Saint-Just-de-Valcabrère

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Church from the southeast
Choir

Saint-Just-de-Valcabrère is an early Romanesque basilica . It is a place of pilgrimage on the way to Santiago de Compostela , whose monuments were recognized as UNESCO World Heritage in 2000 .

Geographical location

Saint-Just-de-Valcabrère church, Comminges Cathedral in the background
Roman theater mask of a spoil on the outer wall of the south side

The church is located in the parish of Valcabrère in the Haute-Garonne department . Today it stands on the edge of a small cemetery on the plain in front of the first foothills of the Pyrenees . At a distance of less than a kilometer as the crow flies to the west, on the outermost elevation of the mountains, is the former bishop's church of Comminges . Also in the immediate vicinity are the ruins of the Roman city ​​of Lugdunum Convenarum . Many of the spoils built into the church come from there.

history

The building site was in the area of ​​a Roman cemetery . The church was built in the 11th and 12th centuries. It is said to have served as an episcopal church before Bertrand de L'Isle-Jourdain had an episcopal church built in neighboring Comminges .

description

Left: Roman, right: Romanesque capital
Inside the church, walled-up spolia from Lugdunum Convenarum

building

The church is oriented east-west. It has a dominating central nave , which is accompanied by two narrow aisles, which are vaulted with quarter tons. The apses of the side aisles are bulged in a horseshoe shape, while the main choir is semicircular. Roman spoilers are built into the building - partly in a supporting function, partly as decorative elements. Grave slabs of old Roman sarcophagi were also used, the inscriptions of which can be seen legibly on the inner walls of the church. Parts of a nearby Roman villa from the 4th century were also built here.

The church is an outstanding example of the resumption of Roman traditions in the early Romanesque after a break of half a millennium.

St. Just, from whom the church owes its name, rests in an unadorned sarcophagus under a Gothic ciborium behind the altar. On the ciborium he is shown together with his companion, St. Pastor, who was also martyred.

North portal

portal
North portal, left side: St.Just and St.Stephan
North portal, right side: St. Pastor and Empress Helena

The main entrance is the north portal, a flat doorway in which a portal arch with massive archivolts, framed by a toothed cutting bar, arches. The tympanum shows God the Father with the Bible as a book and a raised hand of blessing enthroned in a mandorla . Two of the evangelists stand on either side . Two angels hover over their heads waving censer .

On both sides of the portal there are two large standing figures in antique style. The capitals above them show the passion of the three martyrs depicted here: Justus, Pastor and Stephen . The fourth figure is the only female person and also not a martyr: She represents Empress Helena , who - according to legend - found the cross of Christ again.

Cloister

According to archaeological findings, there was a cloister south of the church . Its foundations were marked in the ground after the excavation .

literature

  • Susanne Böttcher (Ed.): Pyrenees: The high mountains, Toulouse and the foothills of the Pyrenees . Travel-House-Media, Munich 2007. ISBN 978-3-8342-8983-4
  • Helmut Domke: The south of France. In the Pyrenees. On the Camino de Santiago through Languedoc, Roussillon and Gascony . 4th edition. Prestel, Munich 2000. ISBN 3-7913-2356-3
  • Thorsten Droste and Henri Gaud: The Way of St. James in France. Romanesque art along the pilgrimage routes . Hirmer, Munich 2008. ISBN 978-3-7774-4365-2
  • Raymond Oursel: Romanesque France . 2 volumes. 2nd Edition. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1999. Without ISBN.
  • Rolf Toman (Ed.): Romanesque. Architecture painting sculpture . After work, Berlin 2002. ISBN 3-936761-00-0

Web links

Commons : Saint-Just-de-Valcabrère  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 43 ° 1 ′ 42.2 "  N , 0 ° 35 ′ 5.2"  E