Ligné's medieval cemetery contains 70 tombstones from the 12th and 13th centuries, sculpted with religious crosses, standards, knights' swords, brotherhood tools... and a 17th-century hosannière cross.
63 of them, dating from the 12th to 18th centuries, were classified as “Monuments Historiques” in 1965.
These funerary slabs come in the three shapes in use at the time: flat, triangular and trapezoidal stones.
Some claim that they are Templar headstones, others totally refute this assertion...
In the middle of the cemetery, remains the base of an old lantern of the dead replaced, in 1954, by a hosanitary cross, registered as a historic monument since 1973.
Hosannere crosses, funeral monuments very widespread in Poitou-Charente, very often surmount ossuaries or mass graves.
In the church of the former Notre-Dame priory, Gothic murals represent the original sin and the expulsion from paradise. The site has been classified as a historical monument since 1973.
Cimetière médiéval
16140 Ligné
Tél. : 05 45 39 01 73
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator