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Office deTourisme
Place du Gl de Gaulle 06360 Eze France Tel : 33 (0) 4 93 41 26 00 Fax : 33 (0) 4 93 41 04 80 
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The
White Penitents Chapel
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Eze,
The old Village
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| The Chapel Sainte Croix |
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The brotherhood
of the white penitent of Eze was founded on march 20th 1306. Initially
in the church, the penitents settled in the chapel of the same
name.
Located inthe village center, the chapel of white penitents is a small building with a single nave preceded by a porch decorated with a calade or mosaic with pebble. The refectory and other additional rooms on the lower level are occupied today by shops. Each brotherhood was managed by a prior and a under prior elected during the Easter holiday. In 1782, in Eze they gathered 89 men and 95 women. Under the term of "confraternita" , the inhabitants associated the white penitent and another brotherhood created in 1713 dedicated to Saint Rosary. In the facts nothing to distinguished them : both did the same thing. |
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The resources
of the community of Eze were essentially the contributions, the
collection, alms and legacies. In 1740, they inherit in particular
from the surgeon Antoine Fighiera of ten properties planted with
olive trees and carob trees. Every year, the priors put the leaves
of some white mulberry trees which were in the village for auction
to the silkworm breeders.
In 1793, during the revolutionary period, the worship is prohibited (it will be restored nine years later) and the personal property or real estate inventoried. The government auditor of the revolution did not find any trace of paintings, vases or crowned objects probably hidden by the inhabitants. |
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Today the chapel
has, a credence from the middle age, a woodcarving of the virgin
to the child from the XIV e century holding in his hand a pine
apple, a crucifix of Spanish school dated by Bonifassi from the
XIII e century and especially a crucifix allocated to the paint
shop of Ludovic Bréa.
The religious paintings of Michel Marie Poulain were most probably created about 1953 further the lawsuit between the Bonifassi priest and the painter Bernard Leclerc initially charged with mural decorations of the chapel, lawsuit whose details are reported on the web site of Xavier Cottier (Le lotus d'Eze). At that time the walls of the nave were painted in yellow. |
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Born in 1906
and dead in 1991, Michel Marie
Poulain is a figure of Parisian Left Bank and … a figure
of Eze. He is known to have lived like a woman. Dressed with a
tailored suit, capped of a chignon, make up, his silhouette remained
in the memories of Ezasques. More than ten works of Poulain are
exposed in the chapel.
Ordered by the Bonifassi priest, they form a series on the life of the Christ : Visitation, Nativity, Ecce Homo, Crucifixion, Piéta. These works are visible by the public through the grids of a gate. |
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| To learn more about... |
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The ethymology
of penitent comes from the Latin word "paenitere" that
means repentance. The first fraternities are constituted as brotherhood
in XIIth century but the origin of penitent is much older, undoubtedly
from the VI th century. Durand of Maillane gives a definition
in his canonical Dictionary in 1770 : "Faithful which, in
the southern province of the kingdom is reduced as brotherhood
to accomplish some duties of devotion and of charity as well as
: singing, burying death, assisting the sick, making processions
in the honour of God… The penitents are dressed with a white
"sac", blue, black, purple, grey or red depending on
their duty.
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The uniform
of penitent, the "sac", the "froc" or "cappa"
from Nice, is composed of a dress, a cord and a hood as a sign
of anonymity and humility. The colour indicates a particular function
and the supervision of a "archiconfrery". In the French
Riviera, the white penitents took care of the diseased dedicated
to the "archiconfrery" of Gonfalon; the blacks of the
burials dedicated to the penitent of Valréas, the reds
of the orphans dedicated of the brotherhood of Saint Suaire, the
blue were welcoming the travellers, prisoners and trying to give
back their freedom to the slaves. We know by the files that the
penitent of Eze took part in the processions, distributed pictures,
collected annually corn and oil, looked after the patients and
in particular the leprous and welcome the travellers.
The members of this lay order had some strict rules. If they were married, they could use of the marriage but if they were singles they had also to remain it. They had to practise the prayers, to refuse the trades of weapons and to give up the fashionable festivals. |
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Until
a recent date, the penitents returned to Eze during the Corpus
Christi for the "Procession of the Slugs".
That evening, after the office, a procession with the torches animated by the penitents and the public took place in the village with some ways of flowers and illuminated of hundreds of snail shells. |
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Bibliography :
Bonifassi (Abbé), Eze village, cité médiévale, Nice, Société nouvelle imprimerie Mathieu, 1979.
Fighiera (Charles-Alexandre), Eze, Nice, éditions Serre, 2000, 448 p.
Fighiera (Charles-Alexandre), "Le Prieuré d'Eze", Nice historique, 1934, pp 182-191 et 1935, pp 2-13.
Pénitents des Alpes Maritimes, Nice, éditions, Serre, 1981.
Bonifassi (Abbé), Eze village, cité médiévale, Nice, Société nouvelle imprimerie Mathieu, 1979.
Fighiera (Charles-Alexandre), Eze, Nice, éditions Serre, 2000, 448 p.
Fighiera (Charles-Alexandre), "Le Prieuré d'Eze", Nice historique, 1934, pp 182-191 et 1935, pp 2-13.
Pénitents des Alpes Maritimes, Nice, éditions, Serre, 1981.
