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Origin and history

Saint Maurille Church, located in Saint Morillon in Gironde, is dedicated to Saint Maurille, bishop of Angers and disciple of Saint Martin de Tours. Founded in the 12th century, it appears in the archives of the 14th century archdiocese under the Latin name Sanctus Maurilius. Originally, it had a single nave, completed by a seven-sided polygonal apse, characteristic of Romanesque art. Two arched chapels forming a transept were added at the end of the 13th century, while a western gate and a bell tower-wall, with typical octagonal bases of the 14th century, completed the building. A porch was assistant in the 18th century, and the chapels were extended on the lower side at the same time.

In the 19th century, Abbé Simon de Brassens undertook major restoration work in 1822, as evidenced by his tombstone under the porch. The bells, dated 1845, were installed in the bell tower-wall, whose bays once housed a wooden balcony for ringers, now extinct. The sacristy and an octagonal cabinet were built northeast of the chapel, while a Gothic window was pierced to illuminate the 15th century Eucharistic cabinet. The building, marked by interior decoration campaigns in the 19th and 20th centuries, was fully listed as historical monuments in 2008.

The Romanesque iconography of the church, especially the modillons of the apsal cornice (late XII–early XIIIth century), illustrates moralizing themes such as capital sins. Inside, the furniture includes an Italian baroque altar (1828) dedicated to Saint Roch, patroness invoked against the plague, as well as a major altar of Claude Fournier (1692), whose Virgin with the Child was stolen in 1975. The chapel of the Virgin houses 15th and 18th century statues, while 19th century stained glass windows, signed Gustave Pierre Dagrant, represent Saint Maurille, Saint Roch and Notre-Dame de Lourdes.

The church also preserves traces of the seigneury of Montesquieu, whose coat of arms (1755) appear on a fragment of a funeral liter. The 19th century baptismal fonts and three paintings by local artist Pierre-Gaston Rigaud (1903), illustrating parish life, complete this heritage. The painted decorations of the choir, partially erased in the 20th century, and the sculptures of the capitals, without historial narrative, testify to the aesthetic and liturgical transformations of the building over the centuries.

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