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Origin and history

The church of Saint-Majan de Villemagne-l'Argentière, located in the Hérault, finds its origins in the abbey of Villemagne, founded before the 9th century in a place called Cogne. Mentioned in 817 at the council of Aix-la-Chapelle as an imperial monastery, its early history remains obscure, although some attribute its foundation to Abbé Clarinos at the end of the seventh century. Destroyed by the Saracens, it was restored by Charlemagne and originally dedicated to Saint Martin. In 893, after two monks stole the relics of Saint Majan, the abbey adopted this new patron saint. Prospere thanks to the silver mines and its position on the Via Tolosana (path of Santiago), it attracted pilgrims and royal protections, like those of Louis VII in 1156 and Philippe Auguste in 1212.

In the 12th century, a first church was built with a defensive tower and rebuilt in the 13th century with an enlarged nave and a seven-sided apse added a century later. The fourteenth century marked a period of fortification in front of the Big Companies and the Black Prince: windows were blocked, mâchicoulis and a creneled round road erected to protect the building. In 1373, Abbé Pons asked for pontifical help against the besieged roadmen. The abbey's prosperity declined after 1560, when the Huguenots, led by Claude de Narbonne-Caylus, looted it and burned its archives in 1562, leading to its gradual abandonment.

The monks, refugees at Saint-Maur near Paris, returned in 1661 and partially restored the church (two spans of the nave and the apse) under the aegis of the Saint-Maur congregation. A new facade closed the building to the west, and the monastic buildings were rebuilt in the 17th and 18th centuries. Sold as a national property in 1791, the church became a glass factory before being bought by the commune in 1820 to serve as a parish church. Ranked a historic monument in 1921, it preserves traces of its medieval past, such as the Romanesque bell tower and carved choir capitals.

The excavations revealed that the initial floor of the church was 2.06 meters below the current level, raised to the First Empire to guard against the floods of the Mare, a nearby torrent. These floods, like that of 1818, had already caused the abandonment of the former church of Saint-Grégoire. The present building, although partially unfinished (matured facade), illustrates the architectural adaptations associated with conflicts and natural hazards, as well as the transition between religious and industrial use to the Revolution.

Historical sources, including Jules Renouvier's (1840) work and the archives of the Saint-Maur congregation, underline the economic importance of the abbey, linked to the exploitation of the silver-bearing lead mines shared between the Viscounts of Narbonne and Carcassonne. These revenues allowed defensive and liturgical arrangements, such as the five chapels of the bedside, whose vaults are aligned with those of the nave. The veins falling back on columns with figurative capitals (human or animal) bear witness to southern Gothic art, while the exterior mâchicoulis recall regional fortification systems, similar to those of the Cathedral of Saint-Nazaire de Béziers.

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