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Origin and history

The church Saint-Gilles de Bonneviole, located in Prudhomat in the Lot, finds its origins in a chapel Saint-Pierre mentioned as early as 926 in the cartular of the abbey of Beaulieu. This place, then named villa ad illas Macerias, became Bonnavila (Bonneviole) in the 11th century. A charter of 926 evokes a donation by Aytrude, widow of Matfred, including the church and surrounding lands. These properties are confirmed and extended in 1100-1108 by Hugues de Castelnau, who also ceded the wood of the Taillade and the mas d'Al Montar to the monks of Beaulieu, marking the official foundation of the priory.

The construction of the Romanesque church, under the name of Saint Gilles, coincides with the rise of the nearby castrum of Castelnau-Bretenoux. Successive donations (including those of the Castrum of the Perières) suggest the creation of a castral salvation, a protected space under ecclesiastical and seigneurial control. The priory, dependent on the Benedictine abbey of Beaulieu (Order of Cluny), becomes a place of asylum and worship, although Baron Hugues II of Castelnau regularly contests the rights of the abbey on its income.

From the 12th century building, only the eastern parts (an apse vaulted in cul-de-four and transept) remain today. The nave, originally probably three vessels with lateral apsidioles, was rebuilt in 1885 into a single vessel, considerably reducing its size. The church, inscribed in the historical monuments in 1979, preserves traces of its medieval past, as a billeted Romanesque door on the right crusillon, recalling its link with Clunisian architecture.

Conventual buildings of the priory have disappeared, and little information remains about their organization. A leprosy was once attached to the church, highlighting its social and religious role in the region. The medieval charters, studied by Gilles Séraphin and Gérard Prédalié, reveal a complex management of the lands between lay lords (Castelnau) and ecclesiastical (Beaulieu), typical of feudal dynamics in Quercy.

The present church, owned by the municipality of Prudhomat, illustrates the architectural transformations and power stakes of the Middle Ages. His Latin cross plan, inspired by Beaulieu's abbey, and his Romanesque vestiges make it a rare testimony of Occitan rural priories, despite the reshuffles of the nineteenth century.

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