MARSON ; The Church of the Holy Cross

 MARSON

The Church of the Holy Cross

History

Marson is a former fief and seigneury pertaining to the Ménives Tower, which belonged to the de la Grézille family
A charter of Geoffrey, bishop of Angers, dated from the 10th February 1070, gives to Geoffroy de la Grézille a chapel built at Marson, in the Chétigné Parish, to be served by the priest of Chétigné or a chaplain under his authority. This chapel is under the name of St. Catherine of Alexandria.
In the mid 15th century the land passed from the family de la Grézillé to the Couesmes, lords of Thoureil, then to the Quatrebarbes as early as 1481.

The priest of Chétigné no longer celebrating the service in memory of the lords founders, Jacques Duboys,  lord of Marson and grandson of Catherine de Quatrebarbes, took him to the ecclesiastical court in the beginning of 1579. At the end of that year, he succeeded and obtained the designation of avicar and a chaplain of St. Catherine and the erection of the branch chapel now dedicated to the Holy Cross.

A foundation of the Lord of Marson forced the monks of the Abbey of St Florent to distribute on All Saints Day to each poor household of the 13 parishes of their feudal circumscription, 4 pounds of beef and 2 loaves of bread, a royalty replaced from 1675 by an annuity of 18 cents.

During the first half of the 18th century (from 1704 to 1744),  relations became difficult between the priest of Chétigné and his vicars who wanted to get rid of his guardianship by granting to themselves the title "priest" or "Rector”. In 1715 the curate Abel Valette ordered the melting of a bell, the priest of Chétigné obtained from the bishop to suppress the title of "priest" that Abel Valette  had inscribed on the bell.

The same year the inhabitants of Riou dependent on Chétigné, basing on the claims of the curate, asked to be attached to the parish of Marson. In fact that will only be obtained only at the Revolution with the creation of the village and parish of Riou-Marson which merged in 1846 with Rou to give the current Rou-Marson village.

Among the lords of Marson, we can name Urbain de Maillé-Brezé (1644-1650) and Louis de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, Claire Clémence de Maillé’s husband (1650-1686), "the Great Condé."
The church has undergone several campaigns of restoration  in 1985, 1986 and 1989 for masonry, frame and roofing ,  in 1993 for the statues and stained glasses.
It is listed on the Supplementary Inventory of Historical Monuments.

Description

It has the shape of an oriented Latin cross, with very short arms.
There are two different parts: the 12th century nave and the choir of the 15^th - 18^th centuries.

The Romanesque single nave is the original chapel. Narrow windows splayed inwards spill light from the North.

A lancet arch door opens on the south side wall, beneath a wooden porch. It is surrounded by archivolt decorated with serrated patterns. The archivolt is itself surmounted by a very damaged coat of arms on which one could distinguish the emblems of the companions (the compass and the ruler).

On the walls there are also medieval graffiti : gothic letters, a crucifix, a sundial.
The window was enlarged probably in the 15th.
The west facade which has no door or window, is supported by two rectangular buttresses and surmounted by a bell gable in which were holed twin semi-circular windows.

Inside, the nave is remarkable for its beautiful frame in a Gothic barrel shape without ridge-pole and the finesse of tie beam and punches make of  it a rare example.
Medieval baptismal fonts consist of two pools on a limestone single foot.

At the transept level, on each side of the arch, are the statues of Saint Jean-Baptiste and Saint Sébastien from the 16^th century which have kept their polychromy.
The octagonal pulpit is from the 18th or 19th century.

The second part of the church, from the late 15^th  -  early 16^th, includes the choir flanked by two chapels forming the transept. On the left, is the Virgin’s ; this statue is from the late 17^th century,  a little earlier than the one of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, to whom the chapel on the right is dedicated. 

Arms of the transept and choir vaults, which are arches shaped in rib vaulting with ribs, are all different. The keystone of the choir wears the family’s de Quatrebarbes coat of arms.

On the 15^th of august 1762, the structure of the transept collapsed. It was rebuilt two years later at the expense of the priest but in a rather crude way. The choir with an apse- free chevet is illuminated by windows that have kept their trefoil tracery. The sacristy built, in the south, in 1766 was removed during the restoration of 1985.

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