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Origin and history

The Saint-Martin de Bouillant church, located in Crépy-en-Valois in the Oise (Hauts-de-France), was built in the middle of the 16th century at the site of an older building, although its façade and the base of the bell tower date from the late 15th or early 16th century. She was formerly dependent on the bishop of Senlis, who owned an episcopal hotel there, and enjoyed rare ecclesiastical privileges, such as the title of birth counsellor for his parish priest. Its hybrid architecture, combining flamboyant Gothic influences (broken arches, ogival vaults) and Renaissance (doric capitals, sculpted vault keys), is partly inspired by the eastern parts of St.Denis Basilica. The nave, without high windows, is based on innovative pillars, surrounded by cylindrical drums and softened pilasters, while the lower sides have lamp-ends decorated with plant or religious motifs (IHS, dove of the Holy Spirit).

During the French Revolution, the transept and the choir were demolished, leaving only the western walls of the crucifixes and the pillars of the cross. The church, closed to worship until 1804, reopened after restoration, but its planned massive bell tower was never completed, replaced by a frame arrow. Ranked a historic monument in 1951, it preserves traces of its prestigious past, such as a funeral slab of the parish priest Antoine Mouton (1572) today in Villeneuve-sur-Verberie, or a Christ on the cross of the 15th to 16th centuries, deposited at the museum of Crépy-en-Valois. His original furniture, including statues of Saint Jeanne de Valois and of a holy bishop (called Saint Guinefort), has largely disappeared, with the exception of a 19th-century stained glass window depicting the Charity of Saint Martin.

The church, now affiliated with the parish of Saint-Sébastien in Crépy-en-Valois, rarely hosts celebrations. Its rectangular plan, without transept since 1789, includes a nave of four spans flanked by low-sides, while the flat bedside, rebuilt in 1804, masks the absence of the original l On the outside, the western facade, partly made of cut stone, reveals traces of reshaping (high gable, unfinished foothills), and lateral elevations show ground windows, more generous to the south than to the north. The remains of the crucifixes, with their clogged doubles and aniconic capitals, recall the initial ambition of the building, reduced by the hazards of history.

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