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Origin and history

The Church of Our Lady of Saussay, located in Montfort-le-Gesnois in the Sarthe, is a religious building of Romanesque origin built between the 10th and 12th centuries. It was dedicated to Catholic worship until the French Revolution, when it was sold as a national good. Its initial architecture, in a small regular apparatus with openings in the middle of the hanger, was modified in the 16th and 17th centuries by the addition of new windows and the redesign of the portal in the 18th century. The church, surrounded by a cemetery with a cross to the west, is located in the former hamlet of Saussay, now reduced to a few houses.

Inside, the church features a unique carpentry nave with a 17th century vault of panelling and a choir covered in cradle and cul-de-four, typical of the Romanesque era. In 1961, polls revealed murals dating from the second half of the 12th century, including a Nativity and fragments of liturgical calendar. The remaining furniture includes an 18th-century plaster Virgin and a 17th-century tabernacle. The building, about 26 metres long to 10 feet wide, was put out of water in the 1970s before it was added to the additional inventory of historical monuments on 13 November 1973.

Ownership of the association The Friends of Saussay since its restoration, the church was reported in 1836 by Julien Rémy Pesche in his dictionary as having lost his traditional offices and gatherings, including the feast of August 15. Its access is made by the way of the Cross, and its orientation deviates fifteen degrees from the canonical east-west axis. The wall paintings, partially visible, and the building itself are protected as historical monuments, demonstrating its heritage importance in the Pays de la Loire region.

Historically, Saussay was one of the three parishes of Montfort-le-Gesnois, alongside Montfort-le-Rotrou (Saint Croix church, replaced in 1856 by Notre-Dame) and Pont-de-Gennes (Saint-Gilles church). The absorption of Saussay by Montfort-le-Rotrou in 1806, then its integration in Montfort-le-Gesnois in 1985, explains its current isolation. The site, though modest, illustrates the architectural and liturgical evolution of the Sarthoese rural churches, from Romanesque origins to modern changes.

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