Le prieuré de Marnans : histoire et archéologie

Abstract

Michel Colardelle, Catherine Homo and Alain de Montjoye, The priory of Marnans : history and archeology. A rescue exploration undertaken in 1979 and 1980, along with a historical study and a re-examination of the style of Saint Peter's church led to the deciphering of the evolution in time and the morphology of the old Priory at Marnans (Isère). Of this building only the Cistercian church is familiar to us and it belongs to the end of the 12th century ; the plan of the cloister, the size of the conventual buildings are now known. Archeological levels have proved that the site was occupied before the building of the priory. The latter was probably occupied right from the beginning by a community of canon regular, whose prosperous period was essentially towards the end of the 12th century and the 13th century. Having joined the Anto-nines at the end of the 12th century, they enjoyed a temporary recovery ; the excavations revealed a certain prosperity interrupted suddenly by the destruction which the wars of religion entailed. Each of the periods of prosperity was marked by a period of construction or modification to the church or the conventual buildings. A succession of well stratified layers in the earth and sedimental deposits enable a fairly correct appreciation of the development of the archealogical material, especially the ceramics. The levels just below that corresponding to the destruction around 1560 particularly, contain abundant remains, this establishes a precise date in the typology of the regional ceramics.