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Origin and history

The church of the Martrou, located rue des Martyrs in Agen (Lot-et-Garonne), originates in the martyrdom of Saint Foy and Saint Caprais in the fourth century. Their bodies, thrown into marshes north of the city, were collected by Christians and buried in a crypt built in the fifth century, called Saint-Caprais-du-Martyre or Martrou (cave of martyrs). This place, equipped with a well where the bodies were precipitated, became a site of veneration after drying up the marshes. In the 12th century, a Romanesque chapel was built above the crypt, later integrated into a medieval hospital.

The chapel, dependent on the collegiate Saint-Caprais, was remodelled several times, especially after 1563 when the hospitals were merged under the name Saint-Jacques-du-Martyre. A room was added above the nave for the Grey Penitents. In the 20th century, the fresco of the choir was painted in 1934 by Giovanni Masutti, and major restorations took place in 2007 (clocher, acoustic, crypt). The church, registered as a historical monument in 1995, now combines religious heritage and cultural vocation.

The site is linked to the legend of Saint Foy, martyred in 303 under Emperor Maximian, and that of Saint Caprais, Bishop Dulcide (c. 405) having transferred their relics to dedicated shrines. These accounts, recorded in the Book of the Miracles of St Foy, made d'Agen a step on the way to Compostela. The crypt, closed in the seventeenth century, and the Roman chapel, transformed into a place of meeting and care, bear witness to this turbulent history, between devotion, pilgrimage and adaptation to social needs.

The current architecture includes a rectangular nave panelled, a vaulted cul-de-four choir, and the fourth century crypt, the historic heart of the monument. The successive changes (XVIII, XIX, XX centuries) reflect its evolution, from the medieval hospital to the contemporary cultural space. The restoration of 2007, led by the Diocesan Association of Agen, preserved this heritage while offering it a new vocation, mixing religious memory and secular events.

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