Collegiate monastery of Saint-Marcel

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The collegiate monastery in Faubourg Saint-Marcel, excerpt from the Plan de Turgot (1739)

The collegiate monastery of St. Marcel (French: Collégiale Saint-Marcel ) was a monastery consecrated to Saint Marcellus of Paris († 436?) With a church of the same name in the independent market town of Saint Marcel lez Paris , which was formerly located outside the gates of Paris merged with the neighboring town of Saint-Médard in the 15th century and incorporated into the urban catchment area as Faubourg Saint-Marcel or Saint Marceau . The area currently forms part of the 5th and 13th arrondissements of Paris. The church, demolished in 1804, stood at the intersection of the street, still known today as rue de la Collégiale (street of the collegiate monastery), with the Boulevard Saint-Marcel . Since 1158 at the latest, two small neighboring chapels have been under her control, and after their enlargement and elevation to parish churches at the beginning of the 13th century, they remained subsidiary churches of Saint-Marcel. The first, Saint-Martin du Cloître , stood immediately next to Saint-Marcel, the second, Saint-Hippolyte , a little further west on today's Boulevard Arago (N ° 10 and 12). These two churches were also demolished in the early 19th century.

The former collegiate church of Saint-Marcel should not be confused with the parish church of Saint-Marcel (82 Boulevard de l'Hôpital, 13th arrdt. ) , Which was completed around 500 m further east towards the end of 1966 and consecrated the following year, or with the Protestant church. Lutheran Church of Saint-Marcel (24 rue Pierre Nicole, 5th arrdt. ).

history

At the later location of the collegiate monastery, there was originally a grave field created in the 4th century in the area of ​​the southern arterial road. According to oral tradition, this included a chapel , the date of its foundation is in the dark. It is believed that it was built over the grave of Saint Marcellus, who died at the beginning of the 5th century and who, according to the legend of the saints, performed miracles. The presumption that it existed as early as the 4th century, that is, before the burial of Marcellus, should, in the absence of evidence, be relegated to the realm of speculation, the oral tradition of a foundation by Roland de Roncevaux in the 8th century of the legends , although it cannot be denied that this church was there at the latest in the reign of Charlemagne († 814), perhaps even earlier. The oldest surviving document, in which the "clergy of Saint-Marcel" is explicitly mentioned, is a charter drawn up in 811 on a matter which Stephan, Count of Paris, regulated with the cathedral chapter of Notre-Dame.

The collegiate monastery in the Faubourg Saint-Marcel, detail from the city map of Truschet and Hoyau (1550)

At the stately pin assets owned by the doyen ( pin Dean ) and the canons of St. Marcel, included in the 13th century fiefdom - and Manus Morta -Güter in the south of Paris, for example, in Ivry , whose parish church and a small chapel located there them in Victoriacum , today Vitry-sur-Seine , where they owned the church Saint-Gervais Saint Protais and its cemetery and in Theodosim , today Thiais , furthermore in the small, at the confluence of the bro de Rungis with the Bièvre , the village of Laiacum or Laï , today L'Haÿ-les-Roses . These places are explicitly mentioned in connection with a charter by which the chapter released one hundred and fifty of its resident subjects or mani as well as their wives, children and further descendants from serfdom in 1238 .

The canons of St. Marcel originally owned the relics of St. Marcellus of Paris. The shrine in which they were kept, an extraordinarily precious masterpiece of goldsmithing , was attributed to Eligius (French: Saint Eloi , around 589–659 / 60), who was later canonized treasurer and mint master of the Merovingian kings . There is disagreement about when and from which possible attackers the canons brought these relics from their collegiate church, which was poorly secured at the gates of the city, to the well-protected predecessor building of today's Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral, which was well protected behind the walls of the Île de la Cité . The various sources indicate either the period of the Norman raids (9th century) or that of the reign of the French king Philippe-Auguste (1180-1223), during which, due to the constant clashes between this king and the Plantagenets , numerous gangs looting English soldiers roamed the Île-de-France . The fact is that the canons refused to return the relics of Saint Marcellus of Paris entrusted to them, so that they remained in the cathedral for a long time. Today they are in the aforementioned parish church of St. Marcel.

It is worth mentioning a stone relief depicting a bull or ox , which used to be attached to the church tower rising above the north transept at a height of about 6 to 8 meters (4 toises or French fathoms ). The approximately 130 cm (4 old Parisian feet) wide work of sculpture later came into the possession of a certain Monsieur l'Huillier, chef de division à la comptabiliité nationale , who gave it to the French archaeologist Alexandre Lenoir (1761–1839) for this founded Musée des Monuments français . Lenoir brought the motif with the bull with the three cranes in connection, a representation of the Celtic deity Tarvos Trigaranus erected in honor of Jupiter in the reign of Emperor Tiberius (14–37 AD) in the Gallo-Roman Lutetia (Paris) Pilier des nautes .

In connection with the homage to the bull god Tarvos Trigaranus and the strange presence of the pagan image according to Lenoir at a Christian church, various authors refer to the tradition of a solemn parade in honor of the bull (or ox), which was held annually in Paris until the beginning of the 20th century. on the occasion of which the butchers led the festively decorated beef gras through the streets of the city. The vernacular but led the relief on the legendary conquest of a bull (and not a dragon) by St. Marcellus of Paris back, or, for another, more pragmatic version, on the provision of part of the required for the construction of the tower means by Butcher of the Bourg Saint-Marcel.

Funerals

In the choir of the collegiate church St. Marcel was the burial place of

literature

The works are arranged in chronological order of their year of publication:

  • Dom Félibien (Michel Félibien): Histoire de la ville de Paris , 1725 Paris
  • Jean Lebeuf: Histoire de la ville et de tout le diocèse de Paris , 1757 Paris
  • Alexandre Lenoir: Description historique et chronologique des monumens de sculpture réunis au Musée des Monumens Français , 8th edition, Hacquart, 1806 Paris
  • Hercule Géraud: Paris sous Philippe-le-Bel, d'après des documents originaux, et notamment d'après un manuscrit contenant le rôle de la taille imposée sur les habitants de Paris en 1292 , Crapelet, 1837 Paris
  • Jacques-Antoine Dulaure: Histoire physique, civile et morale de Paris, depuis les premiers temps historiques , Krabbe, 1854 Paris
  • Henri Léonard Bordier: Les églises et monastères de Paris , A. Aubry, 1856 Paris
  • Théophile Lavallée: Histoire de Paris, depuis le temps des Gaulois jusqu'à nos jours , 2nd edition, Michel Lévy Frères, 1857 Paris
  • PL Jacob: Curiosités de l'histoire des arts , Adolphe Delahays, 1858 Paris
  • Jacques Hillairet: Dictionnaire historique des rues de Paris , Vol. II, Editions de Minuit, 1963 Paris, ISBN 2-7073-0092-6
  • Alfred Fierro: Histoire et Dictionnaire de Paris , Robert Laffont, 1996 Paris, ISBN 2-221-07862-4

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Hillairet, Vol. II, p. 369 and Vol. I, p. 106.
  2. ↑ See Fierro, p. 13.
  3. ↑ Cf. Géraud, p. 463 and Bordier, p. 11.
  4. ^ Conseil général du Val-de-Marne: Notice archéologique d'Ivry-sur-Seine.
  5. ^ Conseil général du Val-de-Marne: Notice archéologique de Vitry-sur-Seine.
  6. ↑ See Lebeuf, p. 63.
  7. ↑ Felibien, Histoire de Paris : [Nous] "les quittons, graduons entièremment et émancipons pour toujours du joug de la servitude, auquel ils étoient soumis par nous et par notre Eglise, nos droits sur les hôtes et habitants de ces villages, nos censives , nos dimes et nos autres rentes. » , cited by Dulaure, p. 85.
  8. ↑ See Jacob, p. 262.
  9. ^ Website of the parish church of St. Marcel, Paris.
  10. ↑ See Lenoir, p. 61.
  11. ↑ The year of death of Petrus Lombardus is dated to a later date by some authors due to an incorrect indication of the length of his term of office as Bishop of Paris. See Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon .