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Origin and history

The church of Notre-Dame de Monthérault, located in Trizay in Charente-Maritime, is a building of the Xth–XI centuries, mixing preroman style and primitive novel. Founded for a rural community, it shares architectural similarities with the nearby churches of Sainte-Radegonde and Dercie. His first written mention dates back to 1229 under the name Beata Maria de Monte-Ayraudi, in seigneurial registers. It is small in size and reflects the adaptation of places of worship to the needs of an agricultural population, before being gradually abandoned after Monthérault's attachment to Trizay in 1826.

The present structure reveals three phases of construction: a preroman nave in stone, a 12th century vaulted choir in a broken cradle, and a 16th century façade, incorporating a Gothic door. The choir, supported by foothills, housed a Romanesque bay adorned with columns, later murmured and replaced by a statue of the Virgin. The capitals, carved with demonic and plant motifs, as well as the vaults partially collapsed in the 19th century, testify to its state of degradation before restorations.

The abandonment of the church accelerated after 1826, for lack of maintenance, until the collapse of its bell tower during the storm Martin in 1999. A local pilgrimage continued until the 1960s, but the building, listed in the 1996 inventory of historic monuments, was refused classification in 1998. A major restoration campaign (2011–2013), funded by the state and communities, allows it to be safeguarded. The works include the renovation of in situ bells according to medieval methods, giving the church its cultural and tourist vocation.

Legendarily associated with Charlemagne — who founded it in 777 to celebrate a victory over the Saracens — this hypothesis is overturned by architectural analyses. The church was historically dependent on the seigneury of Tonnay (XIIIth century), then on the archiprire of Corme-Royal, before its post-revolutionary decline. Today, open to the public, it illustrates the resilience of a often unknown rural heritage, saved in extremis by contemporary interventions.

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