Addenda: St. Jean-Baptiste and Iron flowers.

1. RE: The Vandals of Toulouse

Last week I was at the Église St. Jean-Baptiste in Ondes.  This week it was the 14th-century Église St. Jean-Baptiste in Le Burgaud.  For a guy with no head, John the Baptist gets around.

I happened to be sipping a Trappist ale and looking at the church yesterday, the form of the clock-tower and it's roof coming together in my mind as an obelisk.

I turned to my friend P---- and mentioned the common LoS speculation that church architecture featuring two bell-towers flanking the facade has its roots nourished in the black soil of the Nile Valley.

For an idea of what the Egyptian precedent looked like, check out the image these model makers have, an Egyptian temple entrance on a page for a model called, oddly enough, Temple Entrance (made from mold #98, or so we're informed in sentence one).

The description of the model states, almost in a severe tone it seems to me:

"You will need to cast mold #98 eight times to build the entrance shown here."

Which sounds more like witchcraft ritual than model building.

This picture of the obelisks at Luxor isn't actually the best image with which to make my case, as only one obelisk is pictured.  But the base is still there and we can see where it was located.

This was in my mind as I walked to the church and reflected on what I knew about the history of the village.  Not much.  The Knights Templar had a commandery here and there was a leper colony of sorts, but that's about it.  Even that info was flawed; turns out it was the Hospitallers and I still have no idea where they penned up the lepers.

The obelisk of the bell-tower, alas, was not the ferpect mefathor, as there was only one, The tower is primarily a functional feature of the structure; to hold the clock, of course, but also to make space for the stairs.

If you're not too familiar with the architecture of the Midi, I'm sure that even from afar the thin wall rising up from the facade tickled yer elmo.  This is a clocher-mur ["bell-wall"], or bell gable.

The odd thing thing is that at either side of the base of the pointy isosceles triangle that forms a sort of pediment of the clocher-mur, there are two clear-as-day make-no-mistake-about-it obelisks.  Stumpy, but clearly defined.  A search of Google images France for "mur-clocher Toulousain" has a few other examples where these horn-like obelisks pop up.

French Wickerpodiologe has a section dedicated to the bell gables of the Midi.  No less a personage than Eugène Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879), popular architect and General Inspector of Diocesan Buildings--churches in other words--noted the use of brick in their construction in his influential architectural dictionary.  Wicketsnoodle suggests that the use of brick accounts for the exceptional development of the bell gable in the Midi.  Makes sense.  Brick is lighter, cheaper, easier to work with, faster and more flexible than working with cut stone. 

The commander of the Hospitallers here lived in a house attached to the church, itself  a part of the town's ramparts.  This accounts for the presence of arrow slits in its walls.  It was the Hospitallers, in fact, who ordered the church built.  I assume their presence here was due to Le Burgaud being a stop on the road to Santiago de Compostela, but the surrounding forest, the Aubets spring and high places were sacred places before their Christianization.

The sheer face of the wall, the small rose window, the massive brick piers that buttress the facade do give the church a somewhat fortified appearance, but the ramparts and city walls that once encircled the village are long gone, dismantled in more peaceful times to be cannibalized for the stone and bricks

The church is undergoing renovations, but one can still see the traces of a graffito that had been tagged on the church:  the anarchist symbol and the phrase "Un pays sans dieu."  A country without God.

On a side note, this Hospitaller church was built to replace a chapel dedicated to Saint Leonard of Noblac, a patron of prisoners.  He was invoked to secure freedom and even during his lifetime, attracted a lot of ex-cons to his abbey, many of whom stayed to work the land he provided for them.  Leonard was strongly associated with the road to Compostela, which probably accounts for the presence of a chapel here.  I wonder if his association with Compostela was bound up with is role as patron of prisoners; presumably criminals would be tempted to go to Compostela for the plenary indulgence offered to those who made it.  Wiping the slate clean of sin would have special appeal for them.

Leonard often was also invoked for assistance in childbirth; this and a special role for prisoners is interesting for those interested in the cult of the Virgin.  Despite having no record of any veneration or church dedications to Leonard since his death in the 6th century, his cult took off in the 11th, just as the cult of the Virgin was in full flower after the influence of St. Bernard.  Obviously, people had the same worries everywhere and the Virgin couldn't handle the caseload alone.  We've seen male saints take on attributes of the Virgin before (e.g. St. Fris).  The cults of many saints exploded at this time, globalized as it were, beyond being obscure local cults (e.g. St. Fris or Stes. Liberata and Quiteria), due to the passage of so many people through the south of France on the way to Compostela.  Of course, the influence of the Troubadours as transmitters and relaters of popular culture cannot be overestimated.

Speaking of culture, in the late-sixties a café was created in Le Burgaud that still exists today, a small beacon of culture in the cornfields featuring theater and music, often very avant-garde stuff which would be not so common even in Paris, let alone a one-Solex town in a poor farming area.  The original idea was to take young people in difficulty, often ex-cons, who would come to the healthier environment of the country and work and live at the café, assisting and performing in its productions.  Today it's more of a cultural association, but on some nights groups of young people from the inner city will be working in the café.  A fascinating continuity with Saint Leonard's project and the musical diffusion of his legend--the café has been a stop for numerous poor musicians, who play in exchange for a meal, a carafe of wine, a place to crash and gas money for the next tavern or music hall.  It reminds me of when I learned Toulouse had a reputation as a tolerant and cosmopolitan city, known for its large number of students and vagabonds, since the early middle ages.  This, too, is still true today.

For more about Le Burgaud, see:  Notre Dame des Aubets.

2. RE:  Aucamville Project 11: Mary on the Cross (redux)

Basically, this is just another example of a cemetery marker in wrought-iron, also typical of the Midi, with a floral motif.  We would suppose this plant metaphor refers to the death and resurrection of Christ, reborn like the plant world in Spring.  Jesus as vegetal god!

The details on some of these crosses show that the cross isn't being overrun by flora, but is itself a tree, possibility the Tree of Life....

The French often have a family tomb with a plaque for each member therein interred.  The grieving, instead of laying a new stone after each death, merely add the plaque and then leave small votive plaques, porcelain flowers, religious icons:  "Dearest Mother and Wife", "Our beloved Uncle", etc.  Thus the cemetery is a cluttered place.  France being France, the religious usually honor Toussaint by going to a special mass.  Everybody goes to the cemetery to lay flowers, but only chrysanthemums.  More restrained than Todos Santos, or Dia de los Muertos, and without the macabre joys of Halloween aka All Hallows Even.

OK, sorry for the beleaguered tone of this post; it's my second go-round after the fist version, longer than this, got sucked away into a Blogger bug black hole and I ended up working on this version until long after the midnight oil burned itself out.  Anyway, there are scores of bell gables in the region, I'll try to snap photos of the surrounding villages, almost all of which have a parish church like that at Le Burgaud.  I'll leave you with a photo of Aucamville's church for a comparison.

Photo by Didier Descouens: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aucamville_%28Tarn-et-Garonne%29_Eglise.jpg

Aucamville Project 1: Notre Dame des Aubets

The Chapel of Notre Dame des Aubets (from Fr. aubiers, "sapwood"), which isn't in Aucamville but the neighboring village of Le Burgaud, sits in the middle of fields which in late Summer are covered in a picturesque carpet of sunflowers. The interior is well-maintained and its door is always unlocked. When I last visited a large white candle was lit. I did my bit for the place upon leaving by sweeping out bits of leaves and flowers, but then again, my kids were probably responsible for tracking most of them in. Between taking notes and keeping them from clambering all over the altar I caught the two of them puffing away at the big white candle with tremendous glee. Kids have no respect these days.

According to a brief history inside, the chapel is situated along one of the many trails to Santiago de Compostela and is attested to in a famous 18th century map, prosaically entitled Chemins de Saint Jacques Compostelle. It sits on a route which includes Arles, Montpellier, Castres, Toulouse, Gimont and Auch. The chapel can be found just after passing Naples, where a stop was required at the Chapel of St. Mark. One then passed through the forêt des loups. The route then continued to Belleserre, where upon a hilltop one finds a cross inscribed “St. Jean PPN” (St. Jean priez-pour nous). This place was dedicated to San Jouan d’on Haoure (St. John on High) and has been sanctified ground since before the Christian era. People went there on June 24th (Nativity of John the Baptist, whose celebrations are often remnants of pre-Christian midsummer festivals) to sing hymns, picking oak twigs along the way to have them blessed. Pilgrims then continued on to visit a chapel dedicated to St. George before arriving in Auch and the cathedral dedicated to Mary.

The chapel originated in 1254, dedicated to Notre Dame de Onez under the protection of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, aka the Hospitallers. A spring was located at the spot and as such it may have been a sacred place since long before--much as the hilltop in Belleserre. 250 years later reconstruction was carried out by Chevalier Odet de Ganges, authorized to dedicate the new chapel to the Trinity and Virgin of Compassion. At this time a chaplain set up residence. Ho ho, alas our old pal the Revolution came to town and in 1789 the chapel and the chaplain’s house were razed. A half-century later, in 1845, another reconstruction was undertaken. It wasn’t until quite recently that the current edifice was erected. The earlier building was again razed, except for the belltower, and built anew for a cost of almost almost half a million francs.



This history of periodic reconstruction is interesting for a site that today is quite literally in the middle of nowhere and attests to the perception of sanctity of the place. The vitality of the cult may also be seen today in the number of ex-votos found in the chapel as well as by the fact that Notre Dame des Aubets is crowned. According to the Order of Crowning an Image of the Blessed Virgin Mary (1987):

“....it should be noted that it is proper to crown only those images to which the faithful come with a confidence in the Mother of the Lord so strong that the images are of great renown and their sites centers of genuine liturgical cultus and of religious vitality.”

The iconography of the church is somewhat standard for the region. In addition to St. Jacques de Compostela one can find icons of Saint Bernadette of Lourdes, Saint Germaine of Pibrac and Jeanne d'Arc. These three saints, along with Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, have always struck me for their similarities. They represent the pious little girl, cruelly suffering yet remaining steadfast in her faith. As Thérèse and Germaine are also associated with miracles involving roses, they also seem to be stand-ins for or even manifestations of the Virgin Mary. At least mediators between the faithful masses and the very busy Virgin....

There is also a sculpture of Our Lady of Lourdes outside, which is quite common for churches and chapels in the south of France. Given that Aubets was also the site of a spring, the presence here of such an icon may be a reference to it, thus linking Lourdes with Aubets. As previously meantioned, a number of ex-voto plaques can be found attesting to the place as one where favors are sought and granted. We will find this to be true of other places in the area as well. Suffice it to say for now that springs have been sacred places since well before the Christian era and thus Lourdes and Aubets are merely the continuation of an ancient tradition of healing waters.
Another pair of icons in this place gave me pause. To the left of the altar, one finds a small statue of Joseph and Jesus, who can be identified by the globe in his hand. On the right there is another pair, a woman and child. At first this struck me as very odd until I realized I was seeing St. Anne and a young Virgin Mary, identified by her crown of stars. What struck me as so odd is that in this combination, we seem to be looking at contemporaries; why display Jesus as an infant with his father, and facing them his mother as a child? It actually wouldn't be so bizarre, as some sources indicate Jospeh was a widower and significantly older than Mary. But then again, he wouldn't have had Jesus on his arm in this case.

I would love to go hog wild and posit that what we are seeing is Jesus and a sister, but alas, that would reveal that I'd been reading (as I had been at the time) too many books inspired by Holy Blood Holy Grail! But Jesus did apparently have brothers and sisters, collectively called the desposyni by 2nd/3rd c. Christian writer Sextus Julius Africanus. According to the Gospel of the Hebrews, some of these desposyni had positions of honor in the church as late as this time. Unfortunately, this gospel is lost. There is also confusion as to exact family link these desposyni had with Jesus; the terms used in the book could be "brother" but it could also be "half-brother" or even "cousin." We'd definitely like to know more on the subject.

Anyway, a calm little refuge in the middle of the fields. The iconography is redolent of St. Jacques and vegetal motifs, such as floral crosses. The spring, the pre-Christian holy sites in the area and the quite blatant celebration of plants and flowers may indicate a pagan provenance.