The crosses of Crozant remain full of mysteries for the Creusois and the Indrois. You have surely seen some if you walk around Crozant, Creuse or even in the south of Indre. These granite crosses that we discover by chance during a walk in the forest or in town. There are about fifty.
And researchers, historians and archaeologists are looking into this mystery. A symposium is organized by the Association for the safeguarding of Crozant type crosses, and the University of Limoges, this Saturday, September 10, in Eguzon, to share theories.
Crosses both familiar and mysterious
Some of these crosses are in Chantôme, a town of which François Avisseau is the mayor. He is also the dean of the faculty that organizes this colloquium. “These are crosses that are very familiar to the inhabitants of the place since they meet at crossroads of roads, he says. In living memory, we have always seen them there. They are very familiar, but also very mysterious.”
Mysterious, because we do not know when they were installed, by whom and above all for what purpose. “We have always been intrigued by these crosses, continues the researcher. We obviously tell each other stories about what that could mean. The fact that they are made in the same way, with the same shape, tends to make us think that originally they all fulfilled the same function.”
No document of the time mentions it.
A difficult function to determine because today, there is no document of the time which speaks about it. François Avisseau therefore hopes that this symposium will allow advance research.“We may be able to set aside some hypotheses and suddenly, reduce the number of valid hypotheses. That is to say not to reach the truth, but to get closer to it than we were before the conference.”
This event is also open to the public who can participate in the debate from the room, in an attempt to lift the veil a little on the mystery of the crosses of Crozant.