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Origin and history

The Church of St. Eugénie de Tresmals, also known as Santa Eugènia de Tresmals in Catalan, is a Romanesque church located in the alluvial plain of Roussillon, near the Tech River, less than 4 km from its Mediterranean mouth. Administratively, it is located on the border of the municipalities of Elne and Argelès-sur-Mer in the Pyrénées-Orientales. The site, surrounded by cultivated fields, is marked by historical floods of the Tech, which partially buried the building under 1.70 m from alluvions. Its name, Tresmals, comes from the Latin Tres ("three") and from a Mal pre-latin root (summit or terminal), probably evoking a boundary between Elne, Latour-Bas-Elne and Argelès.

The Tresmals site is occupied as early as the year 500, as archaeological excavations attest. In the 9th century, it is mentioned as Villa Tresmalos, a domain extending on both sides of Tech, whose present church is the last vestige. A 951 text already quotes domum sancta Eugenia in villa Tresmallos, confirming its religious status. The building, parish in the 11th and 12th centuries, lost this status in 1347 but remained a place of worship until the French Revolution. Disused, it then serves as an agricultural building. Its architecture, including its broken cradle vault, dates from the 12th century.

The place's toponymy suggests an ancient past: Tresmals could correspond to ad stabulum, a stage on the Domitian way where the Tech was crossed at ford. Churches dedicated to Saint Eugénie in Roussillon are often linked to river passages, reinforcing this hypothesis. The repeated floods of Tech, characteristic of the Mediterranean climate, have shaped the surrounding plain and contributed to the gradual growth of the church. Today, its soil is close to 1.50 m below the current level, a witness of the geomorphological transformations of the region.

The building consists of a unique nave extended by a semicircular apse, covered by a broken to double-deck cradle. Its abandonment and partial envellement reflect the natural and historical dynamics of the Roussillon, where rivers, with torrential regimes, have often redesigned landscapes. The textual records of the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries underline its past importance, while recent excavations (XXth–XXIth centuries) have clarified its architectural evolution and archaeological context.

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