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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The chapel Saint-Jacques de Saint-Nabor, also called Ermitage Saint-Jacques, was an outbuilding of the abbey Sainte-Marie de Niedermunster, situated halfway between the latter and Hohenbourg. It stands on an artificial tertrine consolidated by a dry stone enclosure, in the territory of the commune of Saint-Nabor, in the Lower Rhine (Great East). Its Romanesque rectangular plan, now in ruins, was 14.8 metres long by 8 metres wide. In its centre, two porphyry rocks, nicknamed the camel rock, dated 390 million years, were probably pagan worship objects before the site was Christianized.

Today's remains date mainly from the 12th century, although legends trace its foundation back to the 9th century. According to one of them, the count of Burgundy Hugues III had the chapel erected at the place where a camel, wearing a relic of the Holy Cross, stopped. This legend, after the facts, aimed to Christianize a pre-existing pagan site. The chapel was reportedly consecrated in 1180 by the bishop of Mantua. In the 18th century, a house was built, successively occupied by a farmer and a forester, before being destroyed by fire in 1814.

The ruins, cleared between 1859 and 1860 by the Society for the Conservation of Historic Monuments of Alsace, were classified as Historic Monuments on December 6, 1898. The small chapel probably had a bell tower and was surrounded by a protective wall. The two central rocks, associated with the legend of the camel, were deliberately preserved during its construction, testifying to the superposition of the cults on this emblematic site.

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