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Origin and history

Cressac's command office, initially templière then hospitalier, was built in the 12th century in Cressac-Saint-Genis, Charente. Its establishment was favored by the presence of an inexhaustible well, strategic on the way to Santiago de Compostela. The chapel, the only vestige of the ensemble, built between 1150 and 1160, is distinguished by its unique frescoes depicting scenes of cross victories, including the Battle of the Bocque in 1163 between the Francs de Hugues le Brun de Lusignan and Sarrasins de Nourreddine, Emir d'Aleppo. These murals, made with red clay and egg white, once covered the entire interior walls and also illustrated royal symbols such as lily flowers.

After the dissolution of the Order of the Temple in 1312, the commandary passed to the Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem. At the Revolution, it was sold as a national property and transformed into an agricultural building. Repurchased at the beginning of the 20th century by the United Protestant Church of Barbezieux (EPUB), it was restored and reassigned to a place of worship, explaining the presence of a Huguenot cross on the south wall. The frescoes, partially altered by restorations deemed "too radical" before 1969, were the subject of a safeguard campaign from 2013, after deteriorations found in 2011.

Architecturally, the rectangular chapel has thick walls with buttresses, with a nave covered in cradle. The south wall retains a "penitent hand", an engraved symbolic mark where the faithful had to rub the stone. The frescoes, attributed to several artists, combine military scenes (headquarters of the Krak des Chevaliers), prisoner exchanges, and geometric or plant motifs. Among the figures represented, a bishop could be Adémar, participating in the first crusade. These works, supplemented in the 19th century by the painter Eugène Sadoux, offer a rare testimony of Templar art in Aquitaine.

Ranked a Historic Monument in 1914, the chapel today belongs to a Protestant association. Its present state is the result of numerous interventions, from its agricultural conversion to recent restorations. The frescoes, despite their partial degradation, remain an exceptional example of cross-themed Romanesque mural painting, linking local history and religious issues of the Middle Ages. The command office, also called "Du Dognon", once extended to the hospital in Blanzac, highlighting its regional importance.

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