Église Saint-Nicolas de Tavant, Romanesque church in Tavant, France.

Église Saint-Nicolas de Tavant is a Romanesque church built in white stone blocks, with a nave of five bays under a barrel vault and a raised choir ending in a half-dome apse. The west portal has four archivolts, and the crossing carries a dome on squinches beneath a squat octagonal bell tower topped by a weathervane shaped like a gabare. A crypt with three bays and groin vaults lies under the choir.

The church dates from the early 12th century, deduced by comparison with the neighbouring Notre-Dame priory rebuilt after a fire in 1070. Its dedication to Saint Nicholas reflects the spread of his cult after his relics were moved to Bari in 1087. The first written mention is a 1223 document recording the prior of Notre-Dame granting a house to the parish priest. It was classified as a monument historique on 7 May 1908.

The crypt's frescoes, probably never painted over, were rediscovered around 1862 and restored several times in the 20th century, most recently in April 2012 by Reille-Taillefer without repainting. Their free style and iconography still puzzle researchers, and a 19th-century hoax attributed to Prosper Mérimée has been suggested, though the idea found no support. Marthe Flandrin and Simone Flandrin-Latron copied them full size in 1941 for the Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine in Paris.

The church stands on rue Saint-Nicolas at the edge of Tavant, near the Vienne. The crypt lies beneath the raised choir and is reached by steps; its vaults sit at the level of the original ground, so the passage is low. The choir was raised above it, and the bases of its columns were only exposed during the crypt restoration.

The crypt frescoes were reproduced full-size in 1941 by Marthe Flandrin and Simone Flandrin-Latron for the Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine in Paris. In 1997 two postage stamps showed them. A 19th-century hoax attributed to Prosper Mérimée was once suggested, without support, to explain their unusual style.