Du mausolée à l'église dans l'espace rural provençal : les cadres de la mort des potentes

In Provence are preserved several examples of monuments showing the transition from a mausoleum to a church. After a rereading of different cases, this article focuses on places of worship functioning as mausoleums. This is leading to wonder about the links between time of death, burial site and place of worship. The new representations of death welcomed by the potentes, reflect in numerous and various experiments in their oratoria. Late 5^th-early 6^thcent. is a period of promotion of monuments similar to ancient mausoleums, but at the time linked to a church which gains a funeral and family dimension. These monumental choices must be related to the image of a “good death” conveyed by Christian literature. The private church considered as a memoria is undoubtedly one of the 1^st place where the Christian dead have been brought together: the cymiterium christianorum is the link between this study and the issues about the cemetery birth in rural space.