Saint-Maurice de Blasimon Abbey
The Abbey of Saint-Maurice de Blasimon ( French Abbaye de Saint-Maurice de Blasimon ) is an important building of the late early Middle Ages in Aquitaine . The former Benedictine abbey was fortified and had a defensive character. The abbey church and a free-standing defensive tower are still completely preserved, while the cloister , the chapter house , living and working rooms as well as the surrounding wall are only rudimentary. The complex has been a listed building since 1925 .
history
The founding of the abbey is based on a legend: Construction work began on the site of an old castle on the top of a mountain spur. After every working day the next morning all the work was destroyed again. The foreman was discouraged, and finally he cried and shouted: "Where my hammer falls, the abbey will be built". So the abbey was built in its current location below the hill in a swampy place. This is where the waters of the Gamage River and the Tinton Stream meet.
According to the chapter book now in La Réole , the abbey was a foundation of Saint-Jean d'Angely and dates from the 10th century. The old deed of foundation, which was discovered during renovations, was under the patronage of St. Mauritius (Saint-Maurice) . According to tradition, church services were held in the region as early as the fifth century, which would confirm the hypothesis that the monastery is much older than the structure that remains today.
A first building must have already existed in the 10th or 11th century, but either not been completed or it was in ruins. The facade was rebuilt in 1150, but the renovation work was interrupted and only resumed at the end of the 12th century. From 1166 the property was owned by the Abbey of La Sauve-Majeure . The complex has not been used as a monastery since the 16th century.
Abbey church
The Saint-Nicolas church as it exists today dates from the 12th and 13th centuries and harmoniously combines Romanesque and Gothic style elements. Only the two candle arches on the portal of the north and in the middle of the south wall are from the 20th century.
portal
At the main portal of the church there is a richly designed figural arch, which was probably made during the reign of Louis VII (1137–1165), more precisely probably between 1140 and 1165. The sculptures in the arches of the entrance portal to the west are structured in six ways.
In the outermost arch you can see hunting scenes and the tree of knowledge at the bottom right . The second arch contains allegorical palmette leaves.
The third arch shows how the virtues kill the vices : In a straight line, four virtues stand on top of each other on four monster-like beings that are supposed to represent the vices. These are anger , lust , pride, and discord . One of the virtues pushes a spear into the body of a monster with both hands, the other two can win more easily, as a thank you they stab the loser with the point of their sword or spear. The one behind stabs his scabbard with his sword. The names of the characters are not noted in the brickwork, but can be deduced congruently . The heads were cut off during the French Revolution .
While the fourth and fifth arch again have palm leaf garlands, the innermost, the sixth arch, depicts a flock of angels who are worshiped by lambs. All elements are designed with great elegance and finesse and are surprisingly well preserved.
Directly under the arches there are no less lavishly designed capitals , which rest on Doric columns , which in turn are based on stylobates . The moving scenes depict people and animals.
Church interior
.jpg)
The nave consists of four bays . The choir (first yoke) was restored in the 19th century. The original design has therefore not been preserved. The windows are also from this period. The south window facing the cloister, however, is still in its original state. There are also two loopholes there . The windows and buttresses in the second bay have been preserved from the way they were built in the 12th century. In the third yoke, the remains of other stones can still be seen in the lower area, which were reused from other places here. There is a special feature in the vault: the branching off of the first arch from the twelfth century to the second yoke. Work must have been interrupted for a while at this point, probably until the end of the 12th century. The base of a buttress on the north wall that separates the two windows was renewed as early as the 13th century.
The fourth yoke (west side), with which the church building came to an end in the 13th century, was built together with the richly furnished facade. With a wall more than two meters thick, the western front is unusually solid; Obviously, there were already fears of static problems, which were finally eliminated with the construction of the two candle arches at the end of the 19th / beginning of the 20th century.
Tower and fortification
The south side of the abbey was surrounded by a fortified wall, the time of which is unknown. The wall led to a round tower with a spiral staircase, visible in the southwest corner. A square tower, which is provided with loopholes , was transformed in modern times into a dovecote in the upper part .
Web links
- Ancienne abbaye Saint-Nicolas in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
- Ancienne église abbatiale Saint-Maurice, actuelle église Saint-Nicolas in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
- Floor plan of the church and farm building (east above)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b www.petit-patrimoine.com
- ↑ a b c d Prospectus of the Société archéologique et préhistorique de Blasimon
- ^ Léo Drouyn: Variétés Girondines , Vol. III, p. 47, Bordeaux 1856
Coordinates: 44 ° 45 ′ 13.2 " N , 0 ° 4 ′ 28.3" W.