Notre-Dame (Cunault)
Notre-Dame de Cunault (early 12th century) is a Romanesque priory church in the town of Cunault in the commune of Gennes-Val-de-Loire in the Maine-et-Loire department ( Pays de la Loire region ) in France . The village is on the left bank of the Loire , about ten kilometers downstream from Saumur and about 30 kilometers southeast of Angers .
The hall church is easily overlooked because of its plain appearance. But among connoisseurs of Romanesque sculpture, it is particularly famous for its 223 once polychrome capitals . Amazingly, they have been preserved in good condition, although the structure was badly damaged in the 18th century.
history
The monastery of Cunault, consecrated to the Virgin Mary , was founded in the 4th century by St. Maxentiolus (fr. Saint Maxenceul), a disciple of St. Martin who was able to gather a few followers. According to French sources, the monks who followed him owned not only his relics, but also those of St. Philibert . This lived from 617/18 to 684 as a monk and later as an abbot and founded the abbeys Jumièges and Noirmoutier , where he died. Presumably they had brought them with them from Noirmoutier Abbey on the island of the same name near the Loire estuary, which they had to leave because of the increasing number of attacks by the Vikings (or Normans ) in the 9th century . Finally, the Normans also reached the interior of the Franconian Empire via the rivers, including the Cunault monastery via the Loire , whose monks they again expelled.
In 858 they returned there again and gave the monastery the relics of St. Philibert. A few years later they fled again with the relics of Saint Philibert, but further inland to Tournus in Burgundy , where they are still kept today in the abbey church dedicated to him.
Towards the end of the 9th century, the Norman invasions came to a halt. The "Northmen" were romanised, and Normandy is dated to 911 . The calm returned to Cunault, where soon some monks lived again, with the relics of the bones of St. Maxenceul, with a flask with dust from the grotto of Bethlehem , with the supposedly dried mother's milk of the Virgin Mary and with a ring that as Wedding ring of the holy virgin.
Notre-Dame de Culnaut was soon a well-known place of pilgrimage because of the shrines mentioned above. In the 10th century the priory became dependent on the Abbey of Tournus in Burgundy. In the 11th century a new church was built, the predecessor of the present one. The only thing left of it is the belfry built in the late 11th century , which in turn stands on the remains of an even older predecessor church. It is the oldest church tower in Anjou . A good piece of the old church wall made of simple field stones in a wild association can be seen on the north side of the tower in the large blind arcade niche above the north portal.
Due to the great freedom that princes and kings granted the monastery from the 9th to the 11th centuries, the priory experienced a phase of economic prosperity. So around 1100 the construction of the new, much larger church building could begin. The length of the church, including its central courtyard chapel, which has been destroyed, should measure almost 70 meters. The construction of the first parts of the building began in the east and continued to the west throughout the 12th century. During the first construction work on the ambulatory choir , the 11th century church, which was demolished later, was still available for sacred rites , including its bell tower, which is still preserved today.
The construction work coincided with the rise in popularity of the pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela , in which the priory wanted to participate. Cunault was on one of the side routes of the Camino de Santiago , which crossed the Loire in Saumur, and not far from one of the four main routes, the Via Turonensis , which crossed the Loire in Tours. The new large pilgrimage church, with its parlor choir for pilgrim processions and five chapels for the presentation and worship of relics, should provide adequate space for large crowds of pilgrims, for worship and accommodation. The pilgrims often stayed overnight in the churches on the Way of St. James and had the inevitable injuries to their limbs professionally tended to by the monks. The completion of the building in sections also made it possible at an early stage, for example after completion of the choir, to make it accessible to pilgrims. This first section then grew towards the west in possibly three further steps, the capacity of which also increased steadily.
At the height of the pilgrimage, in the first half of the 12th century, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims went south every year. With the bickering between England and France over Aquitaine , which began after the mid-12th century, the number of pilgrims declined. The wars of the 13th and 16th centuries led to a dramatic slump for those Christians who lived north of the Pyrenees, to the point of complete standstill.
At the beginning of the 13th century the church was completed with the construction of the first three bays with ribbed vaults in Gothic Plantagenet style and the facade, later only details were changed. The completed building did not live to see the heyday of the Camino de Santiago.
The monastery buildings from back then no longer exist today. However, as is customary with almost all monastery complexes of the Middle Ages , they directly adjoined the south walls of the church, their rooms there grouped around a mostly square cloister , the center of every monastery. These included, for example, the sacristy , the chapter house , the refectory , a fraterie , pantries and storage rooms, a warm-up room, various convent rooms , and mostly the dormitory on the upper floor .
After the turmoil of the Hundred Years War (1339–1453) and the Wars of Religion (1562–1598), the monastic life of the few remaining monks had reached its lowest point. In 1741 the priory was dissolved by the Bishop of Angers and his goods transferred to the Séminaire Saint-Charles in Angers. The choir was bought by a private person in 1749 and used as a barn. The nave of the former priory church became the parish church of the village in 1754 after the former parish church of Saint Maxentiolus was destroyed by a storm that year. The ruins are in the local cemetery.
During the French Revolution (1789) the buildings were sold as state property for demolition.
The restoration work began around 1838 under the architect Joly-Leterme from Saumur , which was supported by the writer Prosper Mérimée and should last a total of 30 years. Unfortunately, the roofs were simplified for financial reasons, not to the advantage of the external shape.
Church structure
The Romanesque religious building by Cunault is a three-aisled hall with a pseudo transept. The elongated and semicircular closed ambulatory choir typical of pilgrimage churches has two apsidal chapels; there is no longer a third in the central axis.
Dimensions
All dimensions are approximate, taken from a floor plan with a scale and extrapolated. Dimensions do not include wall templates or similar protrusions.
Inner dimensions:
- Length of the ship of yokes 1 to 5: 28.00 m
- Length of the ship in the area of the pseudo transverse house, yokes 6 and 7: 9.70 m
- Length of the choir, including the apse: 18.50 m
- Width of the nave of yokes 1 to 4: 19.40 m
- Width of the nave in yoke 5: 19.90 m
- Central nave width: 8.20 m
- Width of the nave in the area of the pseudo transverse house, yokes 6 and 7: 24.40 m
- Width of the choir including whorls: 16.80 m
- Choir width: 6.50 m
External dimensions:
- Total length with the former central apse: almost 70.00 m
- Total length today, without this apse: 66.00 m
- Width of nave, yokes 1 - 4: 22.40 m
- Width of the nave in yoke 5: 22.90 m
- Width of the nave in the area of the pseudo transverse house, yokes 6 and 7: 22.40 m
- Width of the choir with walkways: 18.50 m
Interior
The size of the church is impressive. An astonishing perspective effect makes the room seem even deeper, which the builders achieved by narrowing the nave width and reducing the yoke widths in the choir.
All vault fields are supported in the transverse direction to the ship by strong, slightly pointed belt arches that subdivide the yokes. The sharpening of the barrel vault reveals Cluny's influence. In the Romanesque part, from the fourth yoke, they are rectangular in cross-section, in the Gothic part, in yokes 1 to 3, they are significantly slimmer and slightly tapered towards the inside and their edges are dissolved into round bars. All belt arches of the central nave, the choir, the side aisles and passageways stand on uniformly high capitals . The dividing arches between the naves, which also bear the loads of the arches , stand on capitals that are arranged almost a meter below. There is no such gradation in the Gothic part. Their edges are simply stepped in the Romanesque part, in the Gothic part they resemble the belt arches. The partition arches in the narrow choir bays and those of the choir apse are considerably stilted. In the 5th yoke, the one with the tower, the belt arches are a good twice as wide as in the other yokes.
Almost all the pillars of the church are bundle pillars made of a square core, equipped on each side with three-quarter round "old" (strong) services , which allow the edges of the cores to protrude. These edges merge above the capitals into the vault border , in the case of the pure barrel vaults into the protrusions accompanying the girders. In the special case of the 5th yoke, the very wide belt arches stand on "old" service pairs. In the Gothic part, the edges of the cores are covered by "young" (slender) semicircular services, which, like the older services, have capitals and then merge into the vaulted ribs. Along the walls of the aisles and the ambulatory, the yokes are subdivided by pillars on which three-quarters of a round "old" services are displayed, in the same dimension as one side of the bundle pillars they face. In the Gothic part, this applies accordingly, but with young accompanying columns. Most of the bundle pillars and their counterparts on the outer walls stand with narrow base profiles on rectangular, mostly cross-shaped bases , which are often profiled in cross-section.
In almost every yoke, relatively generously dimensioned windows are left out for the Romanesque period , in the Romanesque part with round arches, in the Gothic part with pointed round arches, with inwardly widened walls . Their edges are mostly broken due to setbacks. In the ambulatory and in the chapels, the wedges of the window arches stand on slender circular columns with capitals, spars and bases , set in wall recesses. The missing window in the northern 4th yoke was bricked up later.
The church used to be completely painted, but only remnants of these paintings from the 12th to the 18th century have survived. The black band around the bundle pillars of the church aisles and the choir is a "mourning band" (French: liter funéraire ). The walls and bundle pillars are today, with a few exceptions, stone-visible, made of light-colored stone , in larger formats. The stones of the vaults and arches are much smaller and slightly darker.
The height of the floor of the nave of the church is ten steps below the level in front of the main portal. A staircase the width of the nave leads down directly behind the facade. In the first yoke of the choir, a six-step staircase leads across the entire width of the choir, including the walkways, up to the choir and its walkways.
Longhouse
At first glance, the floor plan of the nave looks like a transept . However, it is only a matter of widening the nave in yokes 6 and 7. It could also be called a “pseudo-transverse house”. The first three yokes 1 to 3 are identical to each other. They were last built in the Gothic Plantagenet style, and covered by eight-capped, highly elevated Angevin ribbed vaults. The aisle bays have a square plan, those of the central nave are rectangular. The fourth yoke of the nave has almost the same floor plan, but with purely Romanesque vaults, a pointed barrel vault in the central nave, and a groin vault in each of the side aisles.
The 5th yoke of the nave is relatively unusual because it integrates the bell tower of the previous church in the north aisle. It has a significantly larger yoke width, which resulted from the existing tower floor plan. For the same reason, the nave in this yoke is also 50 cm wider. The central nave is again covered by a barrel and the south aisle by a groined vault. In the north aisle are the much larger supporting structures of the square tower of the previous church from the 11th century, as well as remains of its predecessor from the 10th century or earlier. The cover consists of a trumpet vault with a circular opening in the top of the vault for transporting the bells. The whole thing is reminiscent of a crossing , possibly it was also the crossing of the previous church, the nave of which was connected to the west, in the area of today's northern aisle.
In the area of yokes 6 and 7, the entire nave becomes wider and simulates a transept. The yoke widths correspond to those of yokes 1 to 4. The central nave is narrowed by almost two meters and accompanied by two aisles on each side. The inner aisles are about as wide in the transverse direction of the ship as the side aisles of yokes 1 to 4. The outer aisles on the north side are somewhat narrower, on the south side only half as wide. There are only half groin vaults there, with their apex above the inner wall surface. The capital under the crown of the belt arch is at the same level as that of the neighboring bundle pillar. Above this, a bundle of four slender columns extends to below the apex of the arch. The central nave segments are again covered with barrels, those of the rest with groined vaults. The eastern sides of the protruding nave sections in the 7th yoke are equipped with semicircular apses and vaults .
Parlor choir and chapels
The first choir bay is about as wide as the previous two bays of the nave and also vaulted. It is followed by the choir bays 2 to 4, almost half the width of the previous ones. The arches correspond to those of the previous yokes.
The fourth choir bay is followed by the semicircular choir apse, vaulted by a dome, and the equally semicircular ambulatory, in the width of the remaining ambulatory sections. The curved passage has five yoke divisions, the polygonal ground plans of which are covered by corresponding groin vaults. On the north and south sides of the gallery, semicircular chapels adjoin with a domed vault. The destroyed apex chapel probably had the same shape as its neighbors, but was replaced by a smooth closed wall after it was destroyed. There was once a younger extension beyond the wall.
The choir is separated from the access by a parapet wall, which at the same time marks the separation of the lay people from the choir monks.
The semicircular walls of the chapels are divided into three blind arcades, the arches of which support the dome. You stand on four semicircular services, which are equipped with capitals, fighters and bases. One-tier archivolts are placed in the arcade niches, which frame the window frames. Its slender columns stand in recesses in the wall at the height of the side walls and are equipped with spars, capitals and bases.
Dome courtyard chapel
Fresco remnants of the gallery chapel
Fresco Saint Germain
Fresco martyr
Capital cycle
The high altitude of the capitals reveals the often very detailed representations only with strong optical enlargements. However, this was not possible for the medieval visitor to the church. Most of the capitals have largely lost their polychrome setting. But there are also two capitals in the middle of the continuous service, the details of which can be studied with the naked eye. The color scheme is still preserved or restored. One depicts nine standing monks, the other scenes from the life of St. Philibert. The inscription in Latin capital letters is: S PHILIBERTVS : It testifies that the bones of the saint actually been in the Priory.
In its immense capital program, Notre Dame de Cunault likes to show archaic , almost pagan -looking motifs, especially fighting scenes. These figurative scenes are often accompanied by plant forms and both together cover the entire capital zone of the pillar with its services as an endless band. In the chilling theme of the capitals, a whole pandemonium of visions of fear is spread out. The most typical motif is the famous so-called "grand goule", the loudmouth that seems to devour the whole column. This motif is said to be of Celtic origin and depict either the earth or the devil.
Beasts, grimaces and grimaces and a constant devouring one another are the themes of these capitals. The Romanesque churches as such, as solid stone buildings, symbolized the constant and eternal in the world of that time - beyond the constant change of the threatening environment. But the deep fear, especially the constantly probing sense of guilt of sinful people, gave rise to such strange, miserable chimeras on the capitals .
Psychomachy
The Romanesque architectural sculpture took a multitude of themes from a font that was published as early as 405, the so-called Psychomachia of Prudentius . The word psychomachy is best translated as "battle for the soul".
The text consists of 915 hexameters . In them the Christian virtues and the pagan vices are juxtaposed in allegorical images. It is about domination in the human soul. In different versions, representatives of the opposing sides are shown as fighting. Faith as the chief virtue and idolatry as the alleged source of all vices are the first to compete. Here the author Prudentius sees the fundamental decision in the struggle of the human soul.
The following arguments are led by chastity and fornication, patience and anger, humility and pride, temperance and lushness, avarice and mercy, discord and unity. In the end, unity wins and psychomachy has a peaceful end.
"Grand goule" (loud mouth) eats pillar
right fight scene
human-like head eats lizard tails
Middle fight scene
deep capital, 9 standing monks
organ
The organ was built after 1968 by the organ builder Boisseau with 36 registers (3,074 pipes ) on four manuals and pedal . The organ case is located between two columns in the right aisle.
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Outer shape
Longhouse
The seven-bay nave with its naves of almost the same height is covered under a common gable roof inclined at 40 degrees. Only the bell tower protrudes on its northern edge from the fifth yoke high above the roof surfaces. The high outer walls are divided vertically by mighty buttresses according to the inner yoke division, which vertically divert the shear forces of the belt arches. In the area of yokes 6 and 7, they have a uniform cross-section and a roof-like bevel until just below the eaves . In the area of yokes 1 to 4, they are stepped upwards several times and end with a steeper slope just below the eaves. The eaves overhang of the roofs protrude just above the buttresses . They are equipped with "modern" gutters. Under the eaves a stone eaves extending cornice with supports of Konsolsteinen. The arched windows in yokes 6 and 7 are somewhat wider and significantly higher than those in the first three yokes, with pointed arches. The wedge stones of the window arches are covered in front of ornamented profile strips, which are pivoted horizontally outwards a short distance at the height of the arches.
On the north side of the nave and the ambulatory choir, the outer walls were uncovered from fillings at a depth of 1.00 to 1.50 meters as part of restoration work, up to about the level of the inner floor. The discoloration and damage clearly show that the persistent moisture, presumably through rainwater that used to drip off the eaves, could do its destructive work. The moisture must also have penetrated inside.
The small semicircular apses on the overhangs of the wider section of the nave opposite the passageways are not crowned with half conical roofs , as is usually the case , but their curved walls reach up below the roof surfaces of the nave, a strange-looking construction. On closer inspection, however, one discovers a former eaves ledge around the semicircle, on carved corbels. So there was once the conical roof. The walls were built later. The northern apse has two round arched, slender window openings, the edges of the reveal are broken with setbacks. The outer wedge arches are covered by a narrow, ornamented cantilever profile. A buttress is arranged between the two windows to absorb the shear forces of the dome. The southern chapel has only a single window in the form of a circular " ox eye "
Bell tower
The bell tower is the oldest part of Notre-Dame de Cunault. It comes from the previous church of the priory from the 11th century and possibly crowned the former crossing of this church building. The two windows on the west and east walls of the tower, which plunge into the roof surfaces of the nave, show that the parts of the building adjoining these sides, the choir and the nave, were lower. The tower presents itself in full height only on its north side. It is bounded on the sides by extremely massive buttresses, which are stepped back three times towards the top, the steps of which are covered with steep sloping roofs. Such buttresses are also found on the other sides of the tower, the lower parts of which disappear into the building.
The north facade of the tower is divided roughly in half in height, into a lower, almost closed part, and an upper three-storey area completely windowed through, the bell room. The lower half is almost entirely taken up by a monumental blind arcade, made of a double wedge arch, the inner half is stepped back a little. The outer one is flush with the wall surface above and is led down to the side immediately next to the supporting pillars as a square wall pillar to the floor, the corners of which are broken up into round bars. The inner arch stands on "old" semicircular services that are blinded against the side wall pillars. They are equipped with carved capitals and fighters, possibly existing base profiles have been destroyed by moisture. The left of the two capitals shows the “Annunciation” (Mary on an X-shaped seat, in front of the angel). On the right, two men are depicted, one of them in a ship, reaching for a fish that holds out a siren, symbolizing worldly temptations. Just behind the services and their arches is a wall whose masonry suggests that it is older. It was built mainly from uncut, small field stones, predominantly darker in color and in a "wild bond", but also from house stones in irregular layers . The two smaller round-arched windows above the half arcade niche are framed with larger, light-colored stone. The round-arched north portal is recessed in the center above the floor and is framed by light-colored ashlar reveals, the edges of which are broken by setbacks. The edges of the outer wedge stones are broken up on both sides with round rods. This wall presumably comes from an even earlier building that was integrated into the construction of the tower towards the end of the 11th century.
The upper tower area with windows begins a good meter above the apex of the arcade and jumps back from floor to floor. The first row of five arched hatches has the smallest openings, hardly half the size of the one on the floor above. Her only decoration is the lateral and upper setback of the reveal edges. Only a frontal view shows that the openings are walled up roughly in the plane of the lower niche wall for two thirds of their height, and are therefore not sound hatches, but blind arcades. This “first floor”, like the other two, ends with a chessboard-like cantilevered cornice supported by console stones carved with grimace masks.
The second floor also only has three open sound hatches on the north side, the reveal edges of which are three-fold. The actual arched hatch is surrounded by smooth stones. In front of it is an archivolt whose arch is geometrically structured on the front. It stands on slender columns set back from the wall, which are equipped with carved capitals and thick fighters and bases. Arcades are arranged even further in front, the arches of which are geometrically sculpted at the front. They stand on angular pilasters , armed with fighters. There are geometric ornaments and structures in the wall panel above that is flush with the surface . On this floor there is only one window each on the east and west sides of the tower, but a large part of it disappears under the adjoining roof covering on both sides. The offset back to the top floor takes place via a steep bevel, on which the well-known cantilevered cornice with carved console stones follows, but here on all four sides of the tower and around its corners.
The third and last upper floor shows four open sound hatches on all four sides, which are slightly smaller than those of the floor below, but otherwise have the same shape and decoration. This also applies to the wall strip above the arcades, over which the well-known cantilevered cornice follows on all sides on carved corbels and closes the floor.
On top there is an octagonal stone spire, the tapering of which suggests Gothic origins. Between the square outline of the tower and its octagonal helmet, four small triangular horizontal surfaces have been created, which are taken up by diagonally standing cubic plinths on which two cylindrical and two square turrets stand, their helmets tapering upwards in a conical and pyramid shape. The turrets each have four tiny arched window openings.
Right next to the north facade of the tower there is a spiral staircase in the wall of the nave , which leads from the level of the church floor to the bell house of the tower. From the outside you can see some small openings ( loopholes ) and bulges in the wall. A weir bay window is attached higher up , which indicates a military function.
Choir, galleries and its chapels
The ambulatory choir, which is around four meters narrower than the front nave, is covered by a slightly lower pitched roof at the same incline. As with the nave, the side walls of the ambulatory are divided vertically by buttresses, corresponding to the divisions of the four inner choir bays. The distances between the buttresses and their widths are much smaller. Some of them have been subsequently reinforced by gradual thickening. The heights of the arched windows are slightly lower than in the nave. On the north side of the choir, as in the nave, the lower areas of the outer walls were freed from fillings and should have led to the walls being drained.
The remaining semicircular chapels, one on the north and one on the south side of the corridor, are stately decorated. Its rounded outer walls are stiffened with two rectangular wall pillars each, which are reinforced by semicircular pillars. In the spaces in between, three smaller, arched windows are left open for each apse. A slightly receding inner wedge arch, which stands on slender round columns with simple capitals and bases, is followed by a second wedge arch, flush with the wall, overlaid by a narrow, ornamented band. Between the crests of these bands and the projecting Traufgesims whose visible edges are structured ornamental and supported by carved corbels, one is Dwarf gallery passed around the whole apse, interrupted only by the high pillars. The arches of the tiny blind arcades have an ornamental structure on the front. All columns are equipped with small carved capitals, fighters and profiled bases.
The rounding of the apse is not covered by half conical roofs, as is usually the case, but rather by strange pagoda-like angular towers in extension of the main roof. The spaces between the upper edge of the former eaves cornice and this towing were closed with low masonry.
facade
The facade, the western end of the nave, is a large rectangle and looks austere and monumental. It is flanked by two wide pillars that extend slightly beyond the width of the nave. On the slightly recessed upper area of the gable triangle you can see that the facade has been shown separately from the actual gable. In the floor plan you can see that this separation takes place with a little spatial distance from each other. It is crowned by a battery of battlements with roof-like covers behind which the defenders could protect themselves. One can guess that there is a walkway between the gable triangle and the battlements. In the floor plan, a spiral staircase is hidden behind the southern wall pillar, which you can use to climb the battlements.
The facade is roughly half horizontally divided into two floors. These are separated by a simple cantilevered cornice, which merges into the benches of the windows, this is supported by smooth cubic corbels. Shortly below the battlements, the facade is finished off with a similar cantilever cornice on corbels, which is widened on the top with a band of double rectangular profiles with a groove in between.
The ground floor contains the main portal opening in the middle with a double-leaf door. Between the door and the side wall pillars of a facade by 70 cm high pedestal extends from gray building stones, in a width corresponding to the dimensions of the standing column on it plinths corresponds.
The main portal is a five-tier archivolt portal, made up of five semicircular archivolt arches, which stand on each side with five semicircular columns on the base, which are equipped with simple angular capitals, right-angled transom plates and angular plinths that are slightly bevelled on the top. The edges of the wall recesses in which they are placed protrude between the pillars. The inner edges of the arches, which are almost square in cross-section, are broken with round profiles. The outer arch is covered by a narrow round bar. To the side of the portal opening, short pieces of wall emerge from behind the inner columns, which are closed on the top with three-tiered stone slabs at the level of the capitals and spars. They carry the lintel of the tympanum , the middle section of which has sunk alarmingly.
On the front view of the tympanum, Mary is enthroned majestically with the baby Jesus on her lap, both of which are considerably damaged. She wears a crown-like headgear, behind her head is a nimbus in the form of a circular ring . She is painted with colored flowers, behind her back the arm of the throne rises high. The lower part of the throne resembles a two-story building with arched windows. Maria is dressed in an airy, foot-length garment, over which she wears a cloak on her shoulders. The baby Jesus wears a similar robe, his right arm rests on his thigh. The one on the left is angled and lacks the hand that presumably held a gold globe with a cross. Maria is missing both hands. The right arm points far down, the left one is bent. On both sides of this group there are reliefs of angels in side view, standing on narrow bands of cloud. In honor of the Queen of Heaven (see crown) they swing their censer . Among them there were probably other angels who have also disappeared. Instead, you can see coats of arms painted on smooth stone.
The entire appearance of the archivolt main portal hardly corresponds to the Gothic style in which it was created. One would rather assign it to the Romanesque.
Gothic style elements can be seen on both sides of the main portal. On each side of the main portal there are two blind arcades with Gothic pointed arches . The cross-sections of the arches are the same as those of the outer arch of the main portal. They stand on pillars that correspond to those of the main portal. Between the blind arcades, from the fighters to the cornice that separates the floors, narrow round profiles divide the ground floor vertically.
The upper floor has three Gothic window openings, the window sills of which merge into the cornice dividing the floors. In the middle there is a larger ogival window with Gothic tracery structure . The edges of the reveals are set back with round bars. The Keilstein arch is covered by a narrow, ornamented profile, which swings a short distance horizontally at the arches. On both sides of it, but further to the outside, two ogival, clearly smaller windows are left open. They are similarly equipped as the middle window, but without tracery.
The entire facade, which was built in the 13th century, gives the impression that the financial means were lacking in its construction, as was the case, for example, with the construction of the capitals of the nave. This is probably due to the fact that the plentiful donations from the St. James pilgrims had long since dried up at this point.
Works of art, furniture
Reliquary of Saint Maxentiolus
The reliquary from the 13th century is carved from a single piece of walnut and has the shape of a church building, with vertical walls made up of six arcades each and a gable roof. The roof areas show the glorified Christ in the mandorla , each flanked by six angels, with censer and various objects in their hands. The twelve apostles with their insignia stand in the arcades . The two sides of the head show scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary . The sculptures are mostly colored. Originally the shrine was covered with a fine layer of silver, which, with black brushstrokes, made the shrine look like forged.
There is nothing of Saint Maxentiolus to be found in the sculptures. One could therefore assume that relics of the Virgin Mary were kept in the shrine, such as her wedding ring and a vial and pieces of wall from the Milk Cave in Palestine .
Pietà
The colored stone statue of the suffering Virgin Mary ( Pietà ) was created in the 15th century. She carries the body of Christ that has just been taken from the cross on her knees, with the little angel figures helping her. Despite her pain, Mary's face remains full of gentleness and reserve.
Statue of Saint Catherine
The 15th century statue used to stand in the Sainte Catherine chapel, located in the forest south of the priory church. Saint Catherine died a martyr's death in Alexandria in the 4th century . She is shown with her instruments of torture , a wheel and a sword (she was whacked and beheaded). She is dressed like a 15th century Breton noblewoman, with an ermine hem on her coat. Her head wears a crown (she was the daughter of King Costus in Alexandria). In days gone by, young women would come to this statue before their wedding and stick a needle in the head to make their wishes come true.
Chapier
The chapier from the 15th century is a wooden piece of everyday furniture in the church. It is a low, square table on four short legs with flat storage space under the top. The church vestments were kept protected in it.
Web links
literature
- Aurelius Prudentius Clemens (348 - after 405): Psychomachia (The Struggle for the Soul), published 405.
- Cunault. Texts from l'atelier du Cœur-Meurtry. 3e édition 1987 (Official Church Leader)
- Wilfried Hansmann : The Loire Valley. Castles, churches and cities in the «Garden of France» . 2nd Edition. DuMont, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-7701-3555-5 , pp. 209-211 ( online ).
- Raymond Oursel , Henri Stierlin (Ed.): Romanesque . ( Architektur der Welt , Vol. 15), p. 183.
- Ingeborg Tetzlaff : Romanesque capitals in France . Cologne [1976] 3rd edition 1979. Fig. 60,63.
- Rolf Toman (ed.): The art of the Romanesque. Architecture - sculpture - painting . Cologne 1996, p. 153.
- Kindler's Literature Lexicon , dtv, Munich, 1974.
Footnotes
- ↑ Raymond Oursel, Henri Stierlin (ed.): Romanik . ( Architektur der Welt , Vol. 15), p. 183.
- ↑ More details in Kindlers Literaturlexikon , dtv, Munich, 1974, p. 7891.
- ↑ More information about the organ ( Memento of November 27, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
Coordinates: 47 ° 19 ′ 47.2 " N , 0 ° 12 ′ 2.1" W.