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Origin and history

The Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption church of Gaillon-sur-Montcient, located in the Yvelines in Île-de-France, is a parish Catholic building built from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. Its history began in the middle of the 12th century with the completion of the early church, composed of a single nave of two vaulted bays of warheads, a Roman transept, and a bell tower with a stone arrow. These elements, including the early arches of warheads and the northern portal, bear witness to an advanced Romanesque architecture influenced by early Gothic innovations. The nave, exceptionally vaulted from the time of its construction, presents capitals carved of acanthe leaves and O-ring formations, rare for the time.

At the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Romanesque sanctuary, which became too small for an expanding parish, was replaced by a Gothic choir of two spans flanked by collaterals. This choir, larger and higher than the Romanesque parts, introduces a marked architectural imbalance, with uneven arcades and a temporary connection to the transept crosses. The Gothic vaults, ill-buttoned, collapse or are demolished in the 13th century, requiring their reconstruction in the 16th century in the form of flamboyant vaults low. These transformations partially mask the second level of elevation of the choir, while preserving its double triplet bedside, an architectural rarity.

The bell tower, partially drowned in roofs, preserves archaic Romanesque features, such as flat buttresses and geminied berries without columnettes. Its octagonal arrow, slender and decorated with scales, contrasts with the sobriety of the base and announces the Gothic style. The church, classified as a Historic Monument in 1934, is home to remarkable furniture, including classified 12th century baptismal fonts, a 16th century Virgin with Child holding a symbolic star, and an 18th century bell. His story is also marked by traces of scenery painted in the attic and his role in the film Maigret and the Affair Saint-Fiacre (1959).

The building reflects the architectural and liturgical changes of its time, from its foundation linked to the vow of Agnes de Montfort — according to which seventeen churches were built after the safe return of her husband Galéran IV de Meulan de crusade in 1156 — until its current integration into the parish of Meulan. Masses are celebrated every Sunday in five, perpetuating his parish vocation in a Vexian rural context.

Outside, the tripartite bedside, with its buttresses and superimposed triplets, illustrates the transition between Roman and Gothic. The crusillons of the transept, on the barlong plane, and the collaterals of the choir, vaulted with warheads from the thirteenth century, complete this heteroclite ensemble. Despite restorations and modifications, the church retains rare elements, such as the oric formations of the nave or the polylobed capitals, testifying to the richness of the religious heritage of the French Vexin.

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