Chantraine / Chantreine en Havelange / Ecclesia cantabrina

A stone fragment, possibly of an ancient baptismal font, in the "ancienne église Saint-Étienne" of Chantraine is reported in Javaux and Plumier (1997) is described as being decorated with interlace and furrows ["Entrelacs à deux brins et trois sillons"]. It is also noted in Finoulst (2021) after Javaux & Plumier. There is a listing for the farm itself ["erme en carré"] in BALaT KIK-IRPA [https://balat.kikirpa.be/object/10148723] [accessed 11 February 2024] but it does not even mention the old church in it. A communication to BSI from Pol Herman (e-mail of 23 September 2024) informs: "The origin of Chantraine is very ancient: the Ecclesia of Cantabrina or Chantraine appears in the count of the churches conferred, around 1130, by the abbot of Stavelot and a charter of August 28, 1260 indicates that the tithe of Chantevrine came under the same abbot for a large part. Liège stronghold mentioned as early as 1284, passed in the 16th century to Jean de Saint-Fontaine and his wife Anne de Heyenhove. In the 17th century, the Romanesque village church Saint-Etienne was integrated by Jean de Saint-Fontaine in a newly built castle, where it served as parish church until 1802 and as private chapel of the castle. This “château de Chantraine” still stands well preserved, but cannot be visited [private hotel]. Today, the church building is not used for religious purposes anymore. During excavations in the nineties, under the Romanesque church were found the remains of a an earlier one : “du haut moyen âge”. Roman building material had been re-used. This first church was replaced by the Romanesque building in the 10-12th century. At the castle is kept a fragment of a pre-romanesque baptismal font, that could be of Merovingian origin. Jean-Claude Ghislain has confirmed to me that it is certainly pre-romanesque [...] There is also a 16th century stoop, of which I have no information." Pol Herman provides two bibliographic sources that mention the fragment [cf. supra]