Saint-Pierre Cathedral of Poitiers

Saint-Pierre Cathedral in Poitiers is a Roman Catholic cathedral; it was built on the initiative of Aliénor d'Aquitaine and Henri II Plantagenêt from 1160, and its construction took hundreds of years to be finally consecrated in 1379!

The cathedral in Poitiers was dedicated to Saint Peter / "Saint-PIERRE". Simon, nicknamed Peter (the word means "rock"), was a fisherman on Lake Genesareth when he - together with his brother Andrew - was called by Jesus Christ to be a "fisher of men".
According to Catholic understanding, he is the highest apostle, and the two thousand year long line of popes - currently Francis - are his successors. In statues and paintings, Peter is almost always depicted with two keys in his hand; this attribute refers to the Bible verse in Matthew: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." (Chapter 16, Verse 19).
Saint-Pierre is also known together with Saint-Paul as the "prince of the apostles"; their common feast day in the calendar of saints is June 29th.

The Cathedral of St. Pierre (12th / 13th century) was built in accordance with the style of the Poitevin Romanesque as a hall church and represents a rare in the Gothic example of this type of building. Romanesque are the easternmost yokes of the cathedral, but went the Baumeister in the course of construction progress to the style of Gothic.