Saint James
Palais Saint-Jacques
7500 Tournai
Church | 1153-1167 | Romanesque | Catholic Church
Map
Opening hours
01 April - 31 October
Mon 9.00 - 18.00
Tue 9.00 - 18.00
Wed 9.00 - 18.00
Thu 9.00 - 18.00
Fri 9.00 - 18.00
Sat 9.00 - 18.00
Sun 9.00 - 18.00
01 November - 31 March
Mon 9.00 - 16.00
Tue 9.00 - 16.00
Wed 9.00 - 16.00
Thu 9.00 - 16.00
Fri 9.00 - 16.00
Sat 9.00 - 16.00
Sun 9.00 - 16.00
2nd Sunday of September :
10 am : Grand Procession of our Lady of the infirm
(departure of the Cathedral)
Religious offices
Description
The church of Saint James was one of the stages on the pilgrimage between Flanders and northern Europe and Saint James of Compostella.
Its vast fore-part may well have been designed to shelter the pilgrims at night. The tower and the nave date from the 13th century and the choir a century later.
Inside, the renovated murals depict a concert of angels (1405), an exceptional eagle lectern in copper (1411) and a polychrome wooden statue of Our Lady seated.
Photos
Media
Remarkable elements
High altar
The high altar is adorned with an altar piece whose shutters evoke episodes in the life of Saint James. the Elder. It is the highlight of the neo-gothic furnishings with which the church was provided on the inspiration of the baron of Bethune.
Columns of the nave
The typical characteristic of the local architecture, of drum columns with capitals of ribbed and coiled leaves, is a result of the use of stone from Tournai worked by its stone masons
Organ buffet
The organ is perched on a 1755 Louis XV style sideboard, decorated with models of musical instruments. Like the church itself this buffet is listed as exceptional Walloon patrimony.
Vaults with angel musicians
The vaults of the side chapel on the right have a choir of angels with instruments of the period: lute, harp, bagpipes. They were painted in 1405 and restored in 1895 by Jules Helbig.
Tombstones
A number of tombstones bearing epitaphs and arms from the 16th 17th and 18th centuries have been replaced in the porch. They remind us that the church of Saint-James was a shrine for one of the most aristocratic parishes of the town.
The eagle lectern
The choir houses an eagle-lectern dated 1411, one of the few pieces of furniture to have escaped the fury of the iconoclasts who ravaged the church in 1566. It bears witness to the skills of the Tournai brass founders.
