Eglise Saint-Etienne

The first stone of the Saint-Etienne church of Bar-sur-Seine was probably laid in 1505 by Jacques de Dinteville, governor and usufructuary count of Bar.

The construction begins with the north aisle of the nave, with the second chapel, dedicated to St. Bartholomew, in the early sixteenth century. The vintage of 1531 appears on the western facade and that of 1541 on a chapel of the choir. If the building is mainly Gothic, the upper parts of the nave were completed between 1561 and 1582 in the Renaissance style (big Ionic capitals and basket-handle arches) since the monogram LDB, for Louis de Bourbon, usufructuary count from Bar-sur-Seine, appears on the railing of the triforium. The facade portal is dated 1616 and the building consecrated in 1628.
The church has a Latin cross plan with a nave and a choir with three vessels of four bays and side chapels. A salient transept marks the junction between these two parts. The nave has low arch arcades surmounted by a triforium and bays to replace. The lateral vessels of the choir end with cut-off sides while the central vessel is extended by a three-sided apse.

The tower is located in the north-west corner of the nave. There are forty-nine bays in the building. The installation of the first stained glasses had to follow by a few years the beginning of the works of the church: 1512 or 1522 is the oldest known date (the inscription has since disappeared). There are two campaigns: the lower canopies of the choir are dated 1539 and 1542; the high windows of the choir and transept, in grisailles with silver yellow, were laid between 1548 and 1557. Finally, the last stained-glass windows installed in the sixteenth century are those of the nave, before 1582. Part of the glazed decoration, destroyed by the Huguenots in 1563, is restored by Jehan Macadre around 1600 and Jean Lothereau in 1636. Donors are well known thanks to various inscriptions that give the name of individuals, brotherhoods (the Blessed Sacrament for example) and corporations (the tanners and shoemakers, butchers, etc.). By the early eighteenth century, the windows were damaged by weather and vandalism, which resulted in permanent losses or reworking. These windows were many times restored, in the second half of the nineteenth century and throughout the twentieth century. Several iconographic themes are represented: the Church, its doctors, its defenders and the foundations of the faith are particularly evoked at the bedside and in the chapels of the choir, in panels alternating between grisailles and colors; the Life of Christ, his Passion and Resurrection adorn the high windows of the choir where the grisaille predominates; finally, the high windows of the nave show a procession of figures of saints in niches of painted architecture. The legends of the saints celebrated in the diocese are painted in full color in the windows of the transept and the chapels of the nave and the transept.

Church and stained glass windows have been classified as historical monuments (with title building) dated July 10, 1907.

Last updated on 14/07/2022 - Office de Tourisme de la Côte des Bar en Champagne