Église Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais

The Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais de Rhuis church is a Catholic parish church located in Rhuis, in the French department of Oise and the Hauts-de-France region. It is apparently the first church that the small village of Rhuis owned, and it represents one of the oldest churches in the region. Romanesque in style, it was built in the middle of the 11th century, but the bell tower was not built until the end of the century, at the same time as the choir was extended with a hemicycle apse. The nave has a basilica plan and is extremely sober, without capitals, the large arcades falling on imposts decorated with a simple geometric pattern. The last bays of the aisles form chapels, of which the northern one is at the same time the base of the bell tower. It is cross-vaulted, while its counterpart to the south was vaulted with ogives around 1125. The nave is again covered with an exposed framework since the profound restoration of the years 1964-1970, and the aisles are simply capped. The choir is better lit than the nave, but also lacks ornamentation, and its vault is actually made of wickerwork. Outside, the portal with the oldest gable in northern France and the elegant bell tower with its three floors of bays and stone pyramid are particularly noteworthy. The exterior of the church is not as austere as the interior, and the twisted cornices resting on sculpted modillions, as well as the capitals of the windows of the apse and the bell tower give an interesting insight into the Romanesque art of the region before the year 1100. To the south of the apse is the first capital with gadroons outside of Normandy. As a whole, the church of Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais represents one of the best preserved and most homogeneous Romanesque churches in the region. It was classified as a historical monument by decree of September 20, 1894, and restored to its 12th century state in the 1960s. Because of the small number of inhabitants of the village, masses are not very frequent in the church of Rhuis. It is affiliated with the parish of Sainte-Maxence of Pont-Sainte-Maxence.