Notre-Dame de Bethléem, l'évêché en exil

Clamecy

Clamecy holds a title unique in the West: for more than five centuries the town was the seat of the bishopric of Bethlehem. Around 1150, Count William IV of Nevers founded at Pantenor, a suburb of Clamecy, a hospital for sick pilgrims returning from the Holy Land. Setting off on crusade in 1167, he bequeathed this establishment by will to the church of Bethlehem, stipulating that if the diocese of the Nativity should fall into the hands of the infidels, its bishop would find refuge at Clamecy. William died at Acre the following year, and the clause came into play in 1223: Régnier, Bishop of Bethlehem, driven out of Palestine, settled in the hospital of Pantenor. Fifty bishops of Bethlehem "lez-Clamecy" succeeded one another there until the Revolution, governing a diocese reduced to the suburb — which earned them interminable quarrels with the bishops of Auxerre — before the Concordat of 1801 canonically suppressed the see. The district has kept the name of Bethléem. In 1927, to replace a 19th-century church built by the timber-raftsmen, the architect Georges Théodore Renaud raised the astonishing present church, one of the very first in France in reinforced concrete: a shallow dome, an octagonal bell tower and a Nativity mosaic of Romano-Byzantine inspiration, to recall the East of which this corner of the Nivernais was, in law, a fragment.

Getting there : Point placed on the centre of Clamecy; the church of Notre-Dame-de-Bethléem lies about 400 m to the north-east, 2 route d'Armes, on the right bank of the Yonne, at the entrance to the Bethléem suburb. The medieval chapel of the bishops survives nearby, quai de Bethléem.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound