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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The church Saint-Aignan de Bélaye, located in the Lot department in Occitanie, was built by the inhabitants from 1353, but the work continued until the beginning of the 15th century. The choir was not yet covered in 1460, and the building was still called a "new church" in 1471. Originally integrated with the Bélaye Castrum defences, it has a three-vessel stone structure with a polygonal apse raised from the nave. The Wars of Religion left it in ruins in 1679, forcing the faithful to go to the Church of St. Catherine.

The major restoration of the church took place in 1721, under the impetus of the Lazarists, who had obtained the management of it after the meeting of the Archpried of Bélaye at the seminary of Cahors in 1688. The southern portal, of classic style, dates from this period, replacing an old ogival portal. Inside, the medieval structure dominates, although modifications took place in the 18th and 19th centuries, as the addition of a large altarpiece in 1858, reported from Spain by Marshal Bessières. This altarpiece, originally intended for the church of Prayssac, was installed there for lack of space.

The stained glass windows, made between 1892 and 1894 by the Bordeaux master glassmaker Gustave Pierre Dagrant, complete the subsequent developments. The building, owned by the commune, was listed as historical monuments on 7 June 1995. Its regular plan (nef, collaterals, choir and apse to three sections) and its facades revised in the eighteenth century testify to its architectural evolution, linked to its central role in the diocese of Cahors.

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