Velay roman: le cloître de la cathédrale du Puy
In France, the Centre des Monuments Nationaux (“CMN”) is a State-run organization that manages many of the most important historic monuments. As such, it is composed mostly of civil servants, some truly knowledgeable and in love with the monument they’re administering, others with a decidedly and predominantly “administrative” (read: fussy and regulations-loving) mindset. Anyway, having learned my lesson the hard way, I now never approach a CMN-run monument with my photo tripod without having made prior contact, gained as much legitimacy as possible, and secured the authorization to take photos on site. With that in mind, one is, most of the time, very welcome, and even given access to very interesting parts the general public doesn’t get to see.
That is just what happened in Le Puy-en-Velay, the starting point of the Via Podiensis to Compostela and home to many Romanesque wonders, some of which I had never seen but firmly intended to photograph on this trip. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t cooperating and it rained most of the day. Furthermore, the Saint Michael of Aiguilhe chapel wasn’t accessible owing to works being underway. In other words, another trip to Le Puy will need to be scheduled in March, but for the time being, I will upload the photos I managed to take in the canons’ cloister next to the Notre-Dame cathedral, as well as in other, more “secret” parts of the cathedral complex. I hope you will enjoy them.
During the Middle Ages, the cathedral of Le Puy-en-Velay was a major Marian pilgrimage site, thanks to the devotion of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims for a small statue of the Virgin Mary, one of those “Black Marys” of Auvergne that made miracles. That one was supposedly brought back from the Holy Land Crusade by Saint Louis himself (i.e., French King Louis IX), and it may have come originally from Coptic Egypt, or even Ethiopia. There’s no way to tell now, as the wooden statue was burned by revolutionaries in 1794. The Black Virgin one can still see in the cathedral today was made in the 19th century to replicate the genuine one, using descriptions made by visitors who had the opportunity to see it before the French Revolution.
Because of this pilgrimage, it was easy for Le Puy to also become a starting point of a path to Compostela when that pilgrimage took off, and because people consequently thronged the cathedral, it had to be enlarged several times. A cloister was also built next to the nave, on the northern side, for the canons. They were secular canons, a number of them from the highest nobility, and their chapter both carried out the Opus Dei in the cathedral and served as an advisory body to the bishop. This means most of them lived in the city in very comfortable, sometimes even luxurious, accommodations, and I personally believe that, given those circumstances, the construction of a cloister and other “monastery-like” buildings was more for show than anything else. A cloister is meant for solitary meditation, and I’m not sure that that cloister got a lot of it...
It remains a magnificent monument well worthy of a visit and of an in-depth study.
The southern and western galleries of the cloister. The pouring rain did not permit to step into the garden and shoot from there. This will have to be for the next trip.
Velay roman: le cloître de la cathédrale du Puy
In France, the Centre des Monuments Nationaux (“CMN”) is a State-run organization that manages many of the most important historic monuments. As such, it is composed mostly of civil servants, some truly knowledgeable and in love with the monument they’re administering, others with a decidedly and predominantly “administrative” (read: fussy and regulations-loving) mindset. Anyway, having learned my lesson the hard way, I now never approach a CMN-run monument with my photo tripod without having made prior contact, gained as much legitimacy as possible, and secured the authorization to take photos on site. With that in mind, one is, most of the time, very welcome, and even given access to very interesting parts the general public doesn’t get to see.
That is just what happened in Le Puy-en-Velay, the starting point of the Via Podiensis to Compostela and home to many Romanesque wonders, some of which I had never seen but firmly intended to photograph on this trip. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t cooperating and it rained most of the day. Furthermore, the Saint Michael of Aiguilhe chapel wasn’t accessible owing to works being underway. In other words, another trip to Le Puy will need to be scheduled in March, but for the time being, I will upload the photos I managed to take in the canons’ cloister next to the Notre-Dame cathedral, as well as in other, more “secret” parts of the cathedral complex. I hope you will enjoy them.
During the Middle Ages, the cathedral of Le Puy-en-Velay was a major Marian pilgrimage site, thanks to the devotion of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims for a small statue of the Virgin Mary, one of those “Black Marys” of Auvergne that made miracles. That one was supposedly brought back from the Holy Land Crusade by Saint Louis himself (i.e., French King Louis IX), and it may have come originally from Coptic Egypt, or even Ethiopia. There’s no way to tell now, as the wooden statue was burned by revolutionaries in 1794. The Black Virgin one can still see in the cathedral today was made in the 19th century to replicate the genuine one, using descriptions made by visitors who had the opportunity to see it before the French Revolution.
Because of this pilgrimage, it was easy for Le Puy to also become a starting point of a path to Compostela when that pilgrimage took off, and because people consequently thronged the cathedral, it had to be enlarged several times. A cloister was also built next to the nave, on the northern side, for the canons. They were secular canons, a number of them from the highest nobility, and their chapter both carried out the Opus Dei in the cathedral and served as an advisory body to the bishop. This means most of them lived in the city in very comfortable, sometimes even luxurious, accommodations, and I personally believe that, given those circumstances, the construction of a cloister and other “monastery-like” buildings was more for show than anything else. A cloister is meant for solitary meditation, and I’m not sure that that cloister got a lot of it...
It remains a magnificent monument well worthy of a visit and of an in-depth study.
The southern and western galleries of the cloister. The pouring rain did not permit to step into the garden and shoot from there. This will have to be for the next trip.