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Origin and history

The Saint-Brice church of Cernay-la-Ville, located in the Yvelines in Île-de-France, is a Catholic parish church built in the 3rd quarter of the 16th century. It replaces an earlier building dating back to the 12th century, mentioned as in poor condition since 1467. Its architecture combines a nave of three spans, a flat choir, and a bell tower flanked by a porch in a box. The materials used—wellstone, millstone, stonestone and sandstone—reflect the local techniques of the time.

Archaeological excavations conducted in 2018 near the church, in the enclosure of the old cemetery, revealed a Merovingian occupation and exhumed 150 graves, attesting to a long funeral history on the site. The cemetery was moved between 1785 and 1819, while panelling was added to the choir in the early 19th century. The building, a communal property, has been listed for historical monuments since 20 June 1928.

The church houses a reliquary of the skull of Thibaut de Marly, local lord who died in 1270 and buried in the nave of the neighboring abbey. Spared during the revolutionary destructions of 1793, the reliquary was rediscovered in 1968 by Abbé Verain. His authenticity was confirmed in 1970 by an anthropological expert led by Dr Jean Dastugue, validated by Louis Simonneaus, then bishop of Versailles. This relic, preserved in the chapel of Sainte-Marie, bears witness to the religious and nobility heritage of the region.

The church's central plan, with its unfinished transept and southern collateral, illustrates an architectural transition between the late Gothic and the early Renaissance. The site, referenced in the Mérimée and GCatholic bases, remains a notable example of the religious and funeral history of the Yvelines, from the Merovingian era to the modern era.

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