Église Notre-Dame du Bourg de Rabastens

Rabastens

In the 12th century, the great abbey of Moissac founded a priory at Rabastens, on the medieval road that linked Rodez to Toulouse. Of the Romanesque church only the carved capitals of the portal survive: the present building was raised after the Treaty of Paris of 1229, at the close of the Albigensian Crusade. The brick nave dates from the 13th century; in the early 14th, under Prior Bernard de Latour, a vast polygonal choir was added, whose keystone was blessed on 29 June 1318 – by the Archbishop of Compostela himself, a striking sign of the bond that united this Tarn town to the great Galician pilgrimage. Rabastens did indeed hold relics attributed to Saint James, which drew a flow of pilgrims recorded in the town archives, along with a hospital and a chapel of Saint-Jacques at the exit of the old Toulouse road. The interior has kept an exceptional medieval painted decor: the first depiction of Saint James here dates from around 1260, and one chapel devotes a complete cycle to him, while the vaults of the choir, in dominant red and blue, unfold the childhood of Christ and the life of the Virgin, restored in the 19th century. Since 1998, Notre-Dame du Bourg has been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France – one of the rare painted witnesses to the cult of Saint James on the secondary roads of the Midi.

Getting there : In the old centre of Rabastens, rue Amédée Clausade, above the left bank of the Tarn; parking on the promenades, access on foot through the lanes of the old town.

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

Ambient sound