Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption de Lescar

Lescar

Guy de Lons, appointed Bishop of Lescar in 1115, was a prelate of war as much as of building. With the Béarnais of Gaston IV, he followed King Alfonso I of Aragon to the capture of Zaragoza in 1118, then of Tudela in 1119; in 1120 he began the new cathedral, the largest in the region in its time, consecrated in 1145. Taken prisoner later before Fraga, he had, it is reported, his eyes put out by his captors before being freed in exchange for a heavy ransom. Of his church the Romanesque chevet remains, with capitals in which Daniel, the Nativity or the sacrifice of Abraham can be recognised. But his most singular memorial is on the ground: the choir mosaic, whose inscription names him as the patron of the pavement, unfolds a hunting scene in which a Moorish archer stands on a wooden leg, presented as the oldest known image of a prosthesis in the West. From the end of the 15th century the church became the ‘Saint-Denis’ of the sovereigns of Béarn and Navarre: Francis Phoebus was buried there in 1483, then Catherine of Navarre and her husband Jean d'Albret, and finally Henri II d'Albret and Marguerite d'Angoulême, grandparents of Henry IV. Then came the Reformation. Jeanne d'Albret had images and altars torn down; the Protestant troops of Montgomery sacked the building, burnt the bones of Saint Galactoire and desecrated the tomb of Guy de Lons, and the canons went into exile until 1610. The vault collapsed in 1599 or 1600; between 1628 and 1632 Bishop Jean-Henri de Salette had it rebuilt and restored the choir. The mosaic, for its part, lay sleeping under a tiled floor, where it was rediscovered in 1838.

Wikipédia — Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption de Lescar ↗

Getting there : Place Royale, in the upper town of Lescar (Pyrénées-Atlantiques); by bus from Pau station (about 30 to 40 minutes) or some twenty minutes from Pau by car. Opening times, free entry and guided tours to be checked with the Pau tourist office.

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

Ambient sound