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Origin and history

The chapel of Madeleine de Pezens, located in the Aude department in the Occitanie region, is a building of ancient origins dating back to the 10th and 11th centuries. Built in stone and covered with lauzes, it presents a bedside typical of the first Romanesque art, composed of a unique semicircular apse extended by a span of bass choir. This bedside is pierced by an axial window surmounted by a monolithic arch adorned with an engraved cross, characteristic archaic. The south wall of the apse has a circular window surmounted by the coat of arms of the family of Neighbors, while the south wall of the chorus span incorporates a bas-relief depicting birds, surmounted by a frieze cornice in checker.

The history of the chapel remains partially enigmatic, with no definite mention appearing before 1641, although its construction seems to precede the tenth century for some parts. The building, with a single nave with choir and circular apse with an overpassed plane, reveals three distinct types of apparatus: a small elongated apparatus for the apse and the choir (primitive ensemble), an almost cubic apparatus for the nave (Xth or 11th century), and a neat medium apparatus for the pillars and arcades (late 11th-early 12th century). The southern portal dates back to the last period. A general restoration in the seventeenth century is attested by the date of 1639 engraved on the inner coating. A local peculiarity is that passers-by and carters throw pieces through a window of the choir (old rectangular door) to put themselves under divine protection on their journeys.

Since September 8, 1949, the chapel has also preserved a carved stone of two birds in flat relief, an archaic bill, embedded in the south wall of the choir. Its bell tower-wall, backed by the gable, and the axial deviation between the nave and the choir add to its singular character. The chapel is now owned by the municipality of Pezens, and its state of conservation reflects the many transformations that have taken place over the centuries, since its presumed origin linked to a maladry located at the place called 'la Misère' south of the village.

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