Vains

INFORMATION

Font ID: 03268VAI
Object Type: Baptismal Font1
Font Century and Period/Style: 12th - 13th century, Romanesque
Cognate Fonts: Gefosses?
Church / Chapel Name: Église de l'Église paroissiale [ancien prieuré] Saint-Léonard de Vains [now a private resdidence]
Font Location in Church: No longer at the church; reused as a cemetery cross
Church Patron Saint(s): St. Leonard
Church Notes: original hermitage going back to the 6thC; priory founded 11thC; after the Revolution only the church survived and itself was turned into a private residence -- listed in Mérimée [ref.: PA00110625]: "Ancien prieuré de Saint-Léonard [...] Propriété privée"
Church Address: 50300 Vains, France
Site Location: Manche, Normandie, France, Europe
Directions to Site: Vains is located off the D333-D911 crossroads, on the E shore of the bay of Mont-Saint-Michel, just W of Avranches.
Additional Comments: recycled font / recycled cross: re-used as a base for a cemetery cross
Font Notes:
According to Vivier-Seguin, who cite Le Héricher and Pigeon as sources, there was an old immersion font (its shape not known: monolithic in Le Héricher with an auxiliary basin and round in Pigeon) which by 1941 had disappeared; information supplied by the abbé Launay to V-S appears to indicate that it was re-used as base for the cemetery cross. In 1941 V-S report the support of the cemetery cross as being a cubic block of granite similar to the former font at Gefosses which suffered the same fate (Vivier, 1941)

COORDINATES

UTM: 30U 616850 5393254
Latitude & Longitude (Decimal): 48.681384, -1.412516
Latitude & Longitude (DMS): 48° 40′ 52.98″ N, 1° 24′ 45.06″ W

MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS

Material: stone, granite?
Font Shape: unknown
Basin Exterior Shape: Unknown

REFERENCES

  • Vivier, Em., Les Anciens fonts baptismaux du Département de la Manche, Avranches: Presses de "L'Opinion de la Manche", 1941, p. 37-38