Saint-Mélar de Lanmeur church-Wikipedia

L’ Saint-Mélar church is a Catholic church located in Lanmeur, in France ^{[ first ]} .

The church is located in the French department of Finistère, in the town of Lanmeur.

The church is dedicated to Saint Mélar, according to the legitimate heir legend of the throne of Cornwall, murdered and robbed by his uncle Rivod ^{[ 2 ]} .

At the last quarter of X ^{It is} century, Juhel Beranger, count of Rennes, holds his court in Lanmeur ( Launching ), presence attested by a charter. We can consider that he finances the construction of the crypt and the church of origin, prestige patronage in the face of the rise of the Cornish dynasty rival ^{[ 3 ] , [ 4 ]} . (The fact that the count of Rennes holds his court at Lanmeur, does not affirm that it is the financier of the first Romanesque phase).

Testimonies confirm that the Church retained Romanesque parts ^{[ 4 ]} Until its destruction in 1902, perhaps part of the nave and the Western apse, but a photograph of the time of J. Marzin shows a flat bedside, without apse ^{[ 5 ]} .

The Romanesque church repeatedly altered ^{[ 2 ]} was replaced in 1904 by a neo-Roman building in a Latin cross drawn by the architect Ernest. Reconstruction has preserved the Romanesque crypt under the choir ( X ^{It is} century) and the southern portal of XII ^{It is} – XIII ^{It is} century ^{[ 3 ]} re -employed in the new building ^{[ 6 ]} . His curious pentagonal door is part of a semicircular arc falling on sculpted charges and capitals. An ancient photograph shows it in its original location, a little off -center at the bottom of a porch ^{[ 7 ]} .

The building was classified as historic monuments in 1862 ^{[ first ]} .

It is a rectangle of 8.78 meters by 5.07 meters ^{[ 8 ]} , divided into three vessels by two rows of four thick columns with monolithic drums linked together by arcs lowered with single roll. It is covered with summary vaults, between domes and edges of edges ^{[ 3 ]} , which reach 1.97 meters from the ground. These have experienced a repair, possibly when the church choir was changed around 1540-1550. The paving date of XVII ^{It is} century. Originally, two access, one to the north and one to the south, obstructed shortly after 1790 according to a currency found under the rebut stones.

Near the North Porte is a semicircle basin created at XVII ^{It is} A century to solve hydraulic problems, the crypt being regularly flooded by infiltration waters. Built on a very humid area, the building was regularly flooded all the spring (30 cm of water) until 1967, installation of the entire eg. Excavations have unearthed a contemporary drainage network under the construction (it goes partially under the pillars). This water on origin seen as mysterious was the subject of a popular veneration under the name of Fontaine Saint-Mélar ^{[ 9 ]} .

The crypt owes its notoriety to the two columns between the second and the third span. They wear an exceptional decoration in Romanesque art. Around their trunk winds plant patterns in the round that branch and end in ovoid heads. They were the subject of multiple interpretations: seaweed, hydra, snakes ^{[ 3 ]} … it could be vineyards, classical symbolism linked to the blood of a martyr: the crypt was intended to receive the relics of Saint Mélar (these having been very dispersed, only a fragment was venerated at Lanmeur )) ^{[ 2 ]} . Pilgrims could see them from the outside by eight “Fenestrellae” ^{[ 4 ]} bites later but still clearly visible ^{[ 2 ]} , the building was not buried. The patterns of the Lanmeur columns are similar by their stylization to the representations of vineyards appearing in illuminations of the High Middle Ages and on the Bayeux tapestry.

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