Strasbourg

Presentation

All that remains of the first building, dedicated to Saint Columban and dating from the 7th century, is a vault. Construction of a Romanesque church began in 1031. The lower floors of the bell tower date from the 12th century; the three galleries of the cloister are considered to be the oldest surviving cloister north of the Alps. The present Gothic-style church was built in the second half of the 13th century and consecrated in 1320. Chapels were added in the 14th and 15th centuries. In 1524, the church became Protestant. In 1682, Louis XIV restored a Catholic parish to which he gave the choir. A wall, supported by the rood screen, separated the choir from the nave. This allocation to the two faiths continued until 1898.

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