St. Genevieve's Church

The Sainte-Geneviève church is a Catholic parish church located in Marolles, in the Oise department, in France. It was built in the 1130s by a workshop from Normandy. Its late Romanesque style already makes use of the tiers-point arch and rib vaulting, reserved in this case for the transept crossing, which is the most interesting part of the church inside. At the same time, the absence of columns with capitals on the large arches of the basilica nave, and the very stylized and low-relief sculpture of the capitals of the transept crossing, seem already archaic at the time of construction. Curiously enough, the nave, of an extreme sobriety inside, was richly decorated on the outside. The archivolt of the western portal and the cornices and decoration of the side windows, now only visible from the aisles, still bear witness to this. On the outside, the main element that remains from the 1130s is the impressive Romanesque bell tower with three tiers of bays and a high octagonal stone spire. It is considered to be one of the most beautiful in the department. Otherwise, the exterior elevations are mostly Gothic, and particularly flamboyant Gothic, as the church of Sainte-Geneviève was heavily remodeled, first in the 1240s with the reconstruction of the north cross, and then in the second quarter of the 16th century with the construction of a new chancel, a new south cross, and a new south aisle, the vaulting of which was never completed. The Romanesque vaulting of the square of the transept was thus taken up underneath on three sides. The eastern parts of the Sainte-Geneviève church nevertheless offer a coherent and harmonious aspect. For its various qualities, it was classified as a historical monument by decree of January 15, 1920. Today it is affiliated to the parish of Saint-Félix de Valois with its seat in La Ferté-Milon, and early Sunday masses are celebrated there irregularly, two or three times a year.