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Heritage classified

Origin and history

The church Saint-Pierre de Saint-Pierre-d'Exideuil is a Romanesque religious building located in the Vendée department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. Mentioned in 892 as a dependency of the Abbey of Nouaillé, its current construction began in the 11th century. It adopts a single-nave plan of 26.30 m long, with a semicircular apse arched in a cul-de-four. The modillons of the bedside and the south wall, with motifs sometimes described as obscene, as well as the double arches supported by little decorated round columns, illustrate its sober and typical style of Poitevin Roman art.

Damaged during the Wars of Religion, the church was the object of several restoration campaigns: 1693 (wall and triumphal arch), 1737 (campanile), and 1752 (vote and apse). It became a parish church in 1844, before being classified as a historical monument on December 21, 1904. Its furniture includes protected elements, such as a statue of Virgin with Child, an 18th-century bell, a tabernacle-retable and a local marble bento. Integrated into the parish of Saint-Sauveur in Civraisian (archdiocese of Poitiers), it remains a major architectural and historical testimony of the Salesian heritage.

The church is surrounded by a cemetery with horse tombs, characteristic of regional funeral traditions. Its central location in the village, as well as its religious and community role since the Middle Ages, make it an emblematic place of St. Peter's Exideuil. The available sources (Wikipedia, Merimée base) confirm its membership in the Vienna department before the 2016 territorial reform, now integrated into New Aquitaine.

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