Église Notre-Dame de Nize, Romanesque chapel in Lunas, France.
Notre-Dame-de-Nize is a Romanesque chapel built of rubble stone, attached on its north side to a 12th-century square bell tower. The tower's top level has paired arched openings with small columns and is capped by a short pyramidal slate spire. The chapel is covered in curved tiles, and the hermitage's two buildings extend west in line with it.
The site probably held a pre-Romanesque sanctuary from the early centuries of Christianity. It is recorded as Sancta Maria de Aniza in the Joncels abbey cartulary of 1135 and in a 1136 bull of Pope Innocent III; the bell tower and Romanesque nave date from the 12th century. It became a priory in the Middle Ages, then the parish church of the valley hamlets until the parish was suppressed and annexed to Lunas in 1971.
The name references the nearby Nize stream, which has shaped the place's character for centuries. Visitors notice how the sanctuary connects to this water source, which locals have long considered healing.
The chapel stands 3 km east of Lunas in the Nize valley, below the D35E9 road toward Laval de Nize, in the Haut-Languedoc Regional Natural Park. The bell tower sits below road level, so watch for the turn-off. The site is reached on foot along the stream through woodland; wear shoes suited to uneven ground.
The bell tower's twin arched openings were partly walled up in 1948, as old photographs show. A 2017-2018 study by architect Aurélie Rouquette found that the west bay was not visible in 1948 and was later made anew with a different stone, which makes it stand out from the rest of the masonry.
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