Collégiale Saint-Pierre-aux-Liens du Dorat

Le Dorat

The largest collegiate church in central France raises over the Basse-Marche its granite bell tower crowned with a gilded copper angel, a medieval watchman the local people have greeted for eight centuries. Built in the 12th and 13th centuries in the purest Limousin Romanesque — facade with a multifoil portal, lantern tower, ambulatory with radiating chapels, pre-Romanesque baptismal font —, it was fortified in the 15th century and houses in its crypt of Sainte-Anne the bodies of two local canons who became saints: Israel, who died in 1014, and Theobald, who died in 1070. Around them grew one of the most astonishing living traditions of Limousin: the septennial ostensions. A devotional confraternity existed as early as 1495; in 1659 the relics left the cramped crypt for portable shrines of gilded wood, the bishop authorised their solemn exposition every seven years and Pope Alexander VII granted perpetual indulgences. Sixteen strong men were appointed to carry the shrines, each of which weighs more than fifty kilos. Banned in 1792, the confraternity hid the relics in the crypt and refused to appear alongside the juring priests; the ceremonies resumed after the Concordat, in 1802. To this day, every seven years, the costumed "sapeurs" and the whole town escort Saint Israel and Saint Theobald through the flag-decked streets — a ritual inscribed since 2013, together with the other Limousin ostensions, on UNESCO's list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity.

Getting there : In the centre of Le Dorat, in the Basse-Marche, in the north of Haute-Vienne; free admission 9.30 am – 7 pm, crypt of Sainte-Anne by guided tour in summer. Car park on the place de la collégiale; remains of ramparts around the town.

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

Ambient sound