An oratorical is at the base a private Chapelle intended for the exercise of the worship. More precisely, this term indicates a small monument dedicated to the worship of a saint or holy represented by a statuette or sometimes quite simply by a simple plate with its image or a cross.

The building can be worked in a monolith, or bricks, or stones of the country, according to the areas of France. The origin of these small Christian monuments would be in fact pagan.

In Provence, area particularly equipped with these famous oratories, it is with Moustiers-Holy-Marie that is oldest of the oratories probably dating from the XIVe century.

Beausset, another village of Provence, asserts being the capital of the oratories ; this commune while having with it only, an about sixty approximately. There exists besides in this commune a pedestrian way baptized the way of the oratories which is marked out of 13 buildings.

The oratory is thus rural since it allowed the peasants living in a sometimes eccentric universe to come to collect itself piously near patron saint and to devote itself to a prayer without to go to the church. Nevertheless the oratory constitutes more than a place of worship, a thanks and an offering with the hope in return of the protection of the saint to which it is devoted.

Examples of oratories

France

• Beausset
• Moustiers-Holy-Marie
• Pieusse in the Aude
• Ass in the Alp-of-High-Provence
• Beaucaire in the Gard
• Pernes-the-Fountains in the Vaucluse
• Nice in the the Alpes-Maritimes
• Notre Dame of Lorette to Plougasnou in the Finistere

Ireland

• Oratorical of Gallarus

• Oratorical Saint-Joseph of Mount-Royal the

References

• History of the village of Beausset
• In the mystic and the tradition of the oratories - Jean Gavot