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Lavaur Cathedral

Lavaur Cathedral

Photo: Didier Descouens · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Location
Lavaur, France
Client / Owner
Bishops of Lavaur
Year
Completed 1500
Access
Public
Typology
Spiritual
Style
Gothic

Lavaur Cathedral, the Cathédrale Saint-Alain, stands in Lavaur in the Tarn department of France. It is dedicated to Saint Alain, whose origin is unknown. It was the seat of the Diocese of Lavaur until the Concordat of 1801. A Romanesque church built by Saint-Pons Benedictines was destroyed during the siege in the Albigensian Crusade in 1211. The current church was started around 1255 and became a cathedral in 1317.

The style is pure Southern French Gothic. The present structure dates from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries. The bishops initiated construction work in the sixteenth century. It has an octagonal bell tower and a smaller square tower with a jacquemart, a figure that strikes the hours.

The cathedral has a nineteenth-century Cavaillé-Coll organ. It became a national monument in 1911.

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