Église Saint-Taurin d'Évreux, Romanesque church in Évreux, France

The Église Saint-Taurin d'Évreux is a pale limestone church with a long body under brown tile roofs and a tall slate-roofed tower topped by a cross. Its left facade has a rough-stone porch with a carved round-arched doorway, while the nave wall shows three pointed window arches. A rose-like traceried window sits on the angled right section.

A wooden oratory was built in the 6th century over the tomb of Saint Taurin, the first bishop of Évreux, and was destroyed by Norman raids at the end of the 9th century. Around 950 Richard I of Normandy founded a Benedictine abbey on the site. In 1195 Philip Augustus burned abbey and town, forcing a near-total rebuild; in 1642 Maurist monks returned to a ruined church and built the classical portal.

The south portal's tympanum was hammered during the Revolution, yet the figures of Christ and the Evangelists, each with a human body and an animal's head, can still be made out. Inside, the 13th-century shrine of Saint Taurin, made of wood and silver covered in repoussé gold leaf, recounts his legend in relief. The three apse windows of the 15th century show his birth, baptism and arrival in Évreux.

The church stands on Place Saint-Taurin, west of Évreux city centre, in a sector once crossed by canals of the Iton. The square in front, with its trees, is a classified natural site. The building is a parish church open for visits; the 13th-century shrine of Saint Taurin and the 19th-century Callinet organ are inside.

The shrine of Saint Taurin, made in the 13th century on the order of abbot Gislebert de Saint-Martin, is wood covered with silver and a sheet of repoussé gold. Its reliefs narrate episodes of the saint's legend, and it is counted among the most important reliquaries surviving from the reign of Louis IX.