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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The chapel Saint-Loup, located on Rue du Prieuré in Saint-Loubès (Gironde), is a 12th century Romanesque building, the last witness to a Benedictine priory founded by the monks of the Abbey of La Sauve-Majeure at the end of the 11th century. It was part of a larger ensemble including cloister, dormitories and refectory, now gone. This priory, a place of welcome for the pilgrims of Santiago de Compostela, was mentioned in 1097 in the Grand Cartular. Its system of construction in small cubic bellows suggests an earlier origin, perhaps Carolingian.

The present chapel was built around the middle of the 13th century under the authority of Bertrand de Saint-Loubès, Abbé de La Sauve-Majeure. A transformation programme (1220-1230) provided for a church vault, but the work remained unfinished due to lack of resources. In 1245 Bertrand organized a provincial quest to finance the vault. In the 14th century, murals were added, of which remains remains in the choir.

The chapel lost its religious vocation in 1789, was sold as a national good in 1790, then transformed into a cellar in the 19th century. Purchased by the municipality in 1980, it was restored and inaugurated in 2000. Since 1996, it has hosted artistic activities (theatre, choirs). Three sarcophagi, discovered in 1990, testify to funeral reuses in the 16th century, probably from a nearby Gallo-Roman site.

Architecturally, the chapel consists of a rectangular vessel with a flat bedside, with a quadripartite dogive vault in the choir. The 14th century wall paintings, partially preserved, represent biblical figures (Adam, Eve) and plant motifs. A niche in the north wall may have been used as a passage to the convent buildings during the influx of pilgrims.

Ranked a historic monument in 1992, the chapel illustrates the religious and architectural history of the Gironde, linked to the abbey of La Sauve-Majeure and the jacquarian roads. His painted decor, studied by Alix Barbet (CNRS), and his contemporary stained glass windows by Bernard Fournier highlight his dual medieval and cultural heritage today.

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