Sainte-Mere-Eglise / Saincte Mariglise / Sainte-Mère-Église / Sancte Marie Ecclesia / Ste-Mère-Église

J. Seguin reports that the holy-water stoup near the southern entrance of this church may well have been formerly a font and describes it thus: now wall-mounted, the limestone vessel has a rather crude ornamentation including floral and other vegetal motifs; a little below those there is a fragment of the base adorned with three eagle heads. There is no certainty that this was indeed a font (Vivier, 1941). There is an entry for a holy-water stoup in Palissy [ref.: PM50007436] but is dated there to the 17th-18th century at the earliest. A baptismal font of the 18th century in this church is also listed in Palissy [ref.: PM50002514]: "Fonts baptismaux (pierre calcaire) et leur couvercle bombé (bois sculpté). Cuvette en plomb du 19e siècle. Traces de marbrures exécutées en 1781 par Philippe Tostain de la Rivière de Picauville (voir R. Villand, p. 192). Le couvercle bombé est aujourd'hui remplacé par un couvercle en bois de sapin mouluré et vernis [...] 18e siècle".