Eglise Saint-Georges
ChurchHidden Treasure
The Romanesque jewel of the Eure-et-Loir, Saint-Georges de Dangeau boasts one of the oldest ambulatories with radiating chapels in the region - a 12th-century architectural feat enhanced by ornate Renaissance vaults.
© Wikimedia Commons
History
In the heart of the Beauce region of Chartres, Saint-Georges church in Dangeau is one of the most unusual Romanesque buildings in the Eure-et-Loir department. Far from the great cathedrals that monopolise the attention of travellers, it offers lovers of medieval architecture a rare experience: that of an original, un-vaulted Romanesque space, whose structural legibility has remained intact over the centuries. What sets Saint-Georges apart from the rest is its ambulatory with three radiating chapels vaulted into a cul-de-four, a feature that is often associated with the great pilgrimage abbeys. Finding it here, in a modest village in the Pyrenees, gives the monument extraordinary documentary and emotional value. Specialists believe it to be the oldest surviving Romanesque ambulatory church in the Eure-et-Loir, making it an irreplaceable witness to the liturgical and architectural experiments of the 12th century. The interior reveals a superimposition of styles that time has managed to render harmonious. The nave with its aisles, sober and luminous, is in dialogue with the Renaissance vault of the north aisle, whose vaults sculpted in the round bear the emblems of the four Evangelists - a decorative fantasy that betrays the Renaissance taste for learned ornamentation. Above the first bay, a 17th-century timber-framed bell tower adds a note of vertical lightness to the whole. The tour unfolds like an open-air history of art: from the 12th-century Romanesque carved portal, which welcomes visitors with its sober elegance, to the Renaissance interventions that bear witness to a cultivated patronage keen to embellish an already venerable edifice. The blond Beauce stone, warm in the low evening light, envelops the whole place in an atmosphere of contemplation and intimacy, far removed from the tourist hustle and bustle of the major sites. Listed as a Historic Monument since 1959, Saint-Georges de Dangeau is well worth a visit for anyone interested in the origins of French religious architecture and the surprises to be found in the rural churches of the great Beauce plain.
Architecture
Saint-Georges church has a classical Romanesque plan with a central nave flanked by aisles, with no projecting transept to break the continuity of the lines. This volumetric approach gives the building the immediate legibility and elegant sobriety typical of Romanesque architecture in the Paris Basin in the 12th century. The nave is not vaulted - a conservative feature that harks back to the earliest building practices - and is bathed in light filtered through the round-headed openings in the aisles. The apse is the architectural centrepiece of the building. The semi-circular apse is surrounded by an ambulatory into which open three radiating chapels with barrel vaults, a formula borrowed from the great pilgrimage churches but transposed here to a domestic and rural scale. These small chapels, covered by quarter-sphere vaults, create a play of interlocking spaces of great spatial sophistication. The sculpted 12th-century portal in the third bay of the south aisle features a Romanesque iconography typical of the region's sculptural production, with its scrolled modellings and stylised plant and figurative motifs. The 16th-century interventions introduced a Renaissance counterpoint of the highest quality: the vaulting of the north aisle, with its vaults decorated in the round representing the symbols of the Evangelists, testifies to the skills of local stonemasons trained in the new ornamental grammar coming from Italy. The 17th-century wooden bell tower, towering above the first bay of the nave on its four-post cage, completes an attractive exterior profile in which the layers of time have been added. The light-coloured local limestone unifies the whole, despite the diversity of eras.
Related Figures
Seigneur de Dangeau (XIIe siècle) — commanditaire probable de l'édifice roman initial, dont l'identité précise reste à établirMaître d'œuvre roman anonyme — architecte présumé du chevet à déambulatoire, formé aux grands chantiers régionaux du XIIe siècleMécène local de la Renaissance (XVIe siècle) — commanditaire de la voûte ornée du bas-côté nord, vraisemblablement issu de la noblesse du Perche-GouetCharpentier du XVIIe siècle anonyme — constructeur du clocher-flèche en bois, témoignage du savoir-faire des artisans beauceronsInspecteur des Monuments Historiques (XIXe-XXe siècle) — auteur des relevés et rapports ayant conduit au classement de 1959
