The Charming, Rustic Rural Church of Saint Edmé near Chaserey, France

Quite a few of the churches we have featured here on LAJ over the years are great basilicas, cathedrals and monasteries and the like. The reason for that, of course, is that they generally have a fair bit of art to feature within them, and of course, they are typically of great interest to our readers. However, we have featured smaller churches from time to time as well; typically these have been within traditional mission territories such as South America, and today I wished to explore another small church, this time the rural church of Saint Edmé (St. Edmund of Canterbury) located in the countryside near the small village of Chaserey in northern France. 

There is something wonderfully rustic and charming about this small village parish church -- and yet also something wonderfully ambitious too. Despite its smaller size, the parish didn't rest content with having a singular altar or bare walls; no, they made certain that they also had side altars for their parish, just like parishes in larger centres do, as well as frescoes on the walls. 

The origins of this church goes back to the eleventh century, with some re-modellings taking place in the sixteenth and (as far as the exterior goes) eighteenth centuries -- but the churches overall medieval roots certainly are still very clearly showing. In fact, many an English medieval church probably looked extremely similar to this church around the time of the English Reformation.

The ordering is quite classic. We have a single nave (common in smaller parish churches, unlike the triple nave of larger churches), a small chancel and sanctuary. The altars and statuary are dated to the sixteenth centuries (though the main altar proper, minus the retable, may be of slightly later vintage).  These include sculptures and sculptural reliefs of various saints, including St. Edmund, St. Nicholas, St. Roch and the Virgin and Child. 

St. Edmund of Canterbury (over the high altar)

To either side of the rertable of the high altar are 16th-17th cent. statues of St. Geneviève and St. Marguerite.

In addition to the high altar, the side altars in the church are really quite interesting and prounounced, being embedded against the edge of the sanctuary akin to what one would see in larger French churches where altars such as these would be outside of and attached to the chancel screen. (It would appear that each of these at one time would have had three sculptures on top of each reredos.)

Detail of the reredos from one of the side altars

St. Nicholas

St. Roch

The Virgin and Child (on top of the reredos of the side altar)

The Virgin and Child

St. Nicholas (on top of the reredos of the side altar)

St. Roch (also located on top of the second side altar)

Adding to the decorative programme, the church still has many remnants of the sixteenth century era frescoes that were added to beautify the church further -- here again, in a wonderfully ambitious manner for such a small rural church. These frescoes include depictions of St. Hubert, Our Lady of Loreto and St. George. 

St. George and the Dragon

Our Lady of Loreto

I would be remiss to not note that the parish also boasts and extremely impressive open-trussed medieval or renaissance era timber ceiling.

We shall conclude with a view of the exterior of the church which is simple but noble -- and certainly very French in style. 

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