Vertheuil Abbey
The former Vertheuil Abbey is located in the middle of the French town of the same name, Vertheuil, in the Médoc in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region . The church of Saint Pierre de Vertheuil (dedicated to the apostle Peter ; a newer stained glass window in the west wall shows him with two mighty keys in his hand) as well as a wing of the monastery building directly adjacent to the north wall of the church have been preserved. A southern wing around the inner courtyard with a small park was destroyed.
history
The monastery and its first church may have been built as early as the 9th or 10th century when the monks of the nearby L'Isle monastery (in the municipality of Ordonnac , about 7 km north as the crow flies), which was destroyed by the Normans , fled here to take shelter in Vertheuil Castle.
The remains of this castle are privately owned and cannot be visited. The complex has been documented since 1081, the remains of the fortified tower date from the 11th century, a simple castle gate from the 14th century.
A Romanesque church was built in the 11th century at the instigation of Duke Wilhelm VIII of Aquitaine on the site of a former Gallo-Roman villa (3 km north of here are the remains of a late antique city, called " Site de Brion "). Major renovations of the monastery took place from the 14th to the 16th century, as well as in the 19th century; parts were demolished in the 20th century. From the 12th century until the French Revolution , Benedictines and then Augustinian canons lived here .
architecture
The monastery church is a three-aisled hall church with a semicircular closed ambulatory, to which three radial chapels are attached. Particularly noteworthy are the main portal on the south side of the church and the capitals in the three-aisled church interior and in the choir (there also the consoles or corbels of the vaulted ribs), which, like the entire church, are made of light sandstone. The place in front of the church on the portal side was a cemetery in the Middle Ages; The course of the former wall is marked in the paving. The cross on this square commemorates the wars of religion when a Protestant judge was executed here in the 1570s (inscription only partially legible).
Towers
The church has two east bell towers. The older north tower dates from the 12th century. Two floors adorned with Romanesque windows rise above the angular tower stump, the second floor has an octagonal floor plan and is covered with a pyramidal tiled roof. The slightly lower south tower dates from the 15th century; it is rectangular and was built or redesigned as a defense tower with loopholes under today's tiled roof. This tower has a staircase inside, but a stair tower is also built onto the outer wall. At the passage closed by a grille at this point you can see the remains of a coat of arms, probably of an abbot from the 15th century. It shows a miter and abbot's staff at the top, the lion of the historical Guyenne region , which was under English in the Middle Ages, and three shells on the left, commemorating the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela ; today it is the coat of arms of the political municipality Vertheuil.
portal
A classical portal was broken into the Romanesque portal in the 17th or 18th century , which may be related to the rededication of the monastery church to the parish church in 1753. The Romanesque portal shows four friezes with interesting figures in the archivolts . In the first row below are consecutive "old men" holding on to beards; maybe that's a nod to scenes from the apocalypse. The second row shows little people who might be fishermen pulling nets. In the third row, in the middle, you can see a person blowing the horn to the right and left (perhaps to call the elect). This is followed by rows of two people each, facing each other, perhaps engaged in viticulture (something also oozes out of the mouth?). The fourth, top row finally shows people and ornamentation in a continuous sequence. Questions remain open about all of these representations. In terms of style, the figures are reminiscent of the work of stonemasons from the workshop of Saint-Eutrope in Saintes , who worked several times at pilgrimage sites on the way to Santiago.
Furnishing
The three naves close at the top with ribbed vaults, with two roughly square yokes in the side aisles corresponding to an approximately square central nave yoke. The central nave ends in a polygonal column position in the east.
The two relatively narrow and therefore high-looking aisles lead to an ambulatory , which the pilgrims also followed on their way around the altar. Like the church of Santiago de Compostela, the chapel in the central axis has an unusually rectangular floor plan, while the two radial chapels have semicircular ends.
The wooden choir stalls are richly decorated and show a Benedictine monk with a small wine barrel. One cheek of a chair evidently shows "Alexander the Great", on which a woman rides, to whom he submits in love; another cheek shows Adam and Eve. A choir desk dates from the 15th century. The double-sided confessional is preserved, as is the pulpit. A slim, elegant gallery is built into the north side wall, the function of which is unclear; perhaps it served as a support for an organ.
The stone sculptures in the choir vault show various figures whose interpretation is uncertain (a woman lifting her skirt, allegedly a Celtic mother goddess; people with animals, etc.). The column capitals in the nave are also decorated in an interesting way with people, animals, plant ornaments, etc. (hawks on the hawk, acrobats, threatening masks and animal heads: symbols with a wide variety of possible interpretations).
The mighty baptismal font in the church space to the left of the entrance consists of a block and is decorated with continuous fluting . It was created in the 15th century from a stone that was used as ballast for the English merchant ships, which were loaded with wine on the return voyage.
The monastery extension, which is in need of renovation (all of the buildings are owned by the municipality), is used for temporary exhibitions. On the ground floor adjoining the church there are lower-lying, Romanesque components that lead to the no longer existing chapter house or to the cloister, which is also no longer preserved. The 18th century room has elegant stairs on both sides to the first floor. On the ground floor, a room decorated with green wooden panels with an exit to the garden is still relatively well preserved.
literature
- Michèle Morlan Tardat: Saint Pierre de Vertheuil. (French) leaflet of the association “Les Amis de l'Abbatiale et de l'Abbaye de Vertheuil”, undated [2015].
- La boucle d'Ordonnac. (French) leaflet from the “Office de tourisme Coeur Médoc”, 2013.
- La ronde vertheuillaise. (French) leaflet of the “Point info tourisme de Vertheuil en Médoc”, 2013.
Individual evidence
- ↑ so the leaflet (see literature); or already in the 17th century (so Wikipedia.fr, September 2015)
Web links
Coordinates: 45 ° 15 ′ 1.9 ″ N , 0 ° 50 ′ 3.4 ″ W.