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Paradoxplace South West France Photo Galleries Links to French Cathedral and Abbey Photo Pages in Paradoxplace
The Bastide of Villeneuve d'Aveyron (link to Villefranche-de-Rouergue)
October 2007
Link to Maps of the Pilgrimage Roads of France
Back to from Aubrac to the River Lot and Conques
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The main square in the Bastide of Villeneuve d'Aveyron
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A Priory was set up in Villeneuve as a dependency of the (by then) Clunaic Abbey of St-Pierre, Moissac in the 1000s. The Priory church had a Greek Cross footprint (the red outline in the plan on the right), with monastic buildings grouped on its south east side.
In 1231 the last of the the awful Raymonds of Toulouse (number VII, son of Joan of England) set up a bastide based on the village around the priory, which was called Villeneuve. The town, which was on the Via Podiensis - the pilgrims' Road from le Puy to Santiago de Compostela - was further upgraded when it was designated "Royal" 40 years later. At the same time the monastery was enlarged and the east side of the church was knocked down tyo enable a nave to be added so that the expanded church became a Latin cross and reflected the Bastide's new found status.
Our visit here was to see the remarkable frescos of pilgrims, painted at the beginning of the 1300s in the north apse of the old Greek Cross Romanesque priory church (the one on the right side of the plan).
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Link to Villefranche-de-Rouergue
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Links to other Paradoxplace pages
All original material © Adrian Fletcher 2000-08 - The contents may not be hotlinked, or reproduced without permission.
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