Places of Questing Interest near Falaise/Lisieux (Normandy)

[imported_SimonMember]

All,

I’m going to be spending a few days in a little place between Lisieux and Falaise (Ste Pierre Sur Dives) in Normandy just before Easter. I was wondering if anyone knew of any interesting places to visit in that area which had some Questing/Templar/etc connection (or even some good megalithic sites). I know that Gisors has plenty of links with the Templar treasure and that is about 2hrs drive away but I wondered if anyone knew of something maybe a bit closer.

Cheers,

Simon

[imported_YURIMember]

Here is a snippet from an article that I have just written for issue 8 of the Temple; its about the origins of the St Clair family, a place called St Clair- sur-Epte, about 15 miles from Gisors, would be worth checking out… there is a rather awesome statue there of St. Clair holding his decapitated head… No where else in Normandy has been brought to my attention at the moment…

(…finally settling down at a holy well around which grew the town of ‘St. Clair-sur-Epte’, about 15 miles southwest of Gisors.

The legend told by Philippe Sinclair is (in short) thus; An English noble woman had been spurned by St. Clair because he had refused to marry her! She sent two knights to find him and kill him (women spurned eh?) In time, the two knights arrive at the holy well where St. Clair had made his home. They ask him, ‘Do you know a man named St. Clair’? The hermit says that he doesn’t know anyone of that name, then, riddled with Christian guilt he confesses that he is the St. Clair that they are looking for. One knight then draws his sword and cuts off St. Clair’s head!

After he is decapitated the headless saint picks up his head and dips it into the holy well, then he carries it off to the church of St Clair-sur-Epte, before finally lying down and dying. The two knights left his body where it was but took his head back to England, their ship sank on their way home and St. Clair’s head was lost…. )

It would be great if you could get good photos of the statue, the well, and the church… and snoop around for anything else of interest…. this place, (above even Gisors) was chosen as the place to sign the treaty that gave ‘Normandy’ to Duke Rollo… it must be important, its where ‘Normandy’ was born… look on the internet for the ‘Treatise of St Clair-sur-epte’.

[imported_SimonMember]

Hi Yuri,

Thanks for this info. I’ll see if I can convince our team to track down the headless St. Clair statue although it may still be a bit far for the younger members (I checked on the AA website and they reckon it’s 2.5 hours each way). But even if I don’t manage it this time it sounds like there’s plenty around the Gisors/St Clair-sur-Epte that warrants checking out.

Cheers for this,

Simon

[imported_SimonMember]

OK I’m off. See y’all in a week.

[Author]

Posts