Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The collegiate Saint-Pierre de Neuf-Marché came into being in 1088, when Hugues de Grandmesnil decided to replace the canons with Benedictine monks. At the end of the 11th century, four monks settled there, and in 1128 Guillaume de Roumare, local lord, increased their number to eleven and launched the reconstruction of the building. The architect of the castle of Neuf-Marché directs the works, but the nave of the old collegiate is preserved, connected to the new building by two side passages. This site became a major political and religious place: in 1158 he welcomed the marriage of Marguerite de France and Henri le Jeune, then in 1160 a council validating the election of Pope Alexander III.

In the 13th century, the archbishop of Rouen Eudes Rigaud imposed in 1268 the separation of religious spaces between monks and parishioners. The Revolution turned the church into a national good, causing destruction and fire. In the 19th century, consolidations were undertaken (south and west walls in 1871), but the damage of the Second World War (crash roof, broken stained glass windows) required major restoration. Between 1951 and 1963, Father Lucien Bodin conducted this work, supplemented by frescoes by Jacques Pasquier representing religious scenes.

Ranked a historic monument in 2004, the college now combines a 12th century nave, a choir and a transept of the 12th–13th centuries, with modern elements such as the 1963 frescoes. Its history reflects the political upheavals (the Hundred Years War, the Revolution, world conflicts) and religious (the Benedictine reform, the papal schism) that marked Normandy. The building, a communal property, remains an architectural and artistic testimony of nearly a thousand years of local history.

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