Colombelles, a Romanesque village church in Normandy (last photos)
For someone like me, who has set himself the task to visit and document photographically as many as possible of those wonderful Romanesque churches and monasteries, a trip to Normandy is both cause for despair and for enchanted amazement. Despair, because the Norman architect, at the time of the Romanesque which coincided with the conquest of Britain by Duke William in 1066 and the tremendous influx of power and riches that ensued, that architect is above all focused on efficiency in the projection of power and majesty. For that architect, the absolute must, the beginning and the end of church building, is the wall. Sculpture doesn’t matter. When it exists at all, it is often relegated to simple modillions under the cornice that supports the roof. The bare wall, perfectly aligned and appareled, reigns as the undisputed king of Norman Romanesque. He who likes to smile and wonder at the ingenuity and inventiveness of Mediæval sculptors, is most of the time sorely disappointed by the utter lack of adornment of those great and tall Norman churches, next to which the barest Cistercian sanctuaries look positively alive and overflowing under the comparatively unbridled abundance of rinceaux, human figures and assorted creatures.
No sculpture to speak of, then, is the norm in Normandy. But on the other hand, the masterfulness of the architects and masons turns the job of putting one stone on top of another into a veritable art: it is here, in Normandy, that was first experimented the very innovation that would bring about the end of the Romanesque: the voûte d’ogives, the rib vaulting from which the whole world of Gothic derives. It is in Normandy that it was first imagined and implemented, even as the 11th century hadn’t yet come to a close. We will see where, and how.
My photographic tour of Lower Normandy had to begin, of course, by the Abbaye aux Hommes and the Abbaye aux Dames in Caen. Now that we have covered those, I would like to show you a few other Romanesque churches, much less well-known, yet fully worthy of our interest.
The first documentary source I consulted when I was preparing this trip was, as usual, the Normandie romane book published by Zodiaque —both volumes, as Romanesque Normandy is so rich that two books were needed to properly cover it. Unfortunately, and owing to some of those unforeseen circumstances that so often intrude upon our lives, I do not have those books with me at the moment. Therefore, I am not able to use the valuable material they hold to compose my captions; still, I will do my best in their absence... with my apologies. I hope the books will be sent back to me by whoever I made the mistake to leave them with, so that I won’t have to buy new copies.
•• Colombelles used to be a village not far from the large Norman city of Caen; it is now basically a suburb of it. Dedicated to Saint Martin (like many very old churches), the village church was originally built around Year 1100, or maybe slightly earlier, at the place where a ford allowed for crossing River Orne, near a farm that belonged to a priory of the abbey of Plessis-Grimoult. The abbey donated the land on which it was erected.
The church is not considered a major masterpiece like the one of Thaon we have just visited. To wit, it is only listed on the secondary list of Historic Landmarks (in French, we say inscrit [“inscribed”] instead of classé [“listed”]), and the listing took place in 1927 “only”. For centuries, it was the parochial church of the village that slowly grew around it, but as the 1950s rolled by it had become too small, not to mention the restoration works that were still taking place further to the damages sustained during World War II in the wake of D-Day. Saint Martin was never deconsecrated but another church was built and nowadays I hear that only one Mass is said every year in the old Romanesque church.
Although it is most definitely a Norman Romanesque church, it has, equally undoubtedly, been influenced by architectural and decorative tendencies from parts of Aquitaine such as Poitou and Saintonge, juts like the church in Thaon, as both were built during the same period.
A human face peering at us in one of the archivolts above the western portal of the church.
Colombelles, a Romanesque village church in Normandy (last photos)
For someone like me, who has set himself the task to visit and document photographically as many as possible of those wonderful Romanesque churches and monasteries, a trip to Normandy is both cause for despair and for enchanted amazement. Despair, because the Norman architect, at the time of the Romanesque which coincided with the conquest of Britain by Duke William in 1066 and the tremendous influx of power and riches that ensued, that architect is above all focused on efficiency in the projection of power and majesty. For that architect, the absolute must, the beginning and the end of church building, is the wall. Sculpture doesn’t matter. When it exists at all, it is often relegated to simple modillions under the cornice that supports the roof. The bare wall, perfectly aligned and appareled, reigns as the undisputed king of Norman Romanesque. He who likes to smile and wonder at the ingenuity and inventiveness of Mediæval sculptors, is most of the time sorely disappointed by the utter lack of adornment of those great and tall Norman churches, next to which the barest Cistercian sanctuaries look positively alive and overflowing under the comparatively unbridled abundance of rinceaux, human figures and assorted creatures.
No sculpture to speak of, then, is the norm in Normandy. But on the other hand, the masterfulness of the architects and masons turns the job of putting one stone on top of another into a veritable art: it is here, in Normandy, that was first experimented the very innovation that would bring about the end of the Romanesque: the voûte d’ogives, the rib vaulting from which the whole world of Gothic derives. It is in Normandy that it was first imagined and implemented, even as the 11th century hadn’t yet come to a close. We will see where, and how.
My photographic tour of Lower Normandy had to begin, of course, by the Abbaye aux Hommes and the Abbaye aux Dames in Caen. Now that we have covered those, I would like to show you a few other Romanesque churches, much less well-known, yet fully worthy of our interest.
The first documentary source I consulted when I was preparing this trip was, as usual, the Normandie romane book published by Zodiaque —both volumes, as Romanesque Normandy is so rich that two books were needed to properly cover it. Unfortunately, and owing to some of those unforeseen circumstances that so often intrude upon our lives, I do not have those books with me at the moment. Therefore, I am not able to use the valuable material they hold to compose my captions; still, I will do my best in their absence... with my apologies. I hope the books will be sent back to me by whoever I made the mistake to leave them with, so that I won’t have to buy new copies.
•• Colombelles used to be a village not far from the large Norman city of Caen; it is now basically a suburb of it. Dedicated to Saint Martin (like many very old churches), the village church was originally built around Year 1100, or maybe slightly earlier, at the place where a ford allowed for crossing River Orne, near a farm that belonged to a priory of the abbey of Plessis-Grimoult. The abbey donated the land on which it was erected.
The church is not considered a major masterpiece like the one of Thaon we have just visited. To wit, it is only listed on the secondary list of Historic Landmarks (in French, we say inscrit [“inscribed”] instead of classé [“listed”]), and the listing took place in 1927 “only”. For centuries, it was the parochial church of the village that slowly grew around it, but as the 1950s rolled by it had become too small, not to mention the restoration works that were still taking place further to the damages sustained during World War II in the wake of D-Day. Saint Martin was never deconsecrated but another church was built and nowadays I hear that only one Mass is said every year in the old Romanesque church.
Although it is most definitely a Norman Romanesque church, it has, equally undoubtedly, been influenced by architectural and decorative tendencies from parts of Aquitaine such as Poitou and Saintonge, juts like the church in Thaon, as both were built during the same period.
A human face peering at us in one of the archivolts above the western portal of the church.