Notre-Dame-de-la-Nativité, Romanesque church in Saverne, France.

Notre-Dame-de-la-Nativité is a former collegiate church in Saverne whose oldest element is the 12th-century Romanesque bell tower, built of reddish-brown masonry with banded courses and paired arched openings near the top. A clock face and a small carved figure in a niche sit on the tower, above a large arched portal with a dark wooden door. The rest is mainly Gothic: a two-aisled nave with a low north side aisle, a five-eighth choir, and a chapel added in 1493 as a burial chapel.

The oldest parts, including the lower levels of the west tower, date from the mid-12th century, when the church replaced the outlying Bergkirche as parish church. A Gothic choir was begun in the third quarter of the 14th century and vaulted around 1420. In 1485 Bishop Albert of Bavaria raised it to a collegiate church for canons from Obersteigen; Hans Hammer directed work on the north aisle and chapel in 1492–1496, and the nave was vaulted around 1501. It was classified as a monument historique in 1977.

The church was elevated to a collegiate foundation in 1485 under Bishop Albert of Bavaria, who brought canons from Obersteigen; the Virgin's Nativity then replaced Saint Bartholomew as principal patron. In the 15th century it housed several confraternities, each with its own altar. The 1495 stone pulpit, carved by Hans Hammer (Hans Meiger von Werde), is among the oldest furnishings.

The church stands in the old town of Saverne, its west tower at a street corner with the portal framed by a projecting gabled entrance. Look at the iron door fittings and the old measuring standard set in the masonry, inscribed DIES IST DI HOLTZ DAU, marking the length of timber floated on the Zorn.

At the entrance portal, look for an iron measuring rod set into the masonry, inscribed DIES IST DI HOLTZ DAU: it marked the permitted length of timber floated down the Zorn. The iron door fittings beside it are equally old.