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Origin and history

Saint-Gengoult Chapel, also known as Saint-Gengoux, is an ancient Romanesque parish church built in the 12th century in the hamlet of Saint-Gengoult, on the town of Larochemilllay (Nevere). It then depended on the archpried of Luzy and the diocese of Autun, with a first toponymic mention (Sanctus Jangulphus) attested from the eleventh century. The knight Hugues de Ternant bequeathed twelve deniers in 1240, according to Abbé Baudiau. Half of the nave, its bays and the choir, marked by canned pilasters inspired by the Cathedral of Saint-Lazare in Autun, remain from that time.

Until the Revolution, the chapel was the centre of an autonomous parish, before being attached to Larochemilllay between 1790 and 1794. It then became a popular pilgrimage place on May 11, the day of the feast of Saint Gengoult, invoked for the evils of the eyes, the legs and the protection of the cattle. The offerings (wool, wax, oats) were placed on the altar, as described by Lucien Gueneau in 1903. In the 19th century, it housed a wooden statuette of "the Holy", a legendary unfaithful woman amputated with an arm, now extinct.

The building, 20 metres long, features a rectangular plan with a flat bedside and a vaulted apse in a cul-de-four. The nave, partially collapsed west side, leaves room for a terrace. The Romanesque choir, unaxed, preserves vegetal capitals, while the western facade has a curved door surmounted by an oculus. Nearby, a miraculous fountain, now reduced to a masonry well, is linked to the legend of Saint Gengoult: his wife, accused of infidelity, would have lost an arm there swearing falsely on the sacred water.

The chapel was listed as historical monuments in 1998. Private property of the Rivière family since the 20th century, it occasionally serves as a burial place or for ceremonies. Its furniture is limited to an altar and a confessional, the other elements having disappeared. Local legends, such as the "great book" of deceived husbands hidden behind the altar, testify to its cultural anchoring in the Morvan.

Architecturally, the building combines local stone and slate for roofing. The bell tower, sober and low, dominates a unique carpented nave, extended by a arched forechorus of wood. The crowned foothills and the curved windows highlight his Romanesque style. An inscription "CHECK 1633" on a stone from a corner recalls work after its medieval construction.

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