Of those which are now standing, the most ancient is that
situated near the castle, and dedicated to the Holy Trinity. Langevin
assures us that it was built upon the ruins of the temple of Fele, Isis,
Belenus, and the heavenly host of constellations, and that in the fifth
century it changed its heathen for its Christian patrons. The oldest
part (a very small one it is) of the present structure, appertains to a
building which was consecrated in 1126, by the Archbishop of Rouen, in
the presence of Henry Ist, but which was almost entirely destroyed by
the cannonade in the fifteenth century. An inscription in gothic
letters, near the entrance, relates, that after this desolation, a
beginning was made towards the re-building of the church, "in 1438, a
year of war, and death, and plague, and famine;" but it is certain that
not much of the part now standing can be referred even to that period.
The choir was not completed till the middle of the sixteenth century,
nor the Lady-Chapel till the beginning of the following one.
Architecturally considered, therefore, the church is a medley of various
styles and ages.
The larger church, that of St. Gervais and St. Protais, is said to have
been originally the ducal chapel, and to stand in the immediate vicinity
of the site of the Conqueror's palace, now utterly destroyed.
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