Le pouvoir attractif des mausolées antiques sur la christianisation du monde rural : l'exemple de la partie septentrionale du Limousin

Reused big granite stone blocks dating from the antique period can be observed in rural churches of Limousin region; in a certain number of cases, it is possible to attribute them to funeral mausoleums. Through different examples - two of them being the aim of current archaeological research (La Souterraine’s crypt and St-Hilaire’s church in Moutier-Rozeille) - this article will show that roman monumental tombs were not absent in the Lemovices countryside and that their mode of construction, made to last, participated in a voluntary or pragmatic way in the Christianization of the rural world in the Early Middle Ages.