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Origin and history

The church Saint-Pierre de La Sauvetat-de-Srevents, located in the Lot-et-Garonne department, dates back to the 12th and 13th centuries. His history is marked by archival gaps due to successive wars, including the destruction of the priory's archives. According to Father Barrère, the monk Bernard, originally from the nearby castle of La Sauvetat, was sent to Spain by Saint Hugues de Cluny to reform the abbeys before becoming Archbishop of Toledo in 1085. The precise identification of this castle (La Sauvetat-de-Srests or La Sauvetat near Fleurance) remains debated.

The village was founded by the chapter of the collegiate Saint-Caprais of Agen, which establishes there an unconventual priory whose exact date of foundation is unknown. Georges Tholin, by stylistic analysis, places the construction of the sanctuary at the end of the 12th century. The site enjoyed the right of asylum, attracting a population around the church. In 1203, fearing the guardianship of the bishop of Agen, the chapter handed over half of the fief to Count Raymond VI of Toulouse, who built ramparts there (now disappeared) and granted the village the customs of Agen in 1205.

The Sauvetat-de-Srestes became a strategic issue during the Hundred Years War, passing alternately under French and English domination. In 1304, the future Pope Clement V stayed there, and in 1315 King Edward II of England corresponded with the local prior. The conflicts ruined the priory, gathered in 1351 at the Capitular Mense of Saint-Caprais. The church, transformed into a fort during the 16th century religious unrest, served as a refuge during the attacks, as in 1589 against the League troops. His Romanesque bell tower and his ditches made him a key defensive point.

In the 17th century, after the Fronde, the ditches were filled and the ravelin converted into a cemetery. The French Revolution marked a new turning point: in 1793 a bell was removed to be melted, and the church was desecrated in the name of the goddess Reason. Restored in the 19th century, it received a neo-Gothic facade surmounted by an arrow. Only four Romanesque capitals of the absidioles, classified in 1957, remain as evidence of his medieval past.

Architecturally, the church is characterized by an extended single-nave plan of an apse choir flanked by two apsidioles, forming a transept. It is 31.50 metres long and 14 metres wide in the transept, and shares this model with other churches in Lot-et-Garonne, such as Sainte-Marie d'Aubiac or Saint-Pierre del Pech. The successive wars, however, mutilated its eastern part, abrased under the capitals of the choir.

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