Basilique Notre-Dame-de-Délivrance

Quintin

In rue Notre-Dame, the basilica of Quintin surprises with its size: a nave 67 metres long, a vault 16 metres high and a tower whose weathercock reaches 62 metres. Inside, a carved tympanum shows the crusader's return bearing the relic, a gallery of recumbent effigies runs along the nave, and the baptismal font has a wooden cover designed by Jeanne Malivel. The building is recent, but the devotion it houses is more than seven centuries old. Around 1250 — in 1252 according to InfoBretagne — Geoffroy Boterel, lord of Quintin, returned from the seventh crusade with a fragment of linen held to be part of the Virgin's girdle, which he had received, it is said, from the patriarch of Jerusalem; he placed it in the chapel of his castle. The chapel was held in great veneration by the end of the 13th century, and in 1405 a bull of Pope Benedict XIII made it a collegiate church. On 8 January 1600, a fire destroyed the treasury; on 18 January, the relic was found almost intact in its melted casket, which was held to be a miraculous preservation. About eight centimetres wide, it was thereafter invoked by pregnant women against the perils of childbirth. The collegiate church, pulled down in 1879, gave way to the present church, built up to 1887 to the plans of Baillargé and then of Théodore Maignan; it was raised to the rank of minor basilica in 1933 or 1934, depending on the source.

Wikipédia — Basilique Notre-Dame-de-Délivrance de Quintin ↗

Getting there : Rue Notre-Dame, in the centre of Quintin. The departmental tourist board indicates that it is open every day (opening times to be checked). The great pardon takes place in May, on the second Sunday according to the parish (to be checked each year).

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

Ambient sound