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Origin and history

The Notre-Dame-de-Pitié chapel, located in Longny-au-Perche in Orne, is an emblematic 16th-century Catholic building, built on a hillside on a spur overlooking the village. It marked the height of the Percheron buildings of the Renaissance and was erected in favor of a brotherhood of charity founded after the Hundred Years' War. Her name, the Virgin of Pity, made it a place of worship for people afflicted by sickness or war, with an annual pilgrimage on September 8.

The architecture of the chapel is distinguished by a vaulted span with crumbs, a five-paned choir, and two side chapels. Inside, there are carved arch keys, 16th century stained glass windows (including one restored in 1634), and a polychrome statue of Notre-Dame, broken during the Revolution and then reconstituted. The staircase of thirty-three steps, added at the end of the 19th century, leads to an open portico and a bell tower with niches once populated by twenty-four statues, destroyed during the Revolution.

The chapel has been listed as a historic monument since April 8, 1909. Its oak gate, carved in 1895 by Abbé Deuxier, the village's child, and its late 19th-century stained glass windows testify to further restorations. The site, owned by the municipality, remains a symbol of Perche's religious and architectural heritage, mixing medieval heritage and artistic renaissance.

The cult of the Pietà attracted the faithful in search of comfort, reflecting the social and spiritual role of the chapel in an area marked by conflicts and epidemics. The decorative elements, such as the angel heads on the arches or the pendants of the vaults, illustrate the local craftsmanship and the influence of the artistic currents of the time.

Today, the Notre-Dame-de-Pitié chapel embodies both a place of memory and a preserved example of Percheron religious architecture, between late Gothic tradition and Renaissance innovations. Its history, marked by destruction and reconstruction, reflects the political and cultural upheavals of Normandy over the centuries.

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