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Origin and history

Saint Beheau Church, located in Priziac in Morbihan, is a Catholic religious building dating back to the twelfth century. It is dedicated to Saint Beheau, a mysterious figure whose life remains unknown, to the point that the local clergy tried to replace it with Saint Avit in the seventeenth century, without success in the face of the opposition of parishioners. The territory of the parish was divided between the abbey of Saint Croix de Quimperlé and the Hospitallers of the order of Saint John of Jerusalem.

From the primitive building of the 12th century, there remain the piles of the cross, the south supports, the arms of the transept, the south wall-butterel and the walls of the choir. The choir was rebuilt in the 15th century, while in the 16th century the southern chapel was erected and the northern chapel and the arches of the transept cross were reorganized. In the 19th century, the northern collateral was rebuilt, and a false plaster and brick vault covered the nave and transept. A total reconstruction project, envisaged in 1899, was only partially realized: only the western bell tower and the departure of the collaterals were built, the original bell tower having disappeared.

The church preserves 26 cubic Romanesque capitals, carved in granite, some of which bear geometrical motifs (interlaces, spirals, damners) or figurative (animals, stylized faces, sgammy cross). A column base has a double footprint of human feet, evoking megalithic decorations. These sculptures, comparable to those of other Romanesque churches in the country Pourlet (Calan, Langonnet, Ploërdut), illustrate a Breton artistic current favoring abstraction and geometry, rare elsewhere in France.

The plan of the church, in Latin cross, includes a porch, a western bell tower, a nave with three ships, a little salient transept, and a choir finished with a flat wall. The lateral chapels, atypical, open on the arms of the transept and the cross by arches in full hanger. The building, inscribed in the historic monuments in 1925, reflects a complex architectural history, marked by Romanesque influences and subsequent adaptations.

The sources also mention structural works dated 1699, signed by Estienne Boeset, as well as modifications of the goutreaux walls in the 18th and 19th centuries. The current bell tower, built in 1899 by Abgrall, contrasts with the Romanesque parts, testifying to stylistic changes and financial constraints that shaped the building over the centuries.

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