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Origin and history

The Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Campagne church, located in the eponymous village of Dordogne (New Aquitaine), finds its origins in the 12th century as a Romanesque building. Built by an Augustinian priory dependent on Saint-Cyprien, it housed a leprosy from 1321 before becoming parishioner at the end of the 14th century. Its initial architecture is characterized by a Romanesque choir with carved capitals and a narrow nave of 20.60 meters long.

The Hundred Years' War marked a violent turning point for the monument: in 1427, the English set fire to the nearby castle and ravaged the church. This destruction led to a partial reconstruction in the 15th to 16th centuries, with the addition of a seigneurial funeral chapel south of the choir, a bay enlarged at the bedside, and the construction of the present three-bay bell tower. The nave and the side chapels were also rebuilt during this period, while later modifications (massive door in 1841, window in 1887) adapted the building to parish needs.

The church preserves remarkable elements such as a black funeral liter in the nave, sculpted lamp-ends in the seigneurial chapel (human and animal heads), and two historic bells (1626 and 1822). Its flat bedside, adorned with blind archings in the middle of the hanger, and its dome on trunks (refainted in ovoid form) illustrate the transition between Romanesque and Gothic styles. Ranked a historic monument in 1949, it has been closed to the public since July 2025 due to major structural disorders affecting its vaults.

Architecturally, the building has an atypical southeast/northwest orientation. Its bell tower-wall, characteristic of the Périgord, dominates a broken arch portal to the west. The seigneurial chapel, isolated from the choir by a walnut door, communicates directly with the park of the adjacent castle, highlighting the close links between the church and the local nobility. The stained glass windows dated 1887 and the roofs redone at the same time testify to the last restoration campaigns before its official protection.

The site occupies a strategic position at the corner of departmental roads 35 and 706, in the heart of the Périgord noir. Its history reflects regional upheavals: from the monastic origins to the Hundred Years' War, to its parish and funeral role for the Landlords. The successive changes, such as the addition of the large door in 1841 or the opening of a window on the castle park in 1887, reveal a constant adaptation to the community's cultural and social needs.

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