Basilique Saint-Nazaire-et-Saint-Celse de Carcassonne

Carcassonne

In 1096 Pope Urban II, travelling through the Midi to preach the crusade, passed through Carcassonne and blessed the stones of the future cathedral. Of this Romanesque church the nave remains, built in the mid-12th century: three vessels of six bays, the central one with a pointed barrel vault, and a portal entirely remade in the 19th century during Viollet-le-Duc's restorations. The episcopal see was much older: a Bishop of Carcassonne, Sergius, sat at the Third Council of Toledo in 589, and the first authentic document naming the cathedral of Saint-Nazaire dates from 925. The crusade against the Albigensians reached the Cité in 1209: the chapter buildings suffered from the siege, and the refectory was demolished so that its stones could be taken to strengthen the ramparts. In 1269 Saint Louis granted land for the rebuilding of the choir. The Romanesque chevet was pulled down and, until 1330, a Rayonnant Gothic transept and choir rose, very slender, pierced with great rose windows in the transept arms, the Virgin to the north and Christ to the south, and with stained-glass windows of which the axial one, devoted to the Childhood and Passion of Christ, goes back to the 1280s. The statues of apostles follow the model of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris; Bishop Pierre de Rochefort (1300–1321) paid for a large part of the decoration. Also to be seen are the recumbent effigy of Bishop Guillaume Radulphe, who held the see from 1255 to 1266, and the ‘siege stone’, a 13th-century bas-relief in which some have thought they recognised the siege of Toulouse of 1218, the one in which Simon de Montfort was killed by a stone hurled from the walls.

Wikipédia — Basilique Saint-Nazaire-et-Saint-Celse de Carcassonne ↗

Getting there : In the Cité, reached on foot (about twenty minutes from the lower town according to the Routard). Free entry; open from 9 am to 12 noon and from 1.45 pm to 6 pm (7 pm in July and August), visits interrupted during Sunday morning Mass, according to the Routard (to be checked). Allow three quarters of an hour.

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

Ambient sound