Marcigny, Paray-le-Monial et la question de la chapelle mariale dans l’organisation spatiale des prieurés clunisiens au XIe–XIIe siècle

The Notre-Dame chapel is a typical building of the monastic life at Cluny and the Ecclesia Cluniacensis, as well as the antechurch. The Notre-Dame chapel is directly connected to the chapter house and opened on it. It is of a major importance in the Cluniac liturgy: morning service, sunday and major feast processions, deathwatch, laying-out of bodies, etc. The construction of the Notre-Dame chapel, initially basic, can be complex in a certain way, as in the Marcigny or Polirone buildings. This complexity indicates the goals of the builders, who took their inspiration from late antique and Carolingian architecture.