Maison dite "des Templiers"
MonumentHidden Treasure
Maison dite "des Templiers", located in Beaugency (Loiret), is a medieval landmark built in the Middle Ages. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Period
- Medieval (11th-15th century)
- Location
- Beaugency, Loiret, Centre-Val de Loire
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 47.7774, 1.6318
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00098698
A rare surviving example of 12th-century Romanesque civil architecture, this house in Beaugençon reveals its semicircular arches and carved capitals, silent witnesses to a forgotten commercial Middle Ages.
© Wikimedia Commons / Wikipedia
History
In the heart of Beaugency, a small Loire town whose medieval bridge majestically spans the Loire, stands one of the best-preserved Romanesque civil buildings in the Loire Valley. Known by the picturesque - and historically unfounded - name of "Maison des Templiers", this 12th-century building is a precious anomaly in a heritage landscape dominated by Gothic castles and cathedrals: here, ordinary life and commerce in the Middle Ages are on view. What immediately sets this monument apart is the exceptional quality of its sculpted decoration. The semi-circular arches and capitals of the colonnettes that punctuate the façade are carefully decorated, typical of the work of the Romanesque stonemasons of the Loire region. These details reveal the investment of a wealthy patron, probably a prosperous merchant or middle-class citizen of the town, anxious to display his success in the very stone of his home. Despite the ravages of the 19th century - four arcades were sacrificed around 1850 to install a banal shop front - the façade retains enough substance to recreate the image of a ground floor entirely dedicated to commerce, opening onto the street with a succession of vaulted shops. The upper storey, which was more residential, was enlivened by geminated windows with colonnettes, the silhouette of which is reminiscent of the great canons' houses of the same period. A visit to the Maison des Templiers is a rare experience of architecture without ostentatious monumentality, where grandeur lies in the details: the curve of a capital, the generous curve of a semicircular arch, the grain of a blond limestone that absorbs the light of the Loire. For the cultured traveller, this is an essential stop-off on your tour of Beaugency, to be combined with the 11th-century Romanesque keep and the nearby Notre-Dame abbey.
Architecture
The Maison des Templiers is a 12th-century Romanesque civil building, a rare style in French domestic architecture whose non-religious examples have very often disappeared. Its façade, laid out according to the classic bipartite layout of the Romanesque merchant house, clearly distinguishes a merchant ground floor from a residential first floor. The ground floor originally opened onto five semi-circular arches - only one of which has survived in part since the destruction of 1850 - forming a gallery of shops directly accessible from the street, in a similar fashion to the Romanesque houses of Saint-Gilles-du-Gard or Cluny. The first floor, which has been better preserved, features the building's most characteristic decorative motif: geminated windows with two semi-circular bays separated by colonnettes, the capitals of which are beautifully sculpted. These capitals, carved in the Loire Romanesque style, feature foliage and geometric motifs that bear witness to the mastery of local sculptors during the Romanesque period. The semi-circular arches themselves are adorned with mouldings and geometric decorations in archivolts, giving the façade a rare elegance for a purely civil building. The materials used are local tufa limestone and hard limestone, typical of medieval construction in the Loire region. Inside, although the spaces have been radically transformed over the centuries, the spiral staircase - an element of comfort and prestige in the Middle Ages - confirms the high status of the building. The cellar, accessed by a straight staircase from the adjoining house, still has the remains of an even older spiral staircase at the bottom of its flight, indicating a complex chronological stratification in this sector of the medieval urban plot.
Related Figures
Prosper Mérimée — Inspecteur général des Monuments Historiques, initiateur de la politique nationale de protection du patrimoine médiéval en FranceMarchands beaugençois du XIIe siècle — commanditaires vraisemblables de l'édifice, figures anonymes de la bourgeoisie commerçante médiévalePropriétaires du XVIIe siècle — auteurs des aveux de 1601 documentant les cinq boutiques du rez-de-chausséePropriétaires du XVIIIe siècle — signataires de l'aveu de 1764 confirmant la continuité de la vocation commercialeArchitectes des Bâtiments de France — responsables des campagnes de protection et d'étude depuis le classement de 1919
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Maison dite "des Templiers" located?
Maison dite "des Templiers" is located in Beaugency, Loiret department, Centre-Val de Loire region, France.
When was Maison dite "des Templiers" built?
Maison dite "des Templiers" dates back to a period built in the Middle Ages (11th-15th century).
Is Maison dite "des Templiers" open to visitors?
Maison dite "des Templiers" is currently closed to visitors.