St-Pierre (Marestay)
The parish church of Saint-Pierre is located in Marestay, a district of the city of Matha , Charente-Maritime department , approx. 30 km northeast of and approx. 20 kilometers southeast of Saint-Jean-d'Angély .
history
From the Romanesque church only the transept with crossing tower, chapels and choir stands.
Towards the end of the 11th century, the Abbey of Marestay was transferred to the hands of the Benedictines of the Abbey of Saint-Jean-de-l'Angély as a daughter abbey. The mother abbey had very early origins, with a foundation by Pippin I and was re-established in 1010 as a Benedictine abbey by the religious of Cluny . At the beginning of the 12th century, the Benedictines settled in Marestay and began building their Saint-Pierre abbey church and the abbey buildings. At that time, Marestay was still an independent place, which only later merged with the neighboring village of Sainte-Hérie to form the town of Matha. It stands to reason that the construction of the parish church of Saint-Hérie in the neighboring town of the same name, which was also founded by the Benedictines of Saint-Jean-de-l'Angély, was carried out in parallel to that of their neighboring church, perhaps even by the same master builders.
Saint-Jean-de-l'Angély was a stop on one of the main pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela . The nearby daughter monasteries and their churches, which were also on the route, and for which the income from donations from the pilgrims were guaranteed, also benefited from this. This fact can still be recognized today by the quality of the constructions and their artistic decoration, or by the remains that are still preserved today.
The considerable mutilation that both churches had to experience from Matha is a result of the Wars of Religion (1562–1598). At that time, Saint-Pierre-de-Marestay lost its entire nave with its west facade. Saint-Hérie lost more than half of the ship and its entire vault.
The remaining parts of the transept , the choir , the apses, their complete vaulting and the bell tower of Saint-Pierre were preserved, but especially the decorative sculpture on the outside of the choir head.
The subsequent closure of the open west side of the crossing is of modern origin.
Interior
The floor plans of the square arms of the transept are covered in north-south direction with pointed barrel vaults , as is the rectangle of the choir.
The square crossing is vaulted with a hemispherical dome , with a circular opening in its apex. The transition in the corners is done by classical trumpets . The crossing arches are pointed like the vaults. The capitals of the mighty bundles of crossing piers are figuratively designed.
The apses of the choir and transept arms are vaulted in the form of a quarter-sphere and separated by round arches.
The high-level, small-area windows are covered with semicircular arches.
The lost longhouse
The number of ships in the missing longhouse is indicated on the local sign as three. However, there is still sparse evidence on this subject on the west side of the transept, which suggests that the adjoining nave initially had three aisles, with a high central nave and significantly deeper side aisles, but was then replaced by a single more exciting ship after its destruction is, or that such a new construction has been started.
Seen from the former ship, construction elements can be seen on the transept wall that have to do with the structure of the connected nave. The first thing you notice is the large opening between the nave and the crossing, flanked by the sturdy bundle of pillars and spanned by a pointed arch. This opening has recently been walled up with a thin wall. The same applies to the narrow remains of the openings between the former side aisles and the transept, significantly lower and with a smaller span. Above you can still see the arches of the same span, which mark the height of the aisle vault. On the thick, round pillars, part of the crossing piers, pointing towards the west, one can imagine the separating arches between the ships.
The aforementioned log arches in the transept walls are today about three quarters of their span with younger walls that extend high onto the old surface of the western transept and tower walls. These walls are reinforced with wide pillar templates and each end with three round supports at the ends of the ship. The new arch halves, which are rectangular in cross-section, extend onto their simple capitals. These would meet at the apex of the “new” pointed vault if they were still completely intact. Between the connections of this higher vault to the tower and the lower crossing arch there is still a weak contour of a central arch, probably the vault connection of the first ship.
The brick walls with the large vaulted arch are not necessarily the proof that after the destruction of the Romanesque three-aisled nave, a new single-aisle must have followed. But it is testified by the fact that at least a renovation of the nave, with a wider nave and no side aisles, has started.
Outer shape
Rough breakdown
The nave, which is now lost, originally consisted of a Romanesque central nave and sunken side aisles without an upper window , under a shared flat sloping roof. A lavishly furnished west facade according to the tradition of Romanesque art of Saintonge was also lost. The subsequent construction, which has at least begun, was single-nave and should certainly also have a slightly higher pitched roof. There are significant remains of both long houses on the west wall of the transept (see above).
The structure that has been preserved is largely in its original Romanesque form, consisting of the transept with a detached crossing, the square crossing tower above it, the rectangular choir and the three apses, the choir and the two arms of the transept.
The smooth wall surfaces of the transept arms are undivided except for the slightly overhanging eaves cornices, which are rectangular in cross section. The gable wall of the north transept arm has two small Romanesque windows with simple archivolts. The outline of the two apses of the transept are polygonally bent six times by vertical ridges and have a window in the middle in the shape of loopholes.
The choir and its apse have quite elaborate structures. There is a narrow surface offset between the walls and roof surfaces between the two. The walls of the choir and the apse are divided into seven wall fields by eight storey-high cylindrical columns, on the capitals of which rests a broad eaves cornice with a square cross-section and is additionally supported by carved corbels in between. In the area of the apse, the wall fields are rounded in the shape of a circular arc.
Somewhat above the middle of the wall height, a cantilevered horizontal band of fighters and their extensions over the walls and pillars surrounds the entire choir and its apse. Two-part, lavishly designed archivolt arches stand on the fighters in each field . The double arches are supported by four capitals and slender round columns, the two outer ones right next to the thicker field-dividing columns that extend with them down to the base of the floor, while the inner ones only extend to the cantilevered window sill. In the remainder of the recessed wall area there is a slender arched window, in the choir apse on both sides of the middle as a blind window.
The tower protrudes from the roofs as an extension of the square enclosing walls of the crossing and has a narrow cantilevered cornice just above the roof, above which a "storey" jumps back at a low height by about half the wall thickness. On the east and west sides of the tower, four short round supports are seated on this slab, which carry a cantilevered eaves cornice. On the west side of the tower, the cantilever cornice has been removed in the middle area. The wall below was then extended upwards by a bell wall, flush with the surface. The outer edge is designed in lively baroque forms. In the middle of the wall there is a window-like opening with a round arch in which a bell is hung.
The transept arms and the rectangular part of the choir are covered with flat sloping gable roofs, the square tower with a pyramid roof and the apses with half polygonal pyramid roofs. The roofs are covered with red roof tiles in Roman form (monk - nun). The eaves stick out over simple cantilever cornices as "real" eaves.
Fine structures
The two-tier archivolt windows of the choir head and their blind versions have archivolt arches with profound, geometric and plant-based sculpture on the front and inside. Each individual arch stone has its own ornament in a radial arrangement. The capitals of the archivolt windows are carved out of plants and partly figuratively (people and monsters). The fighter band around the entire choir head bears geometric ornamentation on its front visible side.
The cantilevered cornice under the eaves of the choir and the central apse has a rectangular cross-section with longitudinal profiles on the visible edge. The supporting corbels are L-shaped when viewed from the side and, in the inner corner, carry sculptures from what we consider to be the eerie fantasy world of the people of the Middle Ages. Here are a few examples of the large number of corbel sculptures:
- A big big cat's head makes up for two scaled smaller human heads, which are turned down in one case and up in the other.
- A human head with an astonished open mouth grasps his parted beard with both hands.
- A person in a crouching position smiles and holds up a kind of stringed instrument (?).
- Two four-legged monsters (predators) turn their heads backwards and eat two people on their backs.
- A person wearing a turban-like headgear grasps the body and head of a "little human" with his hands.
- A person with the same headgear holds an ape-like animal (?) In his long-fingered hands.
The capitals on the west wall (formerly in the nave) show mostly figural but also vegetable sculptures:
- Two bird monsters with lizard tails and human-like heads bite their ringed tails.
- A human wrestles with a monster. Next to it is a horse with a crocodile head.
- An angel with outspread wings and a book thrusts a spear into the head of a monster in human form. In addition, a bird monster with a huge human-like head is watching.
St.-Pierre-de-Marestay, Matha, corbels eaves choir
St.-Pierre-de-Marestay, Matha, corbels eaves choir
St.-Pierre-de-Marestay, Matha, corbels eaves choir
St.-Pierre-de-Marestay, Matha, gravestone next to church
literature
- Thorsten Droste : The Poitou. Western France between Poitiers, La Rochelle and Angôuleme. The Atlantic coast from the Loire estuary to the Gironde . Cologne 1999. ISBN 3-7701-1380-2
Web links
Coordinates: 45 ° 52 ′ 27 " N , 0 ° 18 ′ 45" W.