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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The Saint-Pierre de Saint-Pierre-les-Églises church, located near Chauvigny in New Aquitaine, is a 11th and 12th century preroman building. It is distinguished by its Carolingian frescoes, discovered in 1850 in the apse and dated between 782 and 984 thanks to carbon 14, making them the oldest in Western Europe. These paintings, made with frescoes with natural pigments (red, yellow, white and grey ochre), represent scenes of the life of Christ and the Virgin. The church, classified as a Historic Monument in 1952, also preserves a Merovingian sarcophagus decorated with tools of stone tailor, showing an ancient occupation of the site.

The site of Saint-Pierre-les-Églises, located near a Roman road linking Poitiers to Bourges, was a strategic crossing from the first century. Seven miles were found there, including one used in the church bedside and attributed to Emperor Gordien III (238–244). The building, built on the remains of a Gallo-Roman temple dedicated to the protective gods of navigation on Vienna, combines ancient architectural elements (cubic seams, bricks) and medieval transformations. The apse, raised in the 11th century to accommodate a stone vault, and the rectangular nave (13x9.20 m) illustrate this evolution.

The cemetery surrounding the church contains merovingian sarcophagi, some of which are decorated with geometrical motifs or tools (square, piolet), evoking local artisans. These graves, before the medieval cemetery, confirm a continuous occupation since ancient times. The frescoes, rediscovered in 1851 under a badigeon, were initially attributed to the 12th century before being recognized as Carolingian by historian Paul Deschamps around 1950. Their style and technique (painting a fresco on lime coating) make it a rare testimony of the religious art of the early Middle Ages.

The church, once at the heart of a parish called the three churches, perhaps founded in the 9th century, has undergone several reshuffle campaigns. In the 12th century, a text mentions its construction with materials from a pagan temple. The paintings of the nave, dated 1628, contrast with the ancient frescoes of the choir. Today closed for restoration, it depends on the commune of Chauvigny, which also manages its classified cemetery and the adjacent banks of Vienna, protected since 1952.

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