Grenoble : mausolées et églises

The excavations at St-Lawrence’s show the evolution of the main burial site of Grenoble since Antiquity. Among mausoleums, a building with a paved crypt provided with a bench, a niche and 1-2 fenestellae could be the memoria of one of the 1^st bishops around 400. Around it are grouped many burial places, formae and sarcophagi. A cruciform basilica with superimposed trefoil transept built on this memoria is consecrated in 516, vaulted and richly decorated around 600. During Early Middle Ages, Saint-Laurent is the most important suburban burial church. Around 800 an opposite church is built over the memoria which crypt is preserved, and linked to the transept; the eastern end of the cross-shaped church forming another crypt. A priory from 1012, this suburb parish church lived until French Revolution. The diachronic study stresses the importance of funeral practices and worship of saints during Early Christian times, and shows how local architecture remains in harmony with perpetually changing practices and liturgies.