Poetic license

Altaar - Avenas (69)

During our many visits to Romanesque churches I usually pay a lot of attention to the architectural details (columns, capitals, arches), but relatively little to religious paraphernalia in that church (altars, baptismal fonts, statues of saints).

Madonna met kind -
Saint-Huruge

Of course there are some exceptions, such as churches with an extremely beautiful altar (e.g. in Avenas, 69) or with a statue of a saint which is dating back a thousand years or so (such as in Saint-Huruge, 71).
However, it pays off to keep your eyes open also when the paraphernalia are not that old. And I am not referring to the aesthetic value of some statues, but to deviations from the “norm”.
I had never realised that there was such a norm where statues of saints are involved, but thinking about it it seems logical. Church goers were, certainly in a distant past, illiterate, and no matter how often you scribble St-Peter under a statue, the fact that this guy carries one or more keys identifies him better than words could do.

Sint-Agathe (Wikipedia)

Hence each saint has his or her own protocol: Saint-James the Greater always carries some pilgrim’s scallops with him, Saint-Denis of Paris walks around with his head in his hands, Saint-Agatha carries her cut-off breasts around on a platter at the same time holding an olive branch, Saint-Fiacre has a spade in his hands, etc. Every saint has his own image, and whether you order a statue from Paris, Lyon or Marseille, it will always look roughly the same.

Sint-Agatha - Jambles

But not each statue comes from a factory. Some are produced by the local sculptor, wood cutter or artisan, and they can allow themselves some poetic licences.
In the church in Jambles we encountered a statue of Saint-Agatha, still in the possession of both her breasts and carrying a cross instead of an olive branch.






In the same church we found a rather plastic depiction of the Holy Trinity….

Heilige Drie-eenheid - Jambles

Saint-Fiacre
(foto Christophe
Finot - Wikipedia)

In Sassangy we bumped into Saint-Fiacre. The guy looked relatively modern, and was not only carrying his spade but also a watering can. Not being very well versed in recognising Roman-Catholic saints, I thought they had accidentally purchased a statue of Alan Titmarsh instead of one of the patron saint of gardeners…

Saint-Fiacre - Sassangy

The link to the website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle can be found here.