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Origin and history

The covered cross of Beaucaire is a monumental cross erected in the 14th century, located near the road of Fourques, at Beaucaire (Gard, Occitanie). This flamboyant Gothic monument, more than eight metres high, is characterized by a triangular structure covered with a stone portal, topped by a balustrade. Each side of the triangle is pierced by a warhead opening, supported by corner foothills. Its architecture recalls that of the cross covered by Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, today disappeared.

According to the sources, the cross was erected by Jean de France, Duc de Berry, perhaps to replace a more modest building commemorating a stop at Beaucaire during the repatriation of the corps of Saint Louis a few decades earlier. At the end of the 19th or early 20th century, it was sold to an antique dealer before being bought by the town hall of Beaucaire in the 1960s. Since then, it has been preserved at the Auguste Jacquet Archaeological Museum. Classified as a historical monument by decree of 10 October 1906, it illustrates the medieval religious and funeral heritage of the region.

The building consists of three high faces on a triangular plane, enclosing a central vaulted space where the cross rises. The buttresses at angles stifle the vaults, while an openwork balustrade crown the ensemble. This type of monument, typical of the late Middle Ages, often served as a stopover or landmark for pilgrims and travellers. The cross covered by Beaucaire thus bears witness to the devotional and architectural practices of the time, while marking the local landscape by its singularity.

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