. Founded in 804 as the Benedictine abbey of Gellone by St. Guilhem d’Aquitaine, the count of Toulouse who was the hero of the Guillaume d’Orange epic cyle, the monastery was renamed later for its founder. to the relics of the saintly Guilhem, his place in epic history, and the monastery’s location along the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela, Saint-Guilhem prospered and reached its apogee in the 11th and 12th centuries, when the present Romanesque abbey church, the third on the site, was built. The church was built in three phases: the nave and side aisles were finished ca. 1075, in time for the church’s consecration in 1076; the transept and the chevet, with its three apsidal chapels, were constructed between 1077 and the end of the century; the narthex was built in the second half of the 12th century. A bell tower was added in the 15th century. The exterior is decorated with Lombard bands. The sober four-bay nave, 59 feet high but only 20 feet wide, is covered by plain barrel vaulting supported by wide doublures that rest on pilasters extending directly to the floor, emphasizing the sense of verticality. The interior is lit by large windows above each of the bays. Some remains of the cloister, which originally had galleries on two levels, flank the south side of the church; others can be found at the Cloisters in New York City.
William W. Kibler
Alzieu, Gerard, and Robert Saint-Jean. Saint-Guilhem le Desert. La Pierre-qui-vire: Zodiaque,
1973.
Lugand, Jacques. Languedoc roman: le Languedoc mediterraneen. La Pierre-qui-vire: Zodiaque, 1985.
World History
