Eglise Saint-Martin
ChurchHidden Treasure
The Romanesque jewel of the Entre-deux-Mers region, the church of Saint-Martin de Haux dazzles visitors with its sculpted portal featuring five exceptionally rich voussoirs, a discreet rival to the great medieval works of the Bordeaux region.
History
Nestling in the heart of the Entre-deux-Mers vineyards, in this land of gentle hills and pale stone bordering the Garonne, the church of Saint-Martin de Haux is one of those discreet wonders that the Gironde has in store for curious travellers. Its Romanesque portal, with its truly astonishing wealth of carvings, unashamedly rivals the great creations of Saintonge and Périgord art, establishing itself as a major work of Romanesque sculpture in Aquitaine. What makes Saint-Martin absolutely unique is the narrative profusion of its five concentric voussoirs. Each stringcourse is a world in itself: the Magi bow, the Holy Women approach the tomb, the Elders of the Apocalypse bend their legs under the extrados in a strikingly expressive posture, while fantastical beasts and foliage weave a medieval bestiary of unbridled fantasy. At the top, Christ between two angels reigns over this stone humanity with hieratic serenity. The iconographic programme, both learned and popular, bears witness to a particularly accomplished workshop of sculptors, active in the region at the turn of the 11th and 12th centuries. There's another surprise in store for visitors: scattered across the façade and buttresses, keystones from Sauve-Majeure Abbey - a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Bordeaux - have been reused here, silent witnesses to a complex history of transfers and reuses that makes each stone a fragment of a larger story. Inside, the single nave, austere and luminous, is an invitation to meditation. The barrel-vaulted apse is bathed in subdued light, giving the place an atmosphere of sincere spirituality. The nineteenth-century panelling conceals the original medieval framework, but the whole remains beautifully coherent, enriched to the north by a side aisle added in 1878. The bell-wall on the west facade, punctuated by a balcony with corbels, gives the building its characteristic silhouette, immediately recognisable in the surrounding wine-growing landscape.
Architecture
The church of Saint-Martin de Haux belongs to the type of rural Romanesque church with a single nave, which was extremely common in Gironde and throughout medieval Aquitaine. Its simple plan - a nave extended by a choir ending in an apse - is not exceptional in itself; it is the western façade that concentrates all the architectural and sculptural virtuosity of the building. The bell tower-wall, characteristic of the Gironde and Landes Romanesque tradition, towers above this façade and gives it its distinctive silhouette. A balcony supported by powerful stone corbels runs beneath the bays of the bell tower, adding an almost defensive note to the whole. The portal, framed by two arcatures partially concealed by the buttresses, is the absolute jewel of the building. Its five semicircular arches fall on three columns with historiated capitals - Adoration of the Magi, Holy Women at the Tomb - offering an iconographic programme of remarkable theological coherence. From the inside out: scrolls and flattened animals, figures pulling a rope surmounted by fantastic beasts, the Old Men of the Apocalypse in contorted poses, then figures and a tetramorph, and finally a round of figures holding hands. The quality of the chiselling, the depth of the relief and the liveliness of the compositions make this one of the most remarkable Romanesque portals in the Gironde. Inside, the chevet is covered by a cul-de-four vault, the canonical form of the Romanesque apse, which focuses light on the main liturgical space. The nave, which has been panelled since 1878, is flanked to the north by a side aisle from the same period. The materials used, which are typical of the region, combine the blond limestone of the Bordeaux region, which is abundant and easy to cut, with the masonry construction techniques typical of Aquitaine Romanesque art.
Related Figures
Saint Martin de Tours — évêque thaumaturge du IVe siècle, patron de l'église et figure tutélaire de milliers de paroisses rurales françaisesSaint Gérard de Corbie — fondateur en 1079 de l'abbaye de la Sauve-Majeure, dont les sculpteurs ont vraisemblablement influencé le chantier du portail de HauxLes sculpteurs romans anonymes de l'atelier saintongeais-bordelais — maîtres du ciseau à qui l'on doit les cinq voussures du portail, actifs dans l'Entre-deux-Mers au XIe-XIIe siècleLes architectes diocésains du XIXe siècle — responsables de la campagne de travaux de 1878 ayant ajouté le bas-côté nord et posé le lambris de la nef
