Church of Our Lady of the Nativity

The church of Notre-Dame-de-la-Nativité is a Catholic parish church located in Lavilletertre, Oise, France. It was built in several campaigns between 1135 / 1140 and 1170 approximately, and has never undergone any changes in its appearance or structure since its completion. It can therefore pride itself on a rare stylistic unity, and its dimensions are considerable compared to the modesty of the village. It is a basilica with a nave of five bays flanked by aisles, a transept that overhangs and a rectangular choir with a flat chevet. The nave and aisles were built first, and reflect the Romanesque style at its peak. Their western façade has the largest Romanesque portal in the French Vexin. Even on the side elevations, the decoration is particularly accomplished, and provides, for each window, a molded archivolt accompanied by a frieze falling on columns with capitals. Inside, the Gothic architecture is already announced by the systematic application of the broken arch on the large arches and vaults, as well as through the rigorous composition of the fasciculated pillars. The sculpture of the capitals, of remarkable quality, remains resolutely Romanesque. Quite exceptional is the subdivision of the first bay into two levels, with a narthex below and a tribune above. This arrangement dates from the beginning. The basilica nave of Lavilletertre is above all one of the rare naves in the north of the Île-de-France and the Beauvaisis region that was designed from the outset to be rib-vaulted, even before the beginning of the 12th century, and has the most important group of Romanesque vaults in the department after the church of Saint-Etienne in Beauvais. The transept and the choir, a little later, are more austere, and already clearly Gothic, although the windows remain in semicircular arch. Less remarkable inside than the nave and aisles, they are nevertheless of a slender character, and fit perfectly into the original project. The 31 m high central belfry is part of the same campaign, and is elegantly built. For all these characteristics that give it a special place in the history of architecture, the church of Notre-Dame was classified as a historical monument quite early by the list of 1862. Today it is affiliated with the parish of Saint-François-d'Assise du Vexin with headquarters in Chaumont-en-Vexin, which has suspended the celebration of Sunday masses in 2018.