Enjoy a walk through the Poitiers of the Early Middle Ages. No longer Limonum, not yet the days of the Troubadours and Courts of Love. This guided tour will take you to the oldest Christian building in France, the sites of a couple royal abbeys, the church of Saint Porchaire, and end at one of France’s most celebrated pilgrimage destinations, the church of Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand.
Introduction
After the Romans left, seemingly everyone came to Poitiers. First the Wisigoths (yes, we’re using the French spelling rather than Visigoths), then the Merovingian Francs who pushed out the Wisigoths (one group of Germans doing favors to another). The Saracens, conquerors of North Africa, rode up from Spain, to be met at Poitiers by the founders of the Carolingian dynasty, and then came the Vikings (and again, and again). And all through this time a whole host of saints – some of them marching in, others born here. One martyr left behind the “head-in-the-hole” pilgrimage, which you won’t run into everyday. You can meet most of these visitors on this guided history walk, which will focus on the southern side of the Poitiers plateau.
- Starting Point: Baptistery Saint-Jean
- End Point: Church of St Hilaire le Grand
- Distance: 2.2 Miles
- Walking Time: One hour
- Estimated total time: Three hours
Map: see at bottom of walk, or at link here
The Walk
Start this walk at the old Baptistery St Jean (map A), some hundred or so yards to the south of Poitiers’ cathedral. We’ll begin, and end with, Poitiers’ most famous saint, Saint Hilaire. The Baptistery, happily saved from Poitiers’ 19th century urbanization craze by a decision to route the Rue Jean-Jaures around it, rather than through it, was where the first large-scale conversions to Christianity of the people of Poitiers took place (see a longer version of this in our tale “Christianity Sinks In”). It is today the oldest surviving Christian monument in France.
Built around 360 AD, at the request of Hilaire when he was Bishop of the congregation for Poitiers, and indeed most of Poitou, this is a rare example of a surviving stand-alone Baptistery – from the era where most baptisms were for adult converts to Christianity, as opposed to newborns, and required a larger body of water than a baptismal font. While this was still the time of the Roman Empire (indeed the Roman Governor’s Palace was rebuilt around the same time), the grip of the Empire was becoming distinctly looser. “Barbarian” tribes were increasingly being incorporated into Rome’s legions, and/or being used as “allies.” By the turn of the century, the presence of the Wisigoths, in particular, was becoming stronger in and around Poitiers. In 418, the Wisigoths “purchased” Aquitaine from the Roman Emperor Honorius, and began close to a century of being de-facto rulers of much of the future France, along with most of the Iberian Peninsula. Therefore a great deal of the activity which this Baptistery has seen would have been during the century of Wisigothic rule over the city. The Wisigoths’ leaders themselves had been Christianized (though they had adopted Arian Christianity, a nontrinitarian version whose strongest opponent had been Saint Hilaire), and so it is quite possible that Wisigoth troops were among those baptized here in the 5th century.
Walk to the back side of the Baptistery, and follow the Rue Saint-Simplicien (map B). Turn sharp left along with the street, away from the excellent Musee Sainte-Croix , and the street will wind you down towards the River Clain. You are following the border of the old Abbaye de Sainte-Croix (Holy Cross Abbey), which was established by Sainte Radegonde in the 6th Century (see “From Thuringia With Love”; the Abbey is covered in a separate walk, “In the Footsteps of Eleanor of Aquitaine”). At the bottom of the street once stood the Church of Saint-Simplicien, last rebuilt in the 12th century and destroyed after the French Revolution. Simplicien was a martyr from Roman days, in fact the earliest recorded martyr of Aquitaine, son of the Roman proconsul of Poitiers in the late 2nd century AD. His story told of his having been baptized by a hermit along the river here, and then meeting his father, Justinius. Justinius was furious to discover that his son had converted to Christianity, and cut his head off on the spot. The legend goes that on landing the weight of his head created a hole in the ground, which was given in time the name La Tete-au-Trou (literally “the hole made by the head”). This led to a rather odd medieval pilgrimage of la Tête-au-Trou, whereby on the Feast-Day of Saint Simplicien, the faithful would come from several miles away to put their own head in the hole made by the saint: this was supposed to provide a cure for migraines and similar illnesses. His corpse was preserved in a silver coffin in the church here. As late as the 19th century, pilgrims were still coming here, long after the church had disappeared, though those who stick their heads in the hole are becoming rare.
Walk a block along the Boulevard and cross over to the Pont Saint-Cyprien (map C). Looking downriver to the left, the Clain and its floodplain bend away, and you can’t quite see the second bridge downriver from here, the Pont Joubert (whose story is told in “A Carolingian Bridge”). But look in this direction, past Notre-Dame-des Dunes, as the ridge slopes down towards the suburb on the far side of the Pont Joubert, called Montbernage. This site takes us back to our 5-6th century storyline on the Wisigoths. While the capital of their kingdom was in the city of Toulouse, the Wisigoth kings had a royal residence here in Poitiers, at the city’s highest point in the old Roman Governor’s Palace (now the Palace of the Dukes of Aquitaine, or the Palais de Justice). Alaric II, the Wisigoth King, was in residence here in the Spring of 507. His troops were camped at a place called Culia Alba, which are the now the flats to the north of Montbernage. From here they left on a fateful morning to meet the troops of the oncoming Franks led by Clovis, in what would become the “First Battle of Poitiers” which would “make France France”. The same encampment grounds were in use by a different army two centuries later, in 732. These were the troops of the powerful Abdul Rahman, the Governor-General of El-Andalus, who had come further north than any other Arab armies ever, and had their sights set on the rich prizes of Tours and/or Paris. On that equally fateful day, October 10, 732, the Saracen troops headed out from Montbernage to be met by Charles Martel, the grandfather of Charlemagne: their defeat at the hands of the Frankish forces would lead to the retreat of Arab armies back over the Pyrenees, and soon the replacement of Clovis’ Merovingian Dynasty with Charles Martel’s Carolingian one. These two battles played a central role in determining the course of European history after the end of the Roman Empire.
Poitiers remained an important site for the Carolingian dynasty long after the Battle of 732. Charlemagne’s oldest son, future Emperor Louis “the Debonnair,” was born at Chasseneuil, just north of Poitiers (for the story of Louis and his son Pippin, see the tale “The Missing Emperor”), and built a new palace in Poitiers on the site of the old Roman one. His son Pippin, King of Aquitaine, built an important monastery across the Clain from where you now stand, named the Abbaye Saint-Cyprien. The body of the saint was moved here, and the Abbey dedicated in the year 936. Saint Cyprien was the brother of Saint Savin (for whom the church of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, to the east of Poitiers and a UNESCO World Heritage site due to its remarkably well-preserved Romanesque frescoes), from a rich 5th century family near Lyon. They reportedly became itinerant preachers of the Gospel, and were martyred along the Gartempe River near to where Saint-Savin’s church stands. The Abbey of Saint-Cyprien was highly influential in the early Middle Ages: several bishops of Poitiers were buried here, as were two counts of Poitou (including Count Guillaume III in 963). What you are now looking at across the Pont Saint-Cyprien, however, is clearly not the Abbey: it was destroyed at the time of the French Revolution.
From here, walk back towards the center of town, going two blocks up the Rue Saint-Cyprien, turning right onto the Rue de l’Arceau (map D, note the 15th century building at #3b, and those from the 16th at #s 4 and 5), then left onto the Rue Sainte Catherine. Here you are following along the edge of another famous and ancient Abbey, the Abbey of the Holy Trinity. This Abbey, which also disappeared in the Revolution (the site now is housing for senior citizens) has Viking resonances. It was founded in the mid-10th Century (not, as several histories incorrectly have it, by a daughter of Edward the Elder of England), and had as its first noble patron Adele of Normandy (897-962), daughter of the famous Rollon, the first (Viking) Duke of Normandy. Normandy, “land of the Northmen,” was essentially a bribe, in the form of a very large area of land, given in 911 AD to Viking warlord Rollon and his forces by the French King Charles the Simple to buy off further attacks. Adele, whose original Viking name was Gerloc, was married to Guillaume IV, Count of Poitou, and she was buried here in the Abbey on her death.
This contribution of a new Abbey was a far cry from the earlier contributions of Vikings to Poitiers, which included burning the outlying areas of the city on several occasions – in the years 845, 863, 865 and 868. The name of the Abbey also harks back to the days of Saint Hilaire, who from his pulpit in Poitiers was the great defender of the doctrine of the Trinity, against the Arianism held to by some roman Emperors, and the later Wisigothic Kings.
Continue along the Rue Sainte Catherine, where a short way from the site of the Abbey of the Trinity is a site far more closely associated with Saint Hilaire, that of Saint-Hilaire-de-la-Celle (map E). This was for many centuries a monastery built in the early Middle Ages on the site where Hilaire lived prior to his ordination as Bishop of Poitiers. Most of the buildings which are now here date from the 14th century, though here as in so many places the Abbey was closed and the buildings sold at the time of the Revolution. The choir and the transept of Saint-Hilaire-de-la-Celle survived to be occupied from 1820 to 1957 by the Order of the Carmelites, and now house a regional center for academic documentation. The renovated chapel is used as an exhibition and lecture venue.
From the front of the building, follow the Rue de la Celle to the Rue Louis Renard, turning right onto the Rue Puygarreau (map F). On this street archeologists recently found remains of an extensive Roman villa. Turn left along the side of Poitiers’ City Hall, on the Rue Claveurier. At the far end of the square turn right onto Rue de la Marne, then into the pedestrian Rue Gambetta, and you’ll come to the Tower of the Church of Saint Porchaire (map G).
Saint Porchaire was one of the early Abbots of the Abbey of Saint-Hilaire, near the end of the 6th century. He was an unhappy participant in the so-called “Revolt of the Nuns,” when a pair of princesses who had joined the Abbey of Sainte-Croix in Poitiers rebelled against the election of a too-strict mother superior, and called in a bunch of thugs to support them (for more on this episode, see “The Grand’ Goule & Other Notorious Abbey Tales”). Porchaire later left Saint-Hilaire to found another monastery here, which would take his name.
Saint Porchaire was once the largest parish in all of Poitiers, bringing in those who lived in the city’s growing commercial area. The present church was built in the late 11th century. Its Bell Tower Porch from that period sticks out into the street, and barely survived the attempts of mid-19th century urbanists to remove it. The sculpted Romanesque capitals of the Porch are of particular interest, especially that of Daniel in the Lions’ Den. The lions happily spread onto other nearby capitals. The nave was rebuilt in the 16th century, and the stained-glass windows are in the Renaissance style. Porchaire’s tomb is still venerated in the church and can be seen there, a small stone sarcophagus from probably the 10th century with the inscription “IN hoC TvMVLo RqleSci SoS PoRCHRIuS.” The church cemetery used to run along the side of what is now Rue Gambetta, from #s 49 to 55, though “dead of distinction” could be buried in the church, and the church floor was at one time mainly made up of funerary slabs.
We’re ready now for our last stop on this walk, which will take us about 10 minutes to get to. Follow the short Rue Saint-Porchaire to the left, coming out of the church, and continue along the Rue Theophraste-Renaudot, eventually turning right onto the Rue Saint-Hilaire. Take your second left onto the Rue du Doyenné (map H), and this will bring you to the apse of the Church of Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand (map I). This was one of the most important pilgrimage destinations in France, and a major stop for pilgrims making their way to Santiago de Compostela.
Saint Hilaire holds a position of honor in the western Catholic church. Born at Poitiers c.310 AD, in the very early days of evangelization of Aquitaine, he was the son of an important pagan family and received a good education. He converted to Christianity, and around the year 350 was chosen to become Bishop of Poitiers. His Ordination came at a time when the Arian version of Christianity, which denied the Trinity, was much in vogue, including at the imperial court in Constantinople. Hilaire became the strongest opponent in the church of Arianism, and in spite of Hilaire being exiled for four years in Phrygia (present-day Turkey) his position became the accepted dogma of the church from then onwards. After this he became known as the “Hammer of the Arians,” and was one of the most celebrated churchmen in France. On his return from exile, he was said to have been allowed to bring back from Rome hairs from the beard of Saint Peter: these became the most important relic in the Cathedral of Poitiers. After his death he became increasingly venerated, along with his disciple Saint Martin of Tours (for more on Martin, see “The First Monk”) and pilgrims flocked to worship at his tomb for over a thousand years.
The history of Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand is of interest. The church before you lies within the limits of the old Roman cemetery which once extended along the old road from Poitiers to Bordeaux. Saint Hilaire built a mortuary chapel here for his wife and daughter when they died, and was buried in it on his death in 367. Remains of this Gallo-Roman chapel still exist beneath the nave of the present church. An Abbey was created around the church, and a small village, or borough, grew up alongside the increasingly rich Abbey. Because the church lay outside the original limits of Gallo-Roman Limonum, and outside of the city’s 3rd century defensive walls, it suffered frequently from attacks on the city. In 412 AD the Vandals sacked it, before they were chased to Spain and into North Africa by the Wisigoths. Attila’s Huns destroyed in in 453, the Arabs had a go in 732, and the Vikings in both 863 and 865. Then in 1038 a great fire ravaged most of Poitiers, and again destroyed the church. In need of yet another rebuilding, St Hilaire received its funds for the job from an unlikely source: the Queen of England.
Emma of Normandy, also known by the Anglo-Saxon name Aelfgifu (984-1052), was another of history’s remarkable medieval women. Daughter of Richard II “the Fearless”, Duke of Normandy, Emma was a cousin of Duke Guillaume IV’s wife, Gerloc, who we met earlier on this walk. She rose to fame by marrying the Anglo-Saxon King of England, Aethelred (known to history unfortunately as “Aethelred the Unready”), as part of a diplomatic alliance whereby the Anglo-Saxons were attempting to stop Viking raids on England. The strategy did not succeed: Aethelred died in 1016, and the head of the invading Viking army, Cnut the Great (there were great names at the time), assumed the throne of England and became Emma’s second husband. Cnut was also King of Denmark, and so Emma found herself not only a second time Queen of England, but also Queen of Denmark, and later of Norway as well. Emma not only provided Saint Hilaire with funds for rebuilding the renowned church, but even furnished the architect, an Englishman by the name of Walter Coorland. The apse and much of the interior dates from this period.
While the church of Saint-Hilaire has been redone several times, and the 19th century façade is unattractive, the 11th century apse, which you see first coming from the Rue du Doyenné, is one of the most impressive Romanesque apses in France, both for its architectural style and its decorative sculpted capitals. Several of the historiated capitals atop the columns in the nave are also remarkable, notably the one representing the death of Saint Hilaire. The 19th century mosaic floor design imitates Merovingian era mosaics rediscovered at the time. Like at Notre-Dame-la-Grande, several painted frescoes have survived at Saint-Hilaire and were restored recently. Near the entrance, one can see a white marble sarcophagus, said to be the tomb of Hilaire’s daughter Sainte Abre, which for its decoration holds an important position in one line of art history (for details, see “Early Christian Environmentalism? The Green Man of St Hilaire”).
During the Viking raids, the Abbey’s monks carried the body of Hilaire to safety in the mountains of Auvergne, to Le Puy-en-Velay. Seven centuries later these relics were procured back from Le Puy, and are still in the false crypt beneath the transept, covered by a bronze reliquary from the late 19th century. The tomb of Saint Fortunat (for whose own interesting story, please see “If This be the Food of Love”) was destroyed during the Protestant raid of 1562 during the Wars of Religion.
Aside from the constant year-round flow of pilgrims coming to worship, an ancient ceremony of note formerly took place yearly at St Hilaire. On the 25th of June, eve of the Translation of the Relics of St Hilaire (the exhuming of the body by St Fridolin in the 6th century, after Clovis had endowed the church with the funds to build a far grander edifice), the mayor and all the municipal officers used to come on horseback in great state to the Abbey, perform their orisons, go in procession about the church, and light a lantern to be placed in the church steeple (commemorating the apparition of Clovis’ globe of fire – for more on this story see “Clovis’ Globe of Fire and the Creation of France”), with bells pealing on the hour during the night.
This brings our tour to an end, unless you find some way to have the bells peal again.