Legend has it that Saint Mathurin was born in Larchant at the end of the 3rd century. Mathurin, instructed in the religion of Christ by Bishop Polycarp, was ordained a priest at the age of twenty and acquired a reputation as a healer that spread as far as Rome. The emperor Maximian asked him to cure his daughter, the princess Theodora, who was possessed by a demon. When he arrived in Rome, Mathurin cured the sick who had come to meet him and saved the emperor's daughter. He stayed there for three years, performing many miracles, and died on the day of the November Calendar (1 November).

His body was brought back to his native village by his followers. Many miracles occurred at his tomb and Larchant became a very important place of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages, a stopover on the way to Compostela. Nowadays, the pilgrimage of Saint Mathurin, organised at Pentecost, is still celebrated by hundreds of faithful.

The church, one of the main Gothic buildings in the Ile de France, was begun around 1175 under the direction of the Chapter of Notre Dame de Paris, lord of Larchant since 1005. At the end of the 13th century, the sacristy and the treasure room were added to the south of the transept. On the other side, on the north transept, the chapel dedicated to the Holy Virgin was built. The tower adjoining the second bay of the nave has a porch at its base decorated with a scene from the "Last Judgement".

The church was first burnt down in 1490, probably by lightning, and after the restoration work was completed, the building was burnt down again during the Wars of Religion in 1568. In 1675, the damage led to the collapse of part of the tower, 50 m high, leaving part of the building in ruins.



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