Cathédrale Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Privat de Mende

Mende

Privatus, bishop of the Gabali, is said to have been martyred in the 3rd century by the Alamanni of Chrocus for refusing to hand over his people to them, who had taken refuge in the fortress of Gredone; according to tradition, he was buried at the foot of Mont Mimat. The present cathedral owes everything to a son of the region: Guillaume de Grimoard, born at Grizac in 1310, pope under the name of Urban V from 1362, wished to “restore the cathedral church”; the foundation stone was laid in 1369, under the direction of Pierre Morel, from Majorca, one of the builders of La Chaise-Dieu. The Pope's death, in 1370, halted the work, and the choir was not completed until around 1470. In 1508, Bishop François de La Rovère, nephew of Pope Julius II, had a great bell tower built at his own expense, and the canons a second, more modest one: hence these two unequal towers, finished in 1512. In 1516 the “Non-Pareille” arrived from Lyon, held to be the largest bell in Christendom, which could be heard, it is said, four leagues around. It rang for the last time at Christmas 1579: that night, the Huguenot captain Matthieu Merle entered Mende during midnight mass, and he melted down bells and holy-water stoups to cast his cannon. In 1581, after holding the people of Mende to ransom to raise 4,000 écus, he had the pillars undermined, replacing each stone removed with a wooden beam, piled bundles of firewood in the nave and set fire to them: the building collapsed, but the bell towers, adjoining the bishop's palace where he was living, were spared. Of the Non-Pareille, only the clapper remains, preserved in the cathedral.

Wikipédia — Cathédrale Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Privat de Mende ↗

Getting there : In the centre of Mende. Three doors: to the south on Place Chaptal (accessible to people with reduced mobility), to the west on Place Urbain-V, to the north on Rue de la Rovère. Self-guided visits and guided tours offered by the Mende Cœur de Lozère tourist office; times and prices of guided tours to be checked.

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

Ambient sound