Uzerche - Saint-Pierre

Uzerche has been a strategic place since the early times. The Visigoths looted the town in the 6th century, later it was besieged by Saracen troops. Pepin the Short, son of Charles Martel, father of Charlemagne) upgraded the fortification, so that in Carolingian times, there were 18 towers here, what did not help against the Normans, who looted Uzerche in 909.

The town recovered, a Benedictine monastery was founded within the 10th century. In 1095 Pope Urban II visited Uzerche on his way to Clermont-Ferrand, where he agitated for the first crusade. The abbey prospered and a large pilgrim-church was erected over a crypt, from the early 11th century on. Pilgrims arrived in great numbers, and as the Norman influence had grown in the area, even Henry I of England, son of William the Conqueror, and Richard I of England (aka "Lionheart", "Coeur de Lion") have been here.

The church got fortified during the Hundred Years War - and still has three fortification towers.

In the 18th the abbey got secularised and Saint-Pierre became a secular collegiate church. Meanwhile it serves as a parish church.

The nave is rather high and narrow. Light floods in from the eastern windows. A few steps lead up to the choir, with the monk´s stalls around the altar, and the ambulatory, a "must have" for a medieval church, designed for the pilgrims´ flow.