THE COLLEGIATE CHURCH OF SAINT-POTENTIEN
Collegiate church where you can admire magnificent capitals worked and very worked in Châtel-Censoir.
The construction of the church dates back to the 9th and 10th centuries and was carried out by Benedictines from Poitiers, who dug and installed the crypt and then built the Romanesque choir in "cul de four" style. It became a collegiate church in the 11th century with the arrival of a college of canons in Châtel-Censoir, who built the nave in a Gothic style, and despite the many fires that have marked the history of the building, one can still admire today the magnificent and very elaborate capitals in the Burgundian Romanesque style. The chapter house and the current sacristy were built in the 13th century. The bell tower was built between 1550 and 1590, by the fierce will of the population. In this collegiate church, it is possible to admire in the Benedictine crypt some remains of a fresco representing angels musicians surrounding the Virgin and Christ. Dedicated to Saint Potentien, the building was the object of numerous pilgrimages for nearly 15 centuries: leaving Rome in 45 A.D., Potentien came to Châtel where he dipped his lips in a fountain located under the Saint-Pèlerin mountain; the water then suddenly became miraculous, curing various illnesses (eyes, rheumatism, and even the "ordinary madness"). In 847, his bones were transformed into relics, which were installed in Châtel-Censoir in 1160. Part of these relics can still be seen today in the altar of the collegiate church.
