne église Saint-Aurélien, au Vieux Bourg dates back to a period built during the Renaissance (16th century).
Is Ancienne église Saint-Aurélien, au Vieux Bourg open to visitors?
Ancienne église Saint-Aurélien, au Vieux Bourg is currently closed to visitors.
