Cesny-Bois-Halbout (Canton of Thury-Harcourt, Calvados) Chapel of St Jacques hospice

       Work on the chapel of the Bois-Halbout hospice began in around 1165. It would appear that the construction was fully completed at around the beginning of the thirteenth century.
The small chapel comprises a three section nave, with ogival vaulted aisles, and a chancel with a flat chevet. The arcades of the nave are slightly damaged. Cylindrical sculpted capitals support the arches, ornamented on an archivolt with small, widely spaced crosses in relief. The capitals are decorated with canals, crosses, volutes and stylised leaves. A round window has been bricked up on the exterior of the chevet. The arch, formed by an archivolt trimmed with scrolls, and by an arc decorated with several rows of chevrons, rests on capitals.

Bibliography

- Caumont Arcisse (de), Statistique monumentale du Calvados, Hardel, Caen, 1859.
T. 4, p. 855
- Dupré, Notice historique sur l'hospice de Bois-Halbout, Caen, 1901.
- Dictionnaire des églises de France, T. IV b., 1968
- Eppe Jacqueline, Arnoux Simone, Les léproseries du diocèse de Bayeux au Moyen-Age (archidiaconés de Caen et d'Exmes). Monographie de l'hôpital de Bois-Halbout. Mémoire de maîtrise d'Histoire médievale (dir. L. Musset), 1976-77