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Origin and history

The church of Saint-Réverian, located in the eponymous village of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, is an ancient Romanesque priorial built between the end of the 11th and the beginning of the 12th century. Dedicated to St.Reverian, a Roman missionary beheaded in 274 with her companions near Nevers, she was directly dependent on Cluny Abbey. This Conventual Priory, endowed with extensive seigneurial rights and land wealth (land, mills, ponds), was a major religious and political centre of medieval Nivernais. Its monks, numbering twelve originally, saw their numbers decline from the 15th century, while the convent buildings fell into ruins, with the exception of the prioral home.

The church, Romanesque architecture for its bedside (deambulatory, absidioles) and neo-Romanesque for its nave rebuilt in the 19th century, suffered multiple destructions. A fire in 1723 ravaged the bell tower and the nave, resulting in a brief restoration in 1725-1726. The bell tower collapsed again in the early 19th century, requiring a complete reconstruction of the nave (1833-1840) by architect Paillard, in a style imitating the original. Ranked in 1840, the church houses artistic treasures: sculpted novel capitals (including a Rotbertus signature), frescoes of the 15th-XVIth centuries in the radiant chapels, and medieval funeral slabs.

The oldest part of the bedside illustrates the clunisian influence by its historic capitals (biblical scenes, fantastic bestiary) and its modillons. The wall paintings of the axial chapel, dedicated to the Virgin (XVI century), combine the symbols of litany (sun, moon, tower of David) and narrative scenes (Annunciation, Visitation). The northern chapel, under the name of St.Reverian, preserves a 14th century cephalophora statue. These elements, protected by 1840, bear witness to the spiritual and artistic richness of the priory, despite its decline in modern times.

At the Revolution, the priory was dissolved and his property sold as national property. The last two monks, Dom Admiral and Dom Périnet, were expelled in 1789. In the 19th century, the restoration campaigns (1887-1888) revealed the frescoes hidden under badigeons and consolidated the structure. Today, the church, a communal property, remains open to the public. His re-used Romanesque portal, adorned with Byzantine cariatides, and his funeral slabs of local lords (Hugues de Lespinasse, Marguerite de Thianges) recall his past as an aristocratic necropolis.

The Priory of Saint-Réverian, linked to noble families such as the Champallement or the Cherry (dynasty of Priors in the XVII-XVIIIth centuries), was also a place of power. His priors, often from the regional elite, had a number of ecclesiastical offices: thus François Mouchet de Villedieu, the last patron prior (1778-1789), was also bishop of Digne. The archives mention repeated looting (1343, 1360, 1423) and donations from local lords, highlighting its central role in the medieval life of Nivernais.

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