Architecture and decorations

The church of Saint-Pierre-Saint-Paul was built in the 11th and 12th centuries and is now owned by the commune of Pommiers-en-Forez. The roof was first added in the 11th century; it is vaulted and reinforced by buttresses dating from the following century. It is in the Roman style, with a single elevation (large arches), and is shaped like a Latin cross made up of a nave and two aisles plus a projecting transept. The chancel, which is made up of a semi-circular apse, is slotted in between two absidioles. A belfry with a square ground plan and twin bay windows, put up in the 12th century, surmounts the transept crossing’s dome mounted on squinches. Inside, there are twenty-nine niches in the vault, holding twenty-seven acoustic jars or echea (the two that are missing have been placed in the original priory’s collections) level with the nave's last bay. These echea, which were installed by the monks in the 12th century, were used to improve the perception of sounds and voices during the sung offices and prayers.

A granary was added over the church’s northern aisle during the Hundred Years’ War - perhaps in the second half of the 14th century. Two conduits installed inside the northern wall allowed the grain to be emptied outwards onto the civilian side. The monks could gain access to the granary from the cloister buildings by walking along an inside gallery resting on the western façade. There are two blocked-off doors which can still be seen in the base of the vault level with the nave’s first bay.

During the Wars of Religion, the priory and the church suffered severe damage at the hands of the Baron des Adrets’s Protestant troops in the 1560s. After this incursion, the commendatory prior Jacques I de Rostaing embarked upon major work to restore the church after its sacking (restoration of the damaged frescoes, reinforcement of the southern pillar of the transept, etc.); and the western outer wall after the Protestants had made a breach in it during their attack. This work was certainly financed by a younger member of the de Rostaing family and the Marquis and Marshal Honorat de Savoie-Villars. Their arms are on the arch between the nave and the church’s chancel. The southern arm of the transept was shortened in the 17th century in order to install the monumental staircase in the east wing of the priory.

The interior decoration is fairly restrained, only the capitals in the transept crossing and the apse have any plant decorations (capitals with foliage), although the church does have some painted decorations. On the southern pillar of the nave’s third bay there is a mural (14th century) portraying two scenes - at the top, the carrying of the Cross, and at the bottom the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. People often prayed to Saint Sebastian to combat epidemics of plague, and indeed epidemics in general. This painting could date from the middle or second half of the 14th century and may have been designed to protect Pommiers from the epidemic which was raging in Forez at the time.

The northern absidiole is the most decorated part of the church. The murals, covered with whitewash, were discovered between 1936 and 1938. They date from the late 15th century (circa 1470) and portray the life of Jesus Christ in eight panels - Jesus’s childhood to the south and the Passion to the north. The surrounding decorations made up of pilasters may be later (early 16th century). Two figures are also portrayed in the entrance to the bay - to the north, Saint Benedict (protecting a priest or a prior), and to the south, Saint Amand (protector and supposed founder of Nantua Abbey). These portrayals could date from the early 16th century.

The original priory dates back to the 11^th century, to the time when the church of Saint-Pierre-Saint-Paul was built. Standing at the bottom of the clay hill, parallel to the church, it measures fourteen metres, seventy centimetres long by seven metres, sixty centimetres wide and stands around eight metres tall. The quoins that are still clearly visible and the bay windows (a Roman bay[1] window in the eastern wall, two modified bay windows in the southern wall) help with reconstructing the first building. The monks used it as a refectory up until the 15^th century.

A new building, resting against the eastern gable of the first, was erected in the 12^th century. A monumental door was created in the south façade whilst a second door was added inside the building, thus creating an entrance hall. These doors sketch out a sharply sloping direction of transit running from south to north (with a gradient of around four metres) leading straight to the church. The staircase put in to provide access to the church was found during the archaeological digs. Finally, to the south of the monumental entrance, there was probably a flight of steps destroyed when the site was placed on a defensive footing. The first chapter house may be inside this building.

To the west, another building was built following on from the eastern wing, somewhere around the 12^th-13^th century. Remains of straight-headed doors another other entrance door now standing two metres below the current church square were discovered during the archaeological digs, and show that the space was filled in at the end of the Middle Ages.

[1] Translator’s note: the opening bracket is missing in French but I think it should go like this.

In order to protect themselves against the unrest of the Hundred Years’ War, the monks decided to fortify the priory and the whole of the ecclesial town at the end of the 14^th century. They raised three imposing defensive towers against the priory’s southern building. These measured around twenty-five metres tall, six metres in diameter, and the walls were around one metre, seventy centimetres thick. They had arrow and cannon holes in the walls and their bases were wider, convex in shape, to make the sappers’ work more difficult and allow projectiles thrown from the towers to ricochet off the masonry and reach as far as the attackers. At the feet of the towers, thanks to the earthworks, a fortified terrace was also laid out.

The building of the priory’s southern towers is not without some insignificance - the second tower closes up off a weak spot in the priory’s structure, i.e. what had been the entrance to the monastery ever since the 12^th century. In the third tower next to the original priory’s refectory, the monks created a kind of pit called a “cul-de-basse-fosse”, a space used as a store for grain used to cater to the religious community’s needs (food, storing seeds, alms). Finally, when the monks turned the shared dormitory into individual cells in the 17^th-18^th century, they also arranged a cell in the first tower.

As far as the defence of the ecclesial town is concerned, a fortified wall with arrow and cannon holes was raised and the gate, the only entrance to the east of the village, was fortified. It is protected by two entrance towers (the base of one of them can still be seen) and a drawbridge, in front of which there was a ramp giving access to the moat and a barbican located at the bottom of the slope, which has now gone.

The Renaissance architecture is particularly to be seen on the buildings occupied by the commendatory prior. The prior’s quarters were built and laid out in around 1535 and have an elegant red and black brick façade, somewhere between the Gothic and Renaissance styles. The ground floor giving onto the present-day church square is dotted with lancet arches whereas the upper level has casement windows with prismatic bases. The levels of the quarter are reached via an octagonal spiral staircase turret. The door on the ground floor has a lintel with a polylobed (or cinquefoil?) decoration, scallops and the coat of arms of commendatory prior d’Hostun. The southern façade also has a number of casement windows along with a tower, which are symbols of the prior’s power and wealth.

Inside, the courtroom also shows the kind of luxury in which the commendatory priors used to live. The floor is covered with terracotta tiles, the walls and French ceiling are covered with a white coating. A granite fireplace decorated with a scallop (a Renaissance decoration) embellishes the room.

Finally, there are several door lintels marking the boundary between the prior’s quarters and the monastic buildings. They show the contrast between the prior’s architecture, which is ostentatious and the monks’, which is more restrained and disciplined. One of the lintels has a flamboyant Gothic decoration (ogive arch and sparks) whereas another has a Renaissance decoration (ogive arch, flower friezes, trefoils, rosary, etc.)

The prior’s quarters show some architectural similarities to the prior’s quarters of Charlieu Abbey as well as the Bâtie d’Urfé, all of which were built between the end of the 15^th and the mid 16^th century (steeply sloping roof, moulded casement windows, decorations on the bay windows, a succession of arches). This transitional period between Gothic and Renaissance art can be seen through the architecture and decoration of these buildings, which were erected to express their owners’ power and wealth (references to La Bâtie and Charlieu).

In the 15th century, the monks decided to raise the monastic buildings and stabilise the levels of traffic which were still affected by a significant difference in height facing north to south - so the areas of the original priory was turned into basement areas which were then used as storage space. Reusing the earth excavated during the fortification of the site, the monks filled in the priory’s inner courtyard and the church square to the west, turning these levels into the present-day transit areas.

Over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries, the monks embarked upon major redevelopment work inside the priory. The cloister could have been built between the end of the 16th century and the start of the 18th. This is the centre of the monastery; it is both a meditation space and an area of transit leading to all of the buildings. It is classical in style and has two vaulted galleries with semicircular arches resting on massive columns and simply moulded capitals. There must surely have been a third gallery planned to the west, in front of the chapter house - temporary mortises can be seen on the capitals’ abacuses.

By recycling some of their buildings in the late 17th century, the monks managed to erect a new, larger, refectory in the south wing, with big windows and a high ceiling which gave a great deal of light. The facing of the ground uses terracotta tiles which make up geometric motifs and are reminiscent of a carpeted decoration. The monks also decorated the adjoining room, the Salon Rouge.

The east wing was given a total makeover between the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century, when the monks redistributed the rooms on the ground floor which were used for very specific purposes (sacristy, warming room, parlour, etc.) These were turned into reception rooms in the 19th century and then into offices in the 20th.

After the legal action in 1680, the spiral staircase remained the only way of getting to the dormitories, but it became the commendatory prior’s exclusive property. The monks decided to have a staircase built, partly laid out in the south arm of the church’s transept, and it connected the church and the dormitory. This suspended spiral staircase resting on arches is in contrast to the medieval spiral staircase - it is open, wide, with a comfortable flight of steps and a wrought iron handrail, thus displaying the monastery’s wealth. The creation of the staircase hastened the moving of the chapter house, which is usually located in the east of a monastery, to the wing west. Upstairs, the monks turned the shared dormitory into individual cells.

The outer façade of the east wing had a regular layout dotted with wide bay windows and skylights. An entrance porch was also framed by scrolled pilasters supporting an entablature and a triangular cut-off pediment. A white coating, the remains of which were found during excavation and restoration work, covered the outside of the façade.

One unusual feature of the priory is that it has three types of roof.

The oldest of them is over the priory’s south building (refectory and dormitory). It has been dated by dendrochronology to the mid 15^th century and is an oak roof with rafters forming the truss. The roof truss is an isosceles triangle made up of a tie beam (horizontal piece), two rafters (oblique pieces) and a king post (vertical piece) which make up a rigid, shape-retaining frame to support the steeply sloping roof. This type of roof became widespread during the medieval period.

The priory's towers were covered by a ribbed roof (17^th-18^th century). The system, using numerous ribs, meant that the roof could be adapted by giving it a circular shape and creating domes or roof hips. This horizontal roof system radiates around the king post to provide a circular covering for the section all around it. As is the case in Pommiers, the ribs may be superimposed in order to provide better coverage.

The east building (reception rooms and dormitory) is covered by a gabled roof (17^th-18^th century). This type of roof first appeared in the 16^th century, before being popularised by the architect François Mansart in the following century. It allows large spaces to be freed up underneath the roof so that they can be laid out as living areas; skylights can be added to provide more light. The monks wanted to use this type of roof so that they could have new cells in the attic space, although this was a plan that never came to fruition.

The building of the priory required the use of various different construction materials that could be sourced near the site, such as stone, earth and wood.

Enormous use was made of stone in the structure of the priory. It could be used as dressed stone which was then employed for the quoins of the buildings or as supporting and decorative elements (pillars in the cloister, capitals, arches, etc.); or else in the form of squared-off stonework incorporated into the masonry of the walls of the priory. In Pommiers, the craftsmen mainly used granite from Cézay, a village eight kilometres away (especially for the frames of bay windows, lintels, pillars, etc.), along with limestone and pebbles from the river Aix, which ran below the priory, or the Loire (especially for the masonry of the walls).

Earth was used in the manufacturing of the tiles (terracotta) which were used for the roofing of the monastic buildings and bricks (terracotta or raw earth) which were incorporated into certain pieces of masonry such as those in the prior’s quarters. The priory also had some adobe walls (façade of the reception building and the associations’ building which gives onto the street). This is masonry made up of earth to which various things have been added - these vary from one region to another and include small stones, straw or lime, and then pressed into “banches” (moulds used for vertical formwork so that the adobe could be poured out).

The priory’s natural environment provided large quantities of this material as the buildings were erected at the top of a small clay hill.

Wood was the main material used to build the priory’s roofs. There was plenty of oak nearby so that makes up most of the wood used for the roofing. Oak is well-known for its sturdiness and these pieces are hundreds of years old - they date back to the mid 15th century and to the 17th and 18th centuries.