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A building program was started in about 1260 to provide a new choir for the nave and transept of the priory church in Auxois, built around 1200. The work began with the construction of a costly portal, complete with carved statues, on the north transept, which was seen as the focal point for a pilgrimage that had yet to be established.
In the centre of the portal is a statue of St. Thibault, dressed in priestly vestments, topped with scenes of the life of the Virgin (Dormition, Assumption, Coronation). The four statues that frame it are identified (reading from right to left) as representations of Thibault the teenager, his mentor Gauthier, his mother Willa and his great-grand-uncle Thibault, archbishop of Vienna (957-1101), who prophesied very in advance the birth of the saint.
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