Couvent des Jacobins, Dominican convent in Saint-Sever, France.

The Couvent des Jacobins is a former Dominican convent in Saint-Sever. Its cloister, rebuilt in the 17th century in Languedoc Romanesque style, has a two-storey gallery: a ground arcade of round brick arches on square piers with stone bases and imposts, and an upper wall of pale rendered masonry framed by brick pilasters, with rectangular windows and a red tiled roof. The church has a single nave, a flat chevet and an oak broken-barrel roof; a small brick and stone bell tower stands at the northeast corner of the chevet.

The Dominicans founded the convent in 1280 with support from Eleanor of Castile, wife of Edward I of England, during the English presence in Aquitaine. Huguenot troops under Montgomery partly destroyed it in 1569 during the Wars of Religion. Père Antonin Cloche, a native of Saint-Sever who became master-general of the Dominican order in 1686, helped restore it, and the cloister and south and west wings were rebuilt in Languedoc Romanesque style with pink brick and stone. The departmental architect Alexandre Ozanne renovated it in 1867.

The convent's first-floor north and west wings hold the Museum of Art and History of Cap de Gascogne, created in the 1980s and formerly called the musée des Jacobins. Its displays trace the history of Saint-Sever, the former capital of Gascony. The chapter house and chapel are also rented out for weddings and meals.

The cloister courtyard is entered from Rue du Général Lamarque in Saint-Sever. The museum of art and history of Cap de Gascogne occupies the first floor of the north and west wings. The chapter house and chapel are used for weddings and meals, so check opening times before a visit.

The refectory holds a fresco dated 1335 showing Saint Dominic and Cardinal Godin, and traces of the reader's former pulpit from 1305 survive in the same room. The chapter house and refectory, built as two separate rooms at the end of the 13th century and restored in the 14th, are now joined into one space.