Antigny (Vienne)
| Antigny | ||
|---|---|---|
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| region | Nouvelle-Aquitaine | |
| Department | Vienne | |
| Arrondissement | Montmorillon | |
| Canton | Montmorillon | |
| Community association | Vienne et Gartempe | |
| Coordinates | 46 ° 32 ' N , 0 ° 51' E | |
| height | 75-148 m | |
| surface | 43.93 km 2 | |
| Residents | 549 (January 1, 2017) | |
| Population density | 12 inhabitants / km 2 | |
| Post Code | 86310 | |
| INSEE code | 86006 | |
 Church of Our Lady of Southwest |
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Antigny is a commune in the department of Vienne in the region Nouvelle-Aquitaine . It belongs to the arrondissement of Montmorillon and the canton of Montmorillon .
The place has 549 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2017) and is about three kilometers south of Saint-Savin and 40 kilometers east of Poitiers , right on the banks of the Vienne .
The main sights are the frescoes in the Notre-Dame church , the funeral lantern of the former Merovingian necropolis , the remains of an important Gallo-Roman settlement on the Gué-de-Sciaux ( ford of Sciaux) and the associated museum.
history
Prehistoric roots
Excavations in the nearby cave of Taillis des Coteaux (thicket of the slopes) have been ongoing since 1999. The archaeological site is about thirty meters deep under a hill and extends over 340 square meters. Traces of their use were found from the period between 30,000 and 15,000 BC. The excavations uncovered around twenty layers , namely those from the Aurignacia , Gravettia (seven layers alone), Badegoulia , and the early and middle Magdalenian . The artefacts found mainly represent stone tools from "industrial production", but jewelery made from mussel shells and carved bones were also found. The top layer consisted almost entirely of human remains. The high number of bones (they come from several hundred people) suggests that the cave served as an ossuary .
Antiquity
About a kilometer downstream from the cave, but still in the municipal area, you come across the Sciaux ford (French: Le Gué-Sciaux ), where the ancient Roman road from Poitiers to Bourges crossed the Gartempe river. At this point archaeological excavations led to the discovery of an important Gallo-Roman settlement from the 2nd century.
With an extension of 50 hectares, the archaeological site has the characteristics of a vicus , an organized village community with places of worship (temples), public facilities ( thermal baths , theaters) and with an arts and crafts quarter on the right bank of the river. For example, a furnace was found whose slag contained metal, which suggests an ancient forge . On the other side of Römerstrasse, almost opposite the smithy, a fountain with a largely preserved ceramic surround was found, which is a very rare discovery.
The sources point to the discovery of a " Bassin à cupule " (basin with cupula), about the creation, destruction and use of which different views are expressed. Precise information is given about the shape and dimensions of the pool: 4.14 × 2.41 m in plan, 1.80 m deep. This results in an area of 9.97 m² and a capacity of 17.959 m³. The floor has a slope of 2 cm. A fixed staircase was found. The following information is given about the cupula : Placement: centered, shape: ellipsoid , material: concrete , dimensions: D = 21 cm, d = 13 cm, P = 2 cm. The age of the building is given as: 15 years before, up to 40 years after our era. The cupula was probably an oval hollow in the concrete floor of the basin, which made it easier to empty it completely.
Such basins à cupule are quite common in the southwest of France. Their floors are mostly made of waterproof concrete, their walls partly made of masonry with waterproof plaster , but also of the same concrete as the floor. Its purpose is questionable, its use as a cistern is obvious, but its use in the mashing of grapes for winemaking is more likely and more common . Another use is indicated as a "Bassin à salsamenta" , for the production of fish sauces , and that more near the coast.
In the Gallo-Roman "Vicus of Bibracte" on Mont Auxois in Burgundy , a concrete basin was reconstructed in the center of the latter, in the form of a boat hull, named "Fontaine Saint-Pierre" .
Excavations of the Gallo-Roman vicus Sciaux
Water basin
Basement and foundation walls
Foundation walls and canal
Various shards
museum
The Antigny Museum houses a rich lapidary made up of finds from the Gallo-Roman vicus of “Gué-de-Sciaux” . The following will be exhibited:
- The original gable of a temple from the 2nd century
- Various graves
- The reconstruction of the tympanum of a temple from the 2nd century in real size
- Military milestones
- Merovingian sarcophagi and sculptures.
- Finds in the museum of the Gallo-Roman vicuc Sciaux
Remains of a temple gable
Temple cornice
Head of a roman
Milestones
The course of the former Roman road (see Michelin Atlas 1: 200,000) is almost identical to that of a dirt road that branches off the road between Antigny and Saint-Savin and leads to the Gartempe river, where the ford is located on the more turbulent shallow water can locate. Next to this path, about a hundred meters from the bank and significantly higher than the water level, you will find part of the excavations of the Sciaux settlement in the form of exposed foundation walls and fortified soil, which are, however, heavily overgrown by nature. Square and rectangular masonry basins, which are reminiscent of the á cupule basin described above, are often found . The remains of the building are in a rather desolate condition and partially covered with protective films.
middle Ages
The first pre-Romanesque church stood at the Gartempe at the height of today's Antigny village during the Merovingian era (5th to mid-8th centuries). This predecessor of today's ship stands in the middle of a large necropolis , which includes numerous Merovingian ornamented stone sarcophagi , some of which are still preserved in or next to the church and others are on display in the Saint-Jean Baptistery in Poitiers. Several of these sarcophagi were still in use for burials until the 19th century. A similar Merovingian necropolis is still well preserved in Civaux . The Merovingians buried their deceased in central locations, which often went back to pre-Christian sanctuaries and traditional burial sites, and traveled long distances to get there.
The original building of the first Romanesque church Notre-Dame d'Antigny dates back to the 11th century and already had the floor plan of the present ship (see floor plan). It was probably covered by a gently sloping gable roof and possibly had an eastern choir apse . It is first mentioned in a document from Pope Lucius III. , dated 1184, which confirmed their dependence on the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Savin . The apparently partially collapsed Romanesque church had to be rebuilt in the High Romanesque . Parts of sarcophagi were reused.
In the 13th century, the church was turned into a nave , which was expanded to include the present choir and connected to it with three arcade openings (see floor plan). A bell tower with a stone helmet in the Gothic style is erected above the first choir bay . This also created the common, steeply sloping gable roof over the nave and choir , which replaced the flat sloping roof of the ship. At the same time, the originally gently sloping facade aisles had to be adapted to the new height of the gable roof. The beautiful funeral lantern was erected in the same century ; only they remind of the great necropolis today.
The nave's frescoes were done at the beginning of the 14th century - certainly influenced and supported by the nearby Saint-Savin Abbey , whose church was decorated as early as the 12th century. In addition, there was also the generous support of the ruling family from the castle Château Boismorant , which was about one kilometer south of Antigny.
Renaud de Montléon , squire of Seigneur de Boismorand , ordered in his will of November 14, 1421 the construction of a chapel “instead of the graves of the Boismorand and above them” on the south side of the choir. This is the burial chapel dedicated to St. Catherine (French: Sainte-Catherine ) (see floor plan). The sources give no information about the half-size chapel in its extension. The significantly different height and shape of the windows in the south walls and the niche in the west wall of St. Catherine's Chapel, which was originally a window, prevent them from being built at the same time. There is also no information about the importance or the date of origin of the small extension on the south wall of the chapel.
Her frescoes were created between 1430 and 1510, when Jean Moussy , a Seigneur Boismorand and a de la Contour lived. Both the chapel of the Château de Boismorand and the funerary chapel of Jouhet , about 6 km south of Antigny, have been decorated with the same decors and similar colors . The absence of the son Gamaliel among the family members of the Boismorand rule means that the depictions above the entrance arcade date to before 1490.
In a protocol from 1695, on the occasion of a visit to the church, it was recorded: "The church is poorly furnished, without even a simple ciborium , no longer in possession of the monstrance made of gilded wood and the liturgical books are useless."
In the 18th century, the southern chapel extensions were extended to include the open narthex , which is called "ballet" (see floor plan). The sources do not provide any information about the origin of this designation.
In 1971 the oak vault of the ship was restored. The Sainte-Catherine chapel, which had long been divided by a transverse wall and partly used as a sacristy , was restored to its original size in 1985.
In 1991 the plaster paintings were released for inspection after their intensive restoration. The sources say: "After a redesign in 1994, you can go down three steps to the nave" . Presumably this means that the floor of the ship has been lowered and the semicircular stairs that are now present have been installed.
Notre-Dame church
Death lantern
In the square in front of the church, on what was once a much larger necropolis , there is a death lantern with an unusual square cross-section; it probably dates from the 12th or 13th century. The cemetery monument stands - as usual - on a multi-level square platform. The hollowed-out stele has a small altar that can be reached via a step. The beacon can be inserted through a door on the side and pulled up with a cable. Under the top of the funeral lantern, crowned with a stone cross, you can see an opening in each of the four walls through which the light could shine outwards.
The function and use of the funeral lanterns is still unclear: Were they intended as Eternal Light that was supposed to show the resurrected or the souls of the deceased the right way on the day of the Last Judgment or was the light only on certain days (e.g. . All Saints' Day and All Souls Day , Good Friday , funeral days) lit? Further examples of these cemetery monuments, widespread in Poitou, can be found not far from Antigny, for example in Angles-sur-l'Anglin , Château-Larcher , Cellefrouin and Fenioux .
literature
- Thorsten Droste : Poitou, western France between Poitiers and Angoulême - the Atlantic coast from the Loire to the Gironde . DuMont Buchverlag , Cologne 1999, ISBN 3-7701-4456-2 .
Web links
- u. a. Image of the three living and three dead (French)
- Badegoulien in the French language Wikipedia (on Badegoulien culture)
Individual evidence
- ↑ u. a. Wikisource