Basilique Notre-Dame de Gray, Minor basilica in Gray, France

Basilique Notre-Dame de Gray is a parish church built in a hybrid Gothic-Renaissance style, 40 metres long and 20 metres high, on a Latin-cross plan with three naves. Octagonal pillars without capitals carry ribbed vaults, and six side chapels open off the aisles. The choir ends in a five-sided Gothic apse whose 15-metre central window keeps its original Flamboyant tracery in a Tree of Jesse.

A church near Gray's castle is first mentioned in 1227; the present building replaced one burned in the night assault of 29 September 1477 during the Burgundian Wars, and its first stone was laid in 1478. The choir was roofed by 1484, the transept foundations followed in 1509, and the nave vaulting was finished in 1531 under master masons Matthieu Grand, Philippe Lenfant and Antoine Le Rupt. The bell tower was completed in 1559.

The church keeps the heart of Saint Pierre Fourier since 1641 and, since 1802, the miraculous statue of Notre-Dame de Gray; these two relics led Pope Pius XII to raise it to minor basilica on 16 July 1948. The name Notre-Dame refers to the Virgin Mary, to whom the first church on the site was dedicated.

The building is open during religious services and welcomes visitors at other times as well. It helps to check opening hours in advance or ask at local tourist information centers for current details.

The 15-metre central window of the choir keeps its original flamboyant Gothic tracery, carved as a Tree of Jesse. Scholars link this stonework to the sculptor Conrad Meit and to the contemporary building site of the royal monastery of Brou. The lower parts of the old windows were walled up in 1718 for the gilt retable.