St-Pierre (Carennac)
The Saint-Pierre priory church in Carennac , a French parish in the Lot department of the Occitanie region , was built in the 11th / 12th centuries. Erected in the 15th century by the Benedictines . The church is a protected architectural monument ( Monument historique ).
history
See the locality of Carennac .
description
The construction of the Saint-Pierre church began towards the end of the 11th century as a priory of the Benedictine abbey Saint-Pierre of Moissac . The open narthex (vestibule) was built in the 12th century . The Hundred Years War brought destruction and pillage. Their traces on the church and the abbey buildings were largely removed in the second half of the 15th century in the course of extensive renovation work.
The Romanesque church is a hall church typical of the neighboring Limousin . The central nave is significantly higher than the side aisles , but there is no upper aisle . That makes the dome area of the ship very dark. One misses a pronounced transept . A square Romanesque bell tower sits above the crossing , with sound hatches made up of two arched windows on each side. The spire is very slim and tapered to a point and is more of the Gothic style.
The choir is square and just closed. It has a relatively large arched window that should illuminate almost the entire church. On both sides of the choir, chapels with semicircular apses are arranged in the width of the side aisles , which open towards the choir.
The ships have barrel vaults and belt arches that separate the yokes from each other. The main arches stand on semicircular services , from which they are set off by figuratively carved capitals with profiled fighters . In the side aisles, the belt arches stand on the outside on short pilaster strips with profiled transoms. In the central nave, the belt arches between yokes three and four stand on rectangular wall pillars , their arch approaches are marked by transom profiles. The massive partition walls separating the ships are supported by arcades, the edges of which are simply stepped on both sides. These dividing arches are each on a group of three semicircular ministries of different strengths. Arches and services are separated by figurative capitals with fighters. The services cover the rectangular pillar cores on all sides. Between the third and fourth yoke there are massive but short pillars instead of the bundle of service pillars , which are closed at the top by a transom profile that extends around the pillars. The triumphal arch to the choir stands on semicircular services that are three meters above the ground on consoles.
The crossing has a pendentive dome in the shape of a hemisphere, which merges into four pendentives. The choir is covered by a ribbed vault from a later period. The two chapels are vaulted with barrels, their apses have semi-domes .
The Romanesque capitals represent mythical creatures whose symbolic meaning can no longer be fathomed.
Right aisle
Crossing dome and choir
Right transept chapel
Capital, fire-breathing mythical creature
On the north side, the church was extended by five rectangular chapels with ribbed vaults in the Gothic period . The chapels are connected to the left aisle through generous openings spanned by pointed arches that take up almost the entire width of the chapel.
An open narthex is arranged in front of the small entrance portal. This is roughly the same size in plan as the yokes of the central nave. The portal of the narthex is provided with a tympanum .
Tympanum of the narthex portal
The narthex portal is located approx. 6.5 m in front of the church portal. It consists of two non-closable passages and three groups of columns on which the tympanum rests. In the middle under the tympanum there are four slender columns and two columns on each of the two reveals. The bases stand on common plinths , two round pillars each have a common transom with profiled edges.
The span of the tympanum between the innermost reveals is approx. 5 m, the pitch height approx . 1.70 m. The visible area is therefore not a semicircle, but a segment of a circle. In the arch, a frieze hardly a hand's breadth with plant ornaments is sculpted. On the lintel you can see a ribbon ornament in which nine animals such as pigs, ducks, birds, dogs, fish and others are hidden.
The tympanum shows a majestas domini that is common in Romanesque church buildings . The mandorla with Christ as Pantocrator takes up almost the entire space of the tympanum from the lower frieze to the top of the tympanum. It is bordered by a perforated ornamental band.
Christ sits facing the viewer on a splendid throne, the artfully perforated surfaces of which suggest valuable material. His right hand is raised in a blessing, as if in an oath with two outstretched fingers, the left holds the closed book of life . He is dressed in a toga-like robe, which is held together by a wide band and fans out into folds in the lap. His head is surrounded by a cross nimbus .
The mandorla is limited on both sides by vertical bars. In the spandrels of the mandorla are the symbols of the four evangelists: winged man ( Matthew ), eagle ( John ), winged bull ( Luke ) and winged lion ( Mark ).
On both sides of the mandorla, the twelve apostles are depicted almost fully in two registers , four in the lower row and two in the upper row. A figure has broken out in the upper left field. The characters are on a much smaller scale than Christ in the mandorla. The apostles also sit on precious openwork thrones. Only Peter with his keys can be clearly identified. He is seated at the top left, facing Christ, next to a figure that is no longer there. The people seem to be chatting animatedly and some are holding various objects in their hands. In the two outer lower corners of the arched field, separated from the apostles, two smaller people are depicted in a crouching position who, with open books, turn on their knees towards the viewer.
The tympanum and the portals are framed with four simple archivolts of different cross-sections and without decoration. An original external archivolt has largely broken off today. There are only a few intact cantilevered sculptures at both ends of the arch, two on the left and one on the right. It is obviously a matter of depicting exotic animals or mythical creatures, on the left a monkey and a bear with a collar, on the right a monkey-like animal. This could once have been an entire bestiary .
On the tympanum and on the inner archivolts, remains of a colored frame can be seen. Inside the church there are better preserved colored areas.
Narthexportal with tympanum
Tympanum, Christ enthroned in the mandorla
Tympanum
Remainder of the outer archivolt
Cloister
The north gallery of the cloister adjoins the south side of the church and is of Romanesque origin and has two floors there. Four profiled pillars divide this gallery into three equally wide sections, which in turn each contain two arched arcades. A closed stone parapet rises above the apex of the arcades, over which the pillars tower significantly. They support a wooden construction of the flat, sloping pent roof of the upper gallery. Centrally between the pillars like opening is ever left out, perhaps the job of the defense case loopholes possessed. These were accessible through the cavities above the vaults. The three remaining cloister galleries, which are now only on the ground floor, were rebuilt in the course of renovations in the 15th century in the Flamboyant style. They are also divided into three sections by the same pillars as in the north gallery, each of which, however, contains a pointed arcade. The pillars end approximately at the level of the flat roofs. These galleries are covered by ribbed vaults that support an accessible stone flat roof. The wooden parapets seem to temporarily have the task of fall protection. A spiral staircase in the southwest corner of the cloister leads up to the aisles above the lower galleries. The cloister suggests that it was originally two-story on all sides.
Cloister
Cloister
Cloister
Scenes from the life of Christ
Chapter House
From the east gallery of the cloister it goes into the former chapter house . The burial group, which was formerly housed in the church and dates back to the late 15th century, is located here. As with all burials of this epoch, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus stand at the head and foot of the bier on which the body of Christ lies, while Mary, John , Mary Magdalene and two other women stand on one long side .
literature
- Thorsten Droste : Périgord and the Atlantic coast. Cologne 1989, p. 62. (DuMont art travel guide)
- Julia Droste-Hennings , Thorsten Droste : France, The South West. DuMont Travel Guide, 2007.
- Marcel Durliat : Romanesque Art. Freiburg-Basel-Vienna 1983.
- Ingeborg Tetzlaff : Romanesque capitals in France. Cologne 1979.
- Ingeborg Tetzlaff: Romanesque portals in France. Cologne 1977.
Web links
- St-Pierre (Carennac) in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
Coordinates: 44 ° 55 ′ 7.7 " N , 1 ° 43 ′ 56.4" E