Eglise Notre Dame

A fortress, which no longer exists, once crowned the hillock of Lavilletertre, not far from the church. Built in two short campaigns starting in the 1140s, Notre-Dame is one of the most representative buildings of the Romanesque architecture with rib vaults from which the Gothic style is derived and which is particularly well represented in the Oise. Its interest is heightened by the fact that it has never undergone significant subsequent transformations and that it appears today as it was in the 12th century. Its plan, very complete, includes a nave of five bays with side aisles, a projecting transept on the crossing of which rises the bell tower and a choir with a flat chevet. Built first, the nave is also the most interesting part. The central nave and the side aisles are covered with ribbed vaults that fall on piers formed by half-columns and columns (twelve in total) in strict correspondence with the elements they receive. The result is a "canopy" structure, the very essence of the Gothic style, which is particularly marked in the central nave despite the leveling of the half-columns associated with the doubleaux. Freed from the thrusts of the vault, brought back to precise points, the walls will disappear little by little in favor of larger and larger windows. But at Notre-Dame, the window is still a small Romanesque bay and the wall retains all its importance. The first bay has, originally, a tribune. It is accessed by two staircases in the thick wall of the façade. Probably intended to welcome the lord of the castle, it is a rare example of this type of arrangement, which will be found a little later and with a much more ambitious design in Trie-Château. The numerous capitals have mainly the theme of the smooth leaf or the acanthus leaf but some characters or animal representations, treated in a rather rough way, can be recognized here and there. On the outside, all the ornamentation is concentrated on the portal, today deprived of its tympanum and its lintel. Its four archivolts, entirely included in the thick façade wall, are decorated with torus, broken sticks and a crenellated fret. They are received on off-set columns by means of capitals with a rather blunt relief, whose decorative themes are found in the nave. The care with which the nave was built is also evident in the side windows (those to the south are better preserved), framed by columns with capitals that receive a richly molded and decorated archivolt. The choir and transept are slightly later and, moreover, have undergone a much too dry restoration. They do not have the same interest and present a very simple architectural style. The two crosspieces and the choir have the same dimensions and each receives an ogival vault. Sitting on the crossing, the bell tower, which is accessed by an original spiral staircase located at the southeast corner, is a beautiful tower from the 1170s. Well clear of the roofs by a high base, the belfry floor is pierced on each side by two high semi-circular bays, decorated with double columns. At the corners, other colonnettes replace the buttresses of the lower floor, softening the silhouette of the tower. Decorated with scales and openwork with two small bays decorated with a trefoil and off-set columns, the frame is particularly original and probably later. Dominique Vermand