St. Martin's Church

The collegiate church of Saint-Martind'Étampes is a former Catholic collegiate church, dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours, located in the French town of Étampes and the department of Essonne.

Saint-Martin houses one of the three primitive parish altars of the city. Its origins are lost in time, and some authors claim that its founder was Clovis himself.

The collegiate church was of considerable importance in the 11th century, when its chapter had no less than twelve canons, a dean and a cantor. In 1106, King Philip I gave it to the abbey of Morigny. From then on, no more canons were appointed. Disputes between the abbey and the chapter led to the expulsion of the last canons in 1142.

The abbey then established a priory near the church, and undertook its replacement by a larger building. The lower parts of its chevet, with an ambulatory and three very deep radiating chapels, are surprisingly designed to evoke the 11th century, and are still more Romanesque than Gothic, but the ribbed vaulting was present from the start. Thanks to contacts with the abbey of Saint-Denis, the innovation of the buttresses found one of its first applications at the chevet of the collegiate church of Saint-Martin. The construction site progressed rapidly. The elevations of the central nave are organized on three levels, and are inspired by the cathedral of Saint-Etienne de Sens. Above the large arcades, galleries opened onto the attic. The collegiate church became one of the key buildings of the first Gothic period. It was completed around 1170, but an additional bay was added after 1213. Finally, a new bell tower was built in the 1530s in front of the façade. A land subsidence caused the church to tilt to the west before it was completed, which is why it is sometimes called the Pisa of the North.

In the 18th century, the vaults of the last three bays of the nave collapsed and were replaced by false wooden vaults. The priory became a simple benefit and was definitively suppressed in 1781. The church became exclusively parochial. It was in a worrying state in the middle of the 19th century, and the first bay in particular was largely dismantled, then rebuilt between 1872 and 1876. The restoration work was not carried out in agreement with the service of the Historical Monuments. The old collegiate church is nevertheless classified as a historical monument by order of June 14, 1909. Sunday masses are currently celebrated there every Sunday evening.