Savigny (canton of Cerisy-la-Salle, Manche) Church of Notre-Dame

    The church of Savigny was a priory and a dependency of the collegiate of Sainte-Barbe-en-Auge. It mostly dates from the end of the 11^th century and early 12^th century. The nave, whose walls retain traces of fish bone pattern bonding, gives onto the choir, via a bay which was re-worked in the 15^th century and flanked in the 16^th and 17^th centuries by two chapels forming a transept. The choir culminates in an apse, currently disfigured by a modern sacristy. The building retains a remarkable collection of wall paintings which are mostly from the 14^th century, as well as an interesting Romanesque sculpted decoration.
Among the sculpted elements, the cornice brackets in the choir, including the representation of Samson fighting a lion, the arcatures of the apse with heavily restored historiated capitals (griffins, lions, and doves drinking from an urn) and two reliefs outside the apse, now in the sacristy. Above a bay a monolithic lintel shows a centaur armed with a bow and arrow hunting a deer, a theme which is also found on the tympanum of Urville-Bocage. A remarkable relief moved to under the arch above the lintel represents Christ in Majesty and dates from 1130-1140.

Bibliography

- Beaurepaire, Eugène (de). " Les découvertes de l’église de Savigny, près de Coutances ", dans Bulletin de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie, T. XVI, 1894
- Dictionnaire des églises de France, Robert Laffont, Paris, 1968, T. IV b, p. 150
- Musset, Lucien. – Normandie romane, Zodiaque, La Pierre-Qui-Vire, 1987, 2 vol., T. 1, p. 298-299
- " Les siècles romans en Basse-Normandie ", dans Art de Basse-Normandie, n° 92, Printemps 1985, p. 126-127, 132