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Origin and history

Notre-Dame-des-Salces Church, located in the village of Salces in Saint-Privat (Hérault), is a religious building with Romanesque and Gothic influences. Mentioned from 1057 under the name Municipium castri by S. Privato, it appeared in 1122 in the cartular of the Abbey of Gellone. Its oldest parts, such as the nave vaulted in cradle, date from the late 11th and 12th centuries, while the present bedside, wider and supported by foothills, was rebuilt in the 14th century after the demolition of the Roman bedside.

The southern facade, adorned with lumbar bands and carved modillons, houses a Romanesque portal whose columns have disappeared, leaving only their roughly carved capitals. In 1789, the collapse of the bell tower seriously damaged the eastern part, rebuilt in the fourteenth century. The 19th-century repairs, like the brick vaults of 1824, preserved the building. The Romanesque nave, classified in 1962, and the rest of the church, inscribed in 1937, bear witness to this turbulent history.

Inside, the nave consists of three vaulted bays in a cradle, while the bedside, shifted northward, includes a cubit span, a transept, and a seven-sided apse. A bell of 1694 completes this heritage. The church, a communal property, illustrates medieval architectural evolution in Occitanie, mixing primitive Romanesque, southern Gothic and modern restorations.

The village of Salces, the historic nucleus of Saint-Privat, was organized around this church, a spiritual and social centre. Medieval records (Decimaria loci S. Privati de Salsis in 1437) highlight its role in local life, between perception of tithes and community gathering. Today, the building remains an identity marker of the territory, linked to Gellone Abbey and the feudal history of Languedoc.

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