France romane: Saint-Pierre de Carennac
Before driving down south to Moissac, I stopped in the village of Carennac, where a priory was created by the abbey of Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne, which we visited in photographs over the past few days.
The church was integrated into the Mediæval sheet wall that defended the village, therefore the main two-door portal opened to the South, on what used to be the village’s main street, even though it is quite narrow t our modern eyes.
That portal and the splendid tympanum above are almost the only parts that remain today for the aficionados of Romanesque. Construction began on the church we still see today in the late 1000s, but it replaced an earlier one, as there is at least one written mention of it in the cartulary of the abbey of Beaulieu in 932. The fact that the priory was donated to the powerful abbey of Cluny is recorded in 1047 and 48, and construction must have begun on the new church shortly thereafter. You need to understand that even though human life on average was much shorter than today, the conception of time was very different and “shortly thereafter” usually meant a decade or two...
The portal and its tympanum were probably not built before 1150 or so.
Like what we have seen in Beaulieu, the theme of the tympanum is the Parousie, the Second Coming of Christ, but the part that does take place before the Last Judgment. Christ in the mandorla is surrounded as expected by the Tetramorph, with the lion and ox shown in poses very similar to those we will see in Moissac, and by the Apostles. There are no dead people being resurrected and coming out of their coffins, no sinners condemned to suffer forever in Hell, no horn-blowing angels, etc. All of that will happen later, this is a much more peaceful and glorious moment, only Jesus coming back among His most faithful followers.
France romane: Saint-Pierre de Carennac
Before driving down south to Moissac, I stopped in the village of Carennac, where a priory was created by the abbey of Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne, which we visited in photographs over the past few days.
The church was integrated into the Mediæval sheet wall that defended the village, therefore the main two-door portal opened to the South, on what used to be the village’s main street, even though it is quite narrow t our modern eyes.
That portal and the splendid tympanum above are almost the only parts that remain today for the aficionados of Romanesque. Construction began on the church we still see today in the late 1000s, but it replaced an earlier one, as there is at least one written mention of it in the cartulary of the abbey of Beaulieu in 932. The fact that the priory was donated to the powerful abbey of Cluny is recorded in 1047 and 48, and construction must have begun on the new church shortly thereafter. You need to understand that even though human life on average was much shorter than today, the conception of time was very different and “shortly thereafter” usually meant a decade or two...
The portal and its tympanum were probably not built before 1150 or so.
Like what we have seen in Beaulieu, the theme of the tympanum is the Parousie, the Second Coming of Christ, but the part that does take place before the Last Judgment. Christ in the mandorla is surrounded as expected by the Tetramorph, with the lion and ox shown in poses very similar to those we will see in Moissac, and by the Apostles. There are no dead people being resurrected and coming out of their coffins, no sinners condemned to suffer forever in Hell, no horn-blowing angels, etc. All of that will happen later, this is a much more peaceful and glorious moment, only Jesus coming back among His most faithful followers.