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| Abbey-Church of the Holy Trinity, Lessay (Normandy). A magnificent expression of Romanesque. Source : https://www.flickr.com/photos/martin-m-miles |
Dotted across Europe are so many churches which are, or have been, attached to religious houses. This post concerns one such church which is almost a thousand years old attached to a former Benedictine Abbey in Normandy, France. The following description of the Abbey-Church of Sainte-Trinité (Holy Trinity) in Lessay, Normandy (France) is adapted from a brief essay found at this link.
This Benedictine Abbey was founded around 1056. By 1098 the choir of the abbey church had already been built and the nave was built in the first years of the twelfth century. The church was consecrated in 1178, but it was not fully completed at that date. It continued as a monastery until the French Revolution but became a Parish Church at that time, the monastery buildings passing into private hands.
The Benedictine plan in the form of a Latin cross is used in most of the large abbey churches of Normandy: apse with chapels to scale, abutting the aisles and the arms of the transept, and a long nave with aisles. The interior elevation is that of the Norman Romanesque churches : large arcades, an intermediate level of tribunes and high windows. The Lessay Abbey-Church features ceilings of tracery vaults : one of the earliest examples of such vaults and well before the development of rib vaults in Gothic architecture.
The church was almost totally destroyed on two occasions by war. In 1356 during the Hundred Years' War, Charles II of Navarre directed his army to destroy the Abbey and Church. The church was reconstructed between 1385 and 1420. In July, 1944, the German army, retreating after the D-Day Landing, blew-up the church, reducing large parts of it to piles of rubble. It was reconstructed with the greatest care and fidelity in the period 1945-1958 and continues to serve as a Parish church.
A more detailed history of the Abbey can be found here .
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| The austere nobility of Romanesque ecclesiastical architecture : Nave and south transept, with the Crossing tower. |
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| The rugged Crossing Tower pierced by arcading and crowned with a pyramidal roof. Source : https://www.flickr.com/photos/biron-philippe |
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| The splendid ribbed vault of the nave reconstructed faithfully after World War Two. Source : https://www.flickr.com/photos/sgparry |
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| The nave and crossing of Sainte-Trinité : a perfect expression of the monumental and noble art of the Romanesque period. A new timber sanctuary, constructed in the eastern end of the Crossing, is indifferently furnished, but at least is all easily removable without injury to the building. |
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| The ruins of Sainte-Trinité in 1944 : another sad victim of war. |
