page_title: Roquemaure, Gard
section_title: Church
hierarchical_section_title: Roquemaure, Gard / Church
caption_attribution_description: English: A wax rubbing of a marble slab found in the parish church of Roquemaure, France in 1855. It depicts Jordanus Bricius, a judge and legal scholar, who died in the middle of the 15th century. The Latin text reads: Hec est sepultura mag[ist]ri militis, utriusq[ue] juris professoris, domini Jordani Bricii, domini castrorum Velaucii et Castrinovi-Rubri, qui fuit judex major Provincie, et fecit edifica...
context_page_description: Roquemaure is a small town and commune in the Gard department of southern France. The town lies 12 kilometres north of Avignon on the right bank of the Rhône. In the 2012 census the commune had a population of 5,421.
  Roquemaure was the site of a royal castle during the medieval period but after the French Revolution the castle was dismantled and now only two towers remain. In the 18th century Roquemaure was the centre of attempts to regulate the production of wine in the area and the term "Côte du Rhône" was coined. The town is infamous for being the site where phylloxera, a pest of grapevines, was introduced into France from North America in the 1860s. Viticulture is still an important activity in the commune. Several types of wine are produced including some classified as Côtes du Rhône Appellation d'origine contrôlée.
context_section_description: The Catholic collegiate church of Saint-Jean-Baptiste and Saint-Jean-l’Evangéliste dates from the first half of the 14th century. It was built in the southern gothic style (gothique méridional) and replaced an earlier church dedicated to Sainte-Marie. The construction of the present church was initiated by Bertrand du Pouget, a powerful figure in the church hierarchy in the early period of the Avignon Papacy. He was appointed as the cardinal priest of San Marcello by Pope Jean XXII in 1316 and the cardinal bishop of Ostia e Velletri in 1327. In 1345 Pope Clement VI authorised the transfer of the parish services from Sainte-Marie to the new church and the establishment of a collegiate chapter consisting of ten priests and two canons. One of the canons was charged with the spiritual care of the congregation. The chapter was relatively wealthy as it inherited the benefices of the earlier church and gained addition endowments from the founder.
  Originally the wooden roof was visible in the church but in the 19th century the timbers were replaced and the vaulting was added.
  The third chapel on the right hand side of the nave is the Chapel Saint-Jean which dates from the 15th century. In 1855 a marble slab was discovered under layers of whitewash in the wall. The slab has an engraving of a man and a Latin inscription around three sides; the slab is damaged and the inscription on the fourth side is missing. The text reads: "This is the tomb of the noble master [and] professor of both laws, Lord Jordanus Bricius, Lord of the castles of Velaux and Châteauneuf-le-Rouge, who was chief judge of Provence, and had built..." Unfortunately the date which presumably would have been on the fourth side and is missing. Velaux and Châteauneuf-le-Rouge are communes in the department of the Bouches-du-Rhône. The stone is now set into the nearby wall of the church.
  Jordanus Bricius, whose name is usual written in French as Jourdain Brice, was an important judge and legal scholar. He is believed to have died in either 1433 or 1439. The historian Eugène Germer-Durand when reporting the discovery of the slab suggested that his family name may have been Brès which in the Provençal dialect is similar to the word for a type of trap used to catch birds. This could explain the crest on the slab which includes a small bird above three objects that could be traps. Jourdain Brès may have been born locally as the family name of Brès existed in the neighbouring village of Laudun in the 17th century.
  The church contains an organ made in 1690 by the brothers Barthélémy and Honoré Julien from Marseille. It was originally installed in the Couvent des Cordeliers in Avignon but was moved to the church in Roquemaure in around 1820. The walnut casing dates from when the organ was moved.
  In the chapel to the right of the main altar is a casket containing some relics of Saint Valentine. These were extracted from the catacomb of Saint Hippolytus in Rome and given by Pope Pius IX to Maximilien Pichaud, a local dignitary. They were placed in the church in a ceremony led by Claude-Henri Plantier, the bishop of Nîmes, in October 1868.
caption: An engraved marble slab dating from the 15th century that is set into the church wall.
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "3144", "Image ImageLength": "5076", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "1", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "4", "Image XResolution": "600", "Image YResolution": "600", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2013:01:07 18:30:44", "Image ExifOffset": "232", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "382", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8121", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1832", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "4605"}