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Origin and history

Notre-Dame de Tayac Church, located in the Gironde department, is a religious building built in the 12th century in a Romanesque style. It stands at the top of a hillside, at the entrance to the village, overlooking a wine-growing landscape. The bedside, composed of a semicircular apse arched in cul-de-four and a span covered in a cradle, retained its original Romanesque appearance. Five carved modillons, illustrating the capital sins (luxury, vanity), adorn the cornice of the apse, while massive buttresses and a defensive bell tower were later added.

In the 16th century, the church underwent major changes related to the Wars of Religion: the bell tower was rebuilt for defensive purposes, the nave was redone and covered with arches of warheads, and a new Gothic door, topped by three broken arches, pierced the western facade. The interior reveals a triumphal arch in the middle of the hanger resting on cubic capitals, while the apse is decorated with an arching of seven small arcades adorned with geometric motifs (heads of nails, saw teeth).

Sources written on the church remain rare before the seventeenth century. A 1687 report mentions a vaulted nave and the absence of a wall of enclosure for the cemetery. In the 18th century, a sacristy was built (described as not solid in 1789), and the nave windows were enlarged in the 19th century, with stained glass made by the Bordeaux workshop G.-P. Dagrant. Ranked a historical monument in 1925, the church illustrates the superposition of Romanesque and Gothic styles, as well as the defensive adaptations associated with religious conflicts.

The five Romanesque modillons represent moralizing scenes: an anal exhibitionist (symbolizing shame), two bearded or moustached heads (vanity), a lascif couple (luxury), and a lion with a sexualized tail (negative connotation). These sculptures, typical of Romanesque art, were designed to educate the faithful with striking images. The church, owned by the commune, remains a notable example of medieval religious architecture adapted to the needs of later times.

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