The chapel of Saint-Jean du Liget, or chapelle Saint-Jean-du-Liget or chapelle du Liget, is an ancient chapel located in the commune of Sennevières, in the Indre-et-Loire department of France.
It was probably built around the middle of the 11th century, although this dating is still debated to within a few decades, which maintains the uncertainty as to which monastic order, Benedictine or Carthusian, founded it. Similarly, its dedication to Saint John, which could apply to another monument, is disputed. Until the French Revolution, it was attached to the Liget Carthusian monastery, when, already in ruins, it was sold to private owners and then to the State. The latter undertook its restoration in the 1860s, after it was classified as a monument historique in 1862. The chapel has been owned by the commune of Sennevières since 2007.
Its unique initial layout (rotunda preceded by a nave) is reminiscent of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, as discovered by the first Crusaders. The interior walls of this chapel's rotunda - the only part of the monument to have been preserved, which also had a nave - were covered with Romanesque polychrome frescos, the surviving ones depicting figures of saints and major biblical scenes from the Marian cycle. These frescos are among the best-preserved medieval frescoes in the Indre-et-Loire region, although they are tending to deteriorate. It is for this reason that the chapel is closed to the public, except on exceptional occasions.
Location and toponymy
The chapel is located on the border between the communes of Chemillé-sur-Indrois and Sennevières, but on the territory of the latter. It is less than 900 m south-west of the Chartreuse du Liget, of which it was a dependency, and 150 m south-east of the D760 (route from Loches to Montrésor), these distances being expressed as the crow flies. Until perhaps the 17th century, this road took a different route, passing to the south of the chapel.
The chapel is located in the heart of the Loches forest, in a clearing with a former tile factory, also attached to the Carthusian monastery; all these buildings occupy the bottom and slopes of the same Vallon. A fountain near the chapel was the object of pilgrimage until 1870.
The building is oriented from south-west (the former nave) to north-east (the rotunda's "axial" bay).
The origin of the toponym "Liget" is not attested for the Touraine chapel and chartreuse; it appears under the name Ligetum in a charter of 1172. However, Albert Philippon, citing an older document in 1934, suggests that Liget may be a deformation of the word lige, indicating a form of dependency between this land and the mother abbey of Villeloin, to which it originally belonged.
The church's dedication to St. John remains a matter of debate. It is based on the interpretation of a 14th-century text, but another reading envisages that the dedication actually applies to the Corroirie church; the representation of Saint John in the chapel's decor is far from attested. Nevertheless, in common parlance, this round chapel remains the chapelle Saint-Jean.
History The circumstances surrounding the founding of the Carthusian monastery and the construction of the Liget chapel are still debated, due to the many possible interpretations of the sources. The history of the chapel, as presented here, is that towards which the most recent and comprehensive studies tend; it remains a proposal, subject to refinement or contradiction in the light of subsequent work.
First eremitic foundation
Surveys carried out in 1998, which led to the discovery of ceramics from the 11th and 12th centuries, seem to indicate that the site was occupied before the chapel was built; in 1980, Raymond Oursel had already reported the presence of these medieval artifacts on the surface. It is possible that very early on, hermits, perhaps Benedictines from the Villeloin abbey, settled on the site, which came under the jurisdiction of their abbey.
The land at Le Liget appears to have been purchased from Villeloin abbey by Henry II between 1176 and 1183, and then given to this small community on condition that it join the Chartreux order, as may have happened a few kilometers away, under the aegis of the same sovereign, to the Cistercian abbey of Beaugerais around 1150 and the Grandmontain priory of Villiers around 1160-1170. The purpose of these land transactions was probably to stabilize new religious communities while seeking to counterbalance the dominance of the Cluniac Benedictines in the region by promoting emerging monastic orders.
Benedictine or Carthusian chapel
The date on which the chapel was built, and the monastic order that built it, are the subject of much debate. Some authors attribute the building to the Carthusian monks of Le Liget, after 1150 - such as Dom Étienne Housseau in the 18th century - while others believe it was built by the Benedictines of Villeloin in the first half of the 11th century, before the estate was donated to the Carthusians. Construction most probably began with the rotunda, followed shortly afterwards by the nave, whose masonry partially obliterated the frames of certain bays.
The dating of the frescos is also uncertain. After initially proposing, like others, a "low" dating towards the end of the 11th century, historian Christophe Meunier revised his assessment, dating the frescoes to the end of the first half of the 11th century, in agreement with Voichita Munteanu, an art historian who has devoted a thesis to the study of these paintings; in their view, this work is more in keeping with Cluniac pomp than with Carthusian rigor. In addition, Dom Willibrord Witters mentions that in 1280, a decision of the Carthusian General Chapter ordered the "disappearance" of the Liget paintings. This recommendation, which was not acted upon, is hardly conceivable if the Carthusian monks themselves were the authors of these frescoes; it becomes more understandable if they were the Benedictine hermits of the early years. In any case, it seems that the decorations were all painted once the chapel, rotunda and nave were fully completed. Robert Favreau, for his part, based on a graphological study of the inscriptions, believes that the frescos were painted around 1170-1180.
Possible monastery church, then simple chapel Ancient documents, and in particular an extract from a 15th century obituary (although the document is imprecise and suffers from chronological errors), suggest that the chapel first served as a church for the Carthusian monastery's upper house (where the fathers devoted to studying and copying books lived), then for the Corroirie (lower house where the brothers responsible for manual and agricultural work lived), until the latter acquired its own church in the 13th century. It is even possible that the Carthusian monks initially planned to build their upper house around this chapel, which would explain the extension of the building by adding a nave, before changing their minds for unknown reasons.
Early abandonment
The chapel was probably abandoned in the 16th century. Two watercolors painted in 1850 by Aymar Pierre Verdier show it in a state of disrepair, with the roof missing, revealing the dome of the cupola, the west facade gaping, and the walls overgrown with vegetation. In 1862, the chapel was listed as a monument historique. Major restorations were then undertaken under the direction of Verdie. It is not known when the nave preceding the rotunda to the west was demolished, but it was before 1850, as this part of the chapel no longer appears in the watercolors produced by this date.
Owned by the Carthusian monks of Le Liget until the French Revolution, the chapel then belonged to private owners, including the family who also owned the Carthusian monastery, until 1851.It then became the property of the State, which sold it in 2007 to the commune of Sennevières, which delegated its tourist management to the Loches Développement community of communes (Communauté de communes Loches Sud Touraine since 2017).
The frescos were restored twice, first between 1851 and 1925, and then in the 1960s. In 2009, the frescos were restored under the supervision of Arnaud de Saint-Jouan, the architect responsible for French buildings. To prevent deterioration, the chapel is only exceptionally open to the public, while a gate behind the door prevents access to the rotunda.
Architecture and decoration
Chapele
The chapel consists of a circular rotunda, preceded to the west by a nave that disappeared at some undetermined time. All that remains is the start of the gutter walls in contact with the rotunda. The large arcade linking the nave to the rotunda was closed off in the 19th century, and the resulting diaphragm wall was pierced by a semicircular door. The rotunda is lit by seven non-equidistant round-headed windows, averaging 1.50 × 0.40 m in size. The bay that can be considered axial, opposite the door, is slightly wider, perhaps to accommodate a stone altar underneath, which was replaced by a wooden one in 1697. A niche, perhaps a washbasin, is cut into the wall beneath one of the windows. The base of these windows is approximately 2 m above ground level. A molding runs halfway up the wall of the rotunda, highlighting the arches of the bays; the wall below this molding marks a slight rise. All that is left are the remains of the porch or room, perhaps a sacristy, which preceded the doorway to the south of the rotunda. Although the function of the massive masonry wall framing this door is not yet clear, some historians refute the hypothesis that it could have been part of a sacristy to which it would have given too low a ceiling height.
The conical roof is supported by a cornice decorated with 45 modillions and 45 metopes, some original, some restored in the 19th century, others more recent (second half of 2010). The metopes and modillions, all different in style and rather naive in sculpture, represent geometric motifs (checkerboard, etc.), ornaments in the form of objects (millstone, cross, etc.), animals (fish, etc.), plants (flower, four-leaf clover, etc.) or figures (human or animal masks, etc.).
Inside, the chapel is vaulted with a hemispherical dome composed of concentric courses in successive recesses. All masonry, inside and out, is built of regular tufa blocks, with a few courses of harder limestone at ground level.; the walls are just over a meter thick
In his 2011 study of the chapel, Christophe Meunier considers the dimensions chosen for the building to be symbolic. The rotunda measures 7.2 m in internal diameter, 6 m high at cornice level, and the nave 4.2 m in internal width; by transposing these dimensions into cubits, a unit commonly used in the Middle Ages but highly variable locally, these dimensions become twelve cubits for the rotunda, like the Twelve Apostles of Jesus, and seven cubits for the nave, like the seven days needed by God to create the world. Meunier even considers a more direct symbolism with the Apocalypse, which mentions the seven angels and twelve gates of the heavenly Jerusalem. According to the same author, the ratios between width and height of the chapel's components - rotunda, nave and roof - are applications of the principle of the golden ratio. However, Bosseboeuf and, after him, Favreau, give the nave a length of 8 m, while Meunier suggests a nave built on a square plan.
The chapel appears to have been built on a model inspired by the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and brought back from the First Crusade. Other churches, also dating from the 11th century, such as Saint-Étienne de Neuvy-Saint-Sépulchre, also follow the same general layout.
Frescos