Basilica of Saint-Romain

About

The Basilica Saint-Romain is a former sanctuary erected in the fourth century in the city of Blaye, in the current department of Gironde. A necropolis of the Merovingian kings of Aquitaine, it welcomes according to tradition the burial of Roland, nephew of Charlemagne and Count of Blaye, that of Olivier, his companion and that of Archbishop Turpin, killed at the battle of Roncevaux. Destroyed at the end of the seventeenth century to give way to the ice of Blaye's citadel, its ruins were rediscovered in the 1960s.

Presentation: The Basilica of Saint-Romain was built in the second half of the fourth century to house the tomb of Saint Romain de Blaye (†385), an ascetic from North Africa, considered the evangelizer of the Blayais region. This first martyrium forming a two-tiered basilica later became the necropolis of the kings of Aquitaine Caribert II and his son Chilperic, murdered in 632. In 788, the basilica houses the tomb of Count Roland, lord of Blaye, killed by the vascons at Roncevaux. In the 9th century, the remains of Saint Sichaire were transferred to the crypt, which became an important place of pilgrimage on the road to Santiago...