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Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The church of Sainte-Eulalie, located in Lignan-de-Bordeaux in Gironde, has its origins in the 12th century, with traces of an earlier Gallo-Roman occupation. Around 1090, local monks, including Richard and Bertrand de Linham, founded a priory dependent on the Sainte-Croix Abbey of Bordeaux. In 1147, Louis VII granted a gift charter to religious, confirming the privileges of the church, which already had burial and marriage rights. The Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem participate in the construction of the transept, while the building undergoes major modifications in the 17th and 18th centuries, financed by local noble families such as Pontac and Chapelas.

The church, oriented with a slight south inclination, has an apse and two apsidioles communicating with the choir by arches pierced in the seventeenth century. The nave, originally planned with never-completed bottoms, preserves remains of the primitive wall and a potentially 8th-century portal. The vaults, in cul-de-four or in cradle, combine Romanesque and Gothic styles, with additions such as the cross of prismatic dogives in the 15th century. The Crussol family of Montsaley and Geoffroy de Pontac marked the building of their coat of arms and restorations, especially in 1635.

Disused during the Revolution, the church was restored to worship in 1843. In 1859, an arrow tower replaced the old bell tower-wall, under the direction of architect Marius Faget, despite controversy. Romanesque capitals, such as those representing a horseman facing a snake or eucharistic birds, illustrate a complex iconographic program, mixing religious symbols and moral warnings. Medieval murals and funerary liters of the 17th and 18th centuries, rediscovered during restorations (2002-2008), testify to its turbulent history.

Classified as a Historical Monument in 1961 (excluding a bell tower), the church houses remarkable furniture: a statue of Saint John the Baptist in alabaster (15th century), a tabernacle in golden wood (17th century), and baptismal fonts of the 15th and 19th centuries. The stained glass windows, dated 1858, and the capitals added during the 19th century restorations, although criticized, complete this architectural ensemble. Its location on an ancient medieval road to Santiago de Compostela reinforces its heritage importance.

Exterior sculptures, such as historic modillons and capitals (dragons, birds, masks), reveal the influence of local workshops, especially those who worked in the Saint-Seurin church of Artigues-près-Bordeaux. Successive restorations, although sometimes controversial, have preserved key elements, such as medieval frescoes and seigneurial liters, offering an overview of the religious and social life of the region since the Middle Ages.

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