yeaverily:

Sainte Cécile Cathedral, Albi, France, 1282-1390

shadesandshadows:

 The Agitator of Languedoc, 1887, oil on canvas by Jean Paul Laurens, French painter and sculptor, 1838-1921. He was one of the most respected artists of his time.

 Laurens was an exponent of the French Academic style and this painting is in the Musee des Augustins in Toulouse, France.

 The inquisition at Languedoc was one of many examinations by the Roman church to eliminate Protestant ideas in Southern Europe. Some Roman churchmen, however, protested the charges and Laurens painted a scene of it.

The nave of Cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Condom - one of the churches in Condom, France

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Condom Cathedral (Cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Condom) is a Catholic church and a former cathedral, and a national monument of France, located inCondom, Gers. It was formerly the seat of the Bishops of Condom; the diocese was added to the Archdiocese of Auch in 1822.

The cathedral dominates the town, which sits on a hill above the Baïse River. It was designed at the end of the 15th century, and erected 1506-31, one of the last major buildings in the Gers region to be constructed in the Gothic style of south-west France. The church has buttresses all around and there is a 40 metre square tower over the west front. The west front door has the Four Evangelists’ symbols in the tympanum, and the south nave door in theFlamboyant Gothic style still has 24 small statues in the niches of the archivolt.

Bernadette Soubirous

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Marie-Bernarde Soubirous was a miller’s daughter born in Lourdes, France and is venerated as a Christian mystic and Saint in the Catholic Church.

Soubirous is best known for her Marian apparitions of “a small young lady” who asked for a chapel to be built at a cave-grotto in Massabielle where the apparitions occurred between 11 February and 16 July 1858. She would later receive recognition when the lady who appeared to her identified herself as the Immaculate Conception.

Despite initial skepticism from the Catholic Church, Soubirous’s claims were eventually declared “worthy of belief” after a canonical investigation, and the Marian apparition is now known as Our Lady of Lourdes. Since her death, Soubirous’s body has apparently remained internally incorrupt, but it is not without blemish; during her third exhumation in 1925, the firm of Pierre Imans made light wax coverings for her face and her hands due to the discoloration that her skin has undergone. These masks were placed on her face and hands before she was moved to her crystal reliquary in June 1925.

The Marian shrine at Nevers (Bourgogne, France) went on to become a major pilgrimage site, attracting over five million Christian pilgrims of all denominations each year.

On 8 December 1933, she was canonized by Pope Pius XI as a saint in the Catholic Church; her Feast Day is observed on April 16. She is considered a Christian mystic.

Saint Foy abbey-church in Conques, France

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The St. Foy abbey-church in Conques was a popular stop for pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela.

There is little exterior ornamentation on Conques except necessary buttresses and cornices. The exception to this is the Last Judgment tympanum located above the western entrance. As pilgrimages became safer and more popular the focus on penance began to wane. Images of doom were used to remind pilgrims of the purpose of their pilgrimage. The tympanum appears to be later than the artwork in the nave. This is to be expected as construction on churches was usually begun in the east and completed in the west. The tympanum depicts Christ in Majesty presiding over the judgment of the souls of the deceased. The cross behind Christ indicates he is both Judge and Savior. Archangel Michael and a demon weigh the souls of the deceased on a scale. The righteous go to Christ’s right while the dammed go to Christ’s left where they are eaten by a Leviathan and excreted into Hell. The torture of Hell are vividly depicted including poachers being roasted by the very rabbit they poached from the monastery. The tympanum also provides an example of cloister wit. A bishop who governed the area of Conques but was not well liked by the monks of Conques is depicted as being caught in one of the nets of Hell. The virtuous are depicted less colourfully. The Virgin Mary, St. Peter and the pilgrim St. James stand on Christ’s left. Above their heads are scrolls depicting the names of the Virtues. Two gable shaped lintels act as the entrance into Heaven. In Heaven Abraham is shown holding close the souls of the righteous A pudgy abbot leads a king, possibly Charlemagne, into heaven. St. Foy is shown on the lower left kneeling in prayer and being touched by the outstretched hand of God. The tympanum was inspired by illuminated manuscripts and would have been fully colored, small traces of the color survive today.

illumanu:

13th or 14th century (1275-1325) Southern France - Toulouse?

British Library, Royal 10 E IV: I. (1v-3v) Calendarium, II. Decretals of Gregory IX with glossa ordinaria

fol. 77v - bas-de-page detail of a woman with a tabor.

Her hair is braided and loosely fastened on top of her head, forming almost pouches, when viewed from the front. Both the kirtle and the overkirtle are blue and the overkirtle is upturned at the hem - fastening the impractical length of the skirt and showing of the vair lining at the same time. The sleeves are cut to form tippets.

source - British Library catalogues

After the holiday hiatus, Illumanu is back!

Coffret du XV^e en bois et os avec une face jeu de tables et l’autre échiquier, trésor de la cathédrale Notre-Dame, Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges, Haute-Garonne, France.

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Tables is a general name given to a class of board games similar to backgammon, played on a board with two rows of 12 vertical markings called “points”. Players roll dice to determine the movement of pieces. Tables games are among the oldest known board games, and many variants are played throughout the world.

Saint Christopher, 1400–1425
French; Made in Toulouse
Silver, silver-gilt

25 5/8 x 11 3/4 in. (65.1 x 29.9 cm)
Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917 (17.190.361)

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Venerated from the early centuries of Christianity, Saint Christopher—whose name means “Christ-bearer”—was honored as the protector of travelers. According to The Golden Legend, Christopher ferried a small child across a river. As he did so, the child’s weight grew increasingly heavy. When Christopher complained that it seemed as if he had carried the weight of the world, the child replied, “Wonder not, Christopher, for not only has thou borne the whole world upon thy shoulders, but Him who created the world. For I am Christ thy King.” In this imposing statuette-reliquary, Christopher strides through the water, twisting as he turns to look at the Christ Child, who holds an orb in reference to his dominion. The small leaves sprouting from the top of Christopher’s staff are a harbinger of the miracle promised by Christ—that if the saint, upon his return home, planted the staff in the ground, it would bear leaves and fruit in the morning. The hallmarks stamped on the hem of the saint’s cloak and on the statue’s base indicate that this piece was made by a goldsmith in Toulouse. The reliquary, excellently preserved, reveals a masterful treatment of the material. The soft, rich folds of the saint’s cloak belie their metal substance. The ungilded surfaces of the faces are framed by the crisp design of the hair. The engraving of the Christ Child’s short curls, the hair and flowing beard of the saint, and the fish in the turbulent water are accented by the juxtaposition of large areas of silver with bright flashes of gilding. A now-lost relic of the saint was placed in the small box covered with crystal on the statue’s base, through which the relic could be seen.

Policemen and demonstrators during the military camp extension protest, Larzac, France.

CRS et manifestants pendant la lutte contre l’extension du camp militaire, Larzac, France.

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The Fight for the Larzac refers to a non-violent civil disobedience action by peasant landowners resisting the extension of an existing military base on the Larzac plateau in South Western France. The action lasted from 1971 to 1981, and ended in victory for the resistance movement when the newly-elected President François Mitterrand formally abandoned the project.

The base, used for training French soldiers, was originally established in 1902 on 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres; 12 sq mi) of uncultivated heathland. Michel Debré, Minister of Defence in theGeorges Pompidou administration, announced that the base would be extended to 13,700 hectares (34,000 acres; 53 sq mi) and that the necessary land would be expropriated in the public interest.

An initial informal resistance movement was formed by 103 landowners whose land was subject to expropriation. In 1973 their cause was taken up by a much larger group of heterogeneous activists, predominantly left wing, and numbering up to 100,000. This activist group descended on the Larzac in support of the peasant landowners and extended the protest to a more general action against what they saw as the militarism of the Pompidou government.

This action, once it had achieved its focal aims on the Larzac, was the core of what then became the Anti-Globalism movement, and also served to bring to public attention leaders such as Lanza del Vasto, José Bové, and the late Guy Tarlier

Medallion with the Crucifixion, ca. 1100
France (Conques)
Gilt copper, cloisonné and champlevé enamel

Diam. 4 1/8 in. (10.3 cm)
Purchase, Michel David-Weill Gift, and 2006 Benefit Fund, 2007 (2007.189)

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This precious medallion of the Crucifixion is, astonishingly, the missing centerpiece of four enameled plaques with symbols that the Museum acquired from the Morgan collection in 1917. The ensemble, probably from a book cover, can be securely attributed to the celebrated pilgrimage abbey of Saint Foy in Conques. Because of its location in the mountains of central France, much of the abbey’s precious goldsmiths’ work escaped destruction during the French Revolution. Several works in copper were dispersed from the abbey’s treasury over the course of the nineteenth century. The Crucifixion medallion shares with these and others still in situ a technique, style, and palette uniquely combined during the abbacy of Bégon III in the late eleventh century. For these pieces, the monk goldsmiths employed superimposed copper plaques, the lower one to receive the delicate cloisons that define features and drapery, the upper one cut to delineate the silhouettes of the figures and the cross. Hallmarks of the style include the single cloison used to define eyebrows and noses and the thin loop of gold that creates cowlicks. In the Museum’s reconstituted ensemble, the same remarkable oxblood color was used for the symbol of Saint Luke and the hair of the image of the Sun (“Sol”) above the Crucifixion. Furthermore, scientific analysis has determined that common enamel compositions and the same metallic oxides were used to tint and opacify all five pieces.