Collégiale fortifiée Saint-Germain

At the height of the Hundred Years? War, Cardinal Roger, brother of Limousin Pope Clement 6, died and asked in his will for a collegiate church to be built at Saint-Germain-les-Belles, in which he could be buried. The Saint-Germain collegiate church was built on the site of an earlier Romanesque edifice; it is the oldest fortified church in the département, and its defensive system has often been compared to that of the Palais des Papes in Avignon. Two defensive levels are linked by a spiral staircase: on the first, the former chapter house with its large lookout window; on the second, the attic space above the nave and choir, used as a weapons room and refuge. A parapet walk, running around the chevet, is pierced with firing bays, archways and machicolations.