St-Philibert (Tournus)

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Saint-Philibert in Tournus

The Saint-Philibert Abbey in Tournus is one of the most important early Romanesque sacred buildings in France and all of Central Europe. It was consecrated in 1019. The patron saint of the church is Saint Philibert , whose relics were brought here to safety from Noirmoutier Abbey , where he died, during the time of the Norman raids . Before that, they made a stopover in Notre Dame de Cunault on the Loire , where scenes from the life of St. Philibert are depicted on a bundle column of the central nave on a capital halfway up.

Today's city of Tournus - like many other cities - emerged from a settlement that had formed around a monastery, here the Benedictine Abbey of Tournus . The small town still has a medieval atmosphere today. The church, which is located in the immediate vicinity of the Saône , is of great art historical importance and in several respects the pioneer of decisive architectural developments. The basilica consists of three naves of five bays each , has a transept, an ambulatory choir with a chapel wreath and in the west building also a three-aisled vestibule and an upper church above.

facade

Pilaster strips and arched friezes on the facade of Saint-Philibert in Tournus

As with many other churches from before 1100, the facade has a defensive character. It was originally a defense structure, hence the loopholes and the lack of decoration. The only decorations, arched friezes and pilaster strips , clearly follow Lombard models - stonemasons from the region around Milan were famous throughout Europe at the turn of the millennium. The west facade is 28 m high. The portal and crenellated balcony were added later during the restoration in the 19th century.

The facade of Saint-Philibert dates from the early 11th century and is considered to be the earliest surviving example of a double tower facade . Before the elevation of the north tower in the 12th century, the facade hardly differed from a Carolingian westwork , as both towers only protruded half a storey over the central part of the facade. Up to the arched frieze above half the original height of the tower, the structure of the facade with pilaster strips does not anticipate the tower edges. Of the west towers of the nearby Cluny Abbey , only the basement floors that have been converted into houses remain, so it cannot be determined since when they had towered over the central part of the facade there as high as shown in the 18th century. The first two-tower facade in Germany was on the old Strasbourg Cathedral (1015). Possible models of this design can be found on buildings from the 5th and 6th centuries in Syria .

Front church (narthex)

Michael's Chapel
Vault of the narthex

In the interior of St. Philibert you can also find architectural archetypes and special features. After the previous building was destroyed during the Hungarian invasions (899–955), a new, very large, flat-roofed church was built around the year 950. Its walls still stand in the back of the church today. A narthex was built in front of this old church around 1020 , which - narrower than the main nave - was roughly the width of the choir . This front church is a three-aisled, two-storey complex, which is connected to the main church by arches. Here the memory of the older westworks becomes clear, which also had such openings to the main room.

Gerlannus

The front church is vaulted in the central nave, the side aisles are open to the middle with transverse barrels. Above the antechamber is the chapel dedicated to Archangel Michael , 12 m high in its central nave and open to the main church; its round pillars bear rectangular wall templates that reach up to the barrel vault of the central nave, which is supported by the quarter-circle vaults on the aisle. At the arcade to the main church there is a relief figure of a bearded man with a hammer, next to it an inscription plate with the name "Gerlannus", who is interpreted as the abbot or builder of the church. The former text of the inscription Gerlannus Abate Isto Moneteium e ile is apparently corrupt. Together with another relief plate of the arch with a rough face, the figure is one of the oldest surviving works of Romanesque architectural sculpture.

Since a vault had succeeded in Cluny Abbey for the first time since ancient times, an attempt was made here as well. This earliest large barrel vault has been preserved on the upper floor . The upper floor is also worth seeing for another reason: there are four hand-operated bellows , which in earlier times provided the air for playing the organ.

Longhouse

Nave of Saint-Philibert

The longhouse is also unusual. It was started shortly after the pre-church at the beginning of the 11th century and consecrated in 1019. The transverse barrel vault deserves special attention . It is supported by tall, solidly walled round pillars. White and red ashlar stones were used alternately for the masonry of the belt arches .

When the arching of the porch was successful, the even wider main nave was arched - courageously - around 1050. The experience gained from the construction of the nearby St-Martin priory church in Chapaize was used . Nevertheless, the attempt failed, because soon the vault threatened to collapse. That is why it was torn down again in 1070 and the unique transverse barrels were built as an emergency solution. There are five small barrel vaults perpendicular to the center ship axis on buttress arches .

While the side aisles of the church are covered with groin vaults , each yoke in the central nave has its own barrel vault - erected transversely to the longitudinal direction. This made it possible to let large windows into the outer wall. Usually in the early Romanesque a nave had a barrel vault that rested on the outer walls; this did not allow large windows, since the statics of the outer walls and the vault could not be endangered due to the shear forces that occurred .

In Tournus, shortly after the turn of the millennium, i.e. at the beginning of the development of medieval vaulting technology, something completely different was attempted with the transverse barrels: This early, especially rare measure, even if it was an emergency solution after a collapse, the church interior in Tournus appears like a high hall. Candle arches over consoles span the central nave. A look into the various parts of the vault demonstrates the extent to which very different construction methods were used here in the 11th century.

Although the transverse barrels make the church very bright, this idea has not been copied in other large churches. In Vézelay something similar was achieved later with groined vaults. The Gothic still later invented the ribbed vault for this purpose .

Choir

Side altar of the "brown Madonna"

In the development of the choir construction Saint-Philibert is at the very beginning: This is where the oldest preserved is ambulatory with three flat closed radial chapels, so with chapels that are grown as individual components radiate to the ambulatory. From these early forms, the chapel wreath and the numerous variants that have made the choir a dominant element of the church complex - such as in the third church of Cluny Abbey - developed later .

The layout of these radial chapels had a liturgical purpose. In the monastery churches, every monk who was also a priest had the obligation to read mass every day . At the same time, the medieval veneration of saints experienced a huge boom. Additional altars were required in the church.

Initially, apses were added to the transepts . An altar could be accommodated in each of these side apses. In Germany, the double choir was invented, with one church in the east and one in the west having a choir (with an altar) (for example the cathedral in Worms ). As a result, however, the traditional east-facing character of the room, which had designed the church interior to be the main altar in front of the rising sun, was lost. In France, on the other hand, a different solution was found in Tournus with the new chapels behind the ambulatory, which combined the two requirements: the church was still facing east, while the number of altars in the east choir was significantly increased.

Since the chapels had windows, the foundation stone for a visible change was laid at the end of the 11th century: At the beginning there are the dark Romanesque choirs, at the end the "light shrine", which Abbot Suger had with the cathedral of Saint-Denis since 1140 erected as the first Gothic building.

The modern reliquary of St. Philibert in the choir belongs to the otherwise rather sparse furnishings. The medieval floor mosaics in the ambulatory, discovered in the 20th century, are a rarity; they show monthly work and signs of the zodiac . In the south aisle there is the cedar Madonna Notre Dame la Brune ("brown Madonna") from the early 12th century in an ogival Gothic wall niche in front of wall paintings from the 14th century; it was an important pilgrimage destination in the Middle Ages.

crypt

crypt

The crypt of St-Philibert is the oldest surviving part of the church and one of the oldest ambulatory choirs with chapels of European architecture. The oldest known crypts (for example in Auxerre ) date from around 850. They had right-angled passageways. The Tournus crypt originally dates back to 875. About a hundred years later, the monks adapted the handling of the round choir shape above and added the rectangular chapels. The main room, divided by two rows of slender columns, is still rectangular today. The central area is divided by ten slender columns with antique capitals. There is an old well on the west wall of the crypt, which ensured the water supply in the event of a defense. A fresco from the 12th century is particularly well preserved, it depicts Mary with the child and the enthroned Christ.

organ

View through the nave to the organ

The organ of the abbey church has had an eventful history. It goes back to an instrument that was built in the 17th century by the organ builder Jehan d'Herville (Troyes, Champagne); the case is by the artist Gaspard Symon (Tournus). Over the years the organ has been restored and revised again and again. From 1929 to 1932 it was extensively restored by the organ builder Edouard Ruche (Lyon) and fundamentally changed: the previous mechanical action was replaced by pneumatic one, and the organ was equipped with an electric bellows system. There were also lasting changes in the disposition . In 1978 the instrument was dismantled with a view to a comprehensive restoration and return to its original condition. The organ has been in operation again since 1990. The instrument has 32 stops on four manual works and a pedal . Four registers of the pedal are derived from the Grand Orgue. The organ has an electrical wind system and a mechanical bellows system, which is housed in the Saint-Michel chapel. The actions are mechanical.

I Positif de dos C – f 3
1. Bourdon 8th'
2. Montre 4 ′
3. Nazard 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
4th Duplicate 2 ′
5. Tierce 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′
6th Larigot 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
7th Cymbals IV – V
8th. Cromorne 8th'
II Grand Orgue C – f 3
9. Montre 8th'
10. Bourdon 8th'
11. Prestant 4 ′
12. Flute 4 ′
13. Nazard 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
14th Duplicate 2 ′
15th Tierce 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′
16. Fittings III
17th Cornet V (from c 1 )
18th Cymbals III
19th Trumpets 8th'
20th Voix Humaine 8th'
21st Clairon 4 ′
III Récit g 0 –f 3
22nd Flute 8th'
23. Flute 4 ′
24. Cornet III


IV echo c 1 -g 3
25th Cornet V
26th Trumpets 8th'
Pedale C – f 1
27. Soubasse 16 ′
28. Flute (= No. 9) 8th'
29 Flûte (= No. 11) 4 ′
30th Bombard 16 ′
31. Trumpet (= No. 19) 8th'
32. Clairon (= No. 21) 4 ′
  • Link : I / II, III / II, IV / III, II / P

Web links

Commons : Saint-Philibert  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Raymond Oursel, Henri Stierlin (ed.): Romanik. (= Architektur der Welt, Vol. 15), p. 17
  2. ↑ According to Wilckens, the first two-tower façade was found in France near Saint-Germain in Auxerre, consecrated in 865 (Leonie von Wilckens: Grundriß der Abendländischen Kunstgeschichte. Stuttgart 1981)
  3. ↑ Nikolaus Pevsner: European architecture from the beginning to the present. Munich 1973, p. 81
  4. ↑ a b cf. Bernhard and Ulrike Laule: Romanesque architecture in France. In: Rolf Toman (Ed.): The Art of Romanesque . Cologne 1996, p. 124.
  5. ↑ Jacques Mossot: Image No. 74959. Mosaic behind the high altar. In: structurae.de. July 24, 2014, accessed February 11, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Tournus, église abbatiale novels St-Philibert: architecture, orgues. In: orgues-et-vitraux.ch. Retrieved February 11, 2020 (French).

Coordinates: 46 ° 33 ′ 49.8 "  N , 4 ° 54 ′ 38.2"  E