Around Chagny

Between Givry and Chagny

In my previous blog I mentioned that the churches and buildings around Chagny which we visited during our last quest were not very spectacular. Having said that, the landscape around Chagny is very pretty, partially located in the vineyards of the Chalonnais and already bordering those of the Côte d’Or.
And since this blog is not necessarily restricting itself to the “great” churches I would like to elaborate a bit on the previous trip.









The “Cellier aux moines” in Givry for example looks out over these vineyards, possibly those belonging to this domain. The parcels of land here have not been consolidated, and when you think about it this is not illogical. Every bit of soil here has its own characteristics, and one parcel might produce a Grand Cru, while the neighbouring parcel is only producing 1er Crus. A parcel of vineyards is definitely quite different from a parcel of meadow in a Dutch polder.

Working in the vineyards of Givry

The Château de Rully is not just a mediaeval castle, it is also a wine château. It is beautifully located amidst the vineyards, and in July and August they accommodate individual visitors at € 8.00 pp.

The Rully castle set amongst the vineyards

The hamlet of Agneux forms almost an integral part of Rully, and has a little chapel. The chapel is in private hands, hence cannot be visited. However, it is visible from the road, and although neither Agneux nor the chapel are easily to be found, why not pop by when one is in the vicinity?

The chapel in Agneux

When traveling from the South direction Changy or Beaune one passes through the village of Fontaines. On one of the first street corners another chapel can be found, almost perched against the house of the owner. Again, no spectacular buildings, but not every building can resemble the Empire State Building…

The chapel in Fontaines

Churches which are undoubtedly entirely Romanesque can be found a stonethrow away from La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Making up the balance

As mentioned earlier, the time has come to slowly start making up the balance for the Romanesque churches in 71. To ease searching a bit I have created a map which has been cut down to the bone. It contains only the churches still to be seen, including opening times and phone numbers of the town halls.

Romanesque churches around Chagny

The amount of churches still to be visited is manageable. They are mainly 3-star churches of which I have not yet seen the interior, similarly a few 2-star churches, and last but not least a handful of churches, chapels or buildings for which no assessment has been made yet. On top of that there are only a few 3 or 2 star churches which I have not yet visited at all. Around Changy there is quite a big cluster of those sort of buildings, but our latest visit has reduced the number of buildings to be visited considerably. The first map in this blog shows all churches in the area; the second shows today’s status. Having said this, the pictures are a bit distorted by the fact that I have removed an occasional church of the second map, because there is no information at all about that church available. Often the building has most likely been demolished completely, or it may be recognisable from a window, which is all that remains in al old building, but in which building?

Romanesque churches (te be visited) around Chagny

The qualitative harvest of this latest trip was mediocre. We visited (in the order we toured them) :
1. Givry, Cellier aux moines, a bulding which was findable, however, it was located on private property, and it could not be approached.
2. Fontaines, the village church. The key was not available at the mairie, but they phoned the key keeper for us. It turned out to be the only building we saw from the inside, with hardly any Romanesque remains. It was assessed at 1 star after our visit.

Fontaines : remains of a Romanesque chapel

3. Fontaines, chapel. At the mairie they explained us where it could be found. It turned out to be private property, behind a wall.
4. Rully, the château. It could be visited, but the only Romanesque part was the donjon. And to pay € 8 entrance fee just to see a donjon….
5. Agneux (Rully), chapel. Also on private property, hence not to be visited.
6. Maizières, building of a former abbey. All buildings were obscured by a tall stone wall, and hence invisible.

Maizières : wall around the abbey?

7. Saint-Loup-de-la-Salle, a 3-star church I did not know. Unfortunately closed, hence it will stay on the map a little longer.
The map with all churches also shows :
Churches visited a long time ago : Germolles, Chagny, Farges-lès-Chalon, La Loyere, Lessard-le-National, Bouzeron, Mellecey, Touches.
Canceled, because not wotrth seeing : Saint-Martin-sous-Montaigu.
Saved for a next visit : Remigny, Chaudenay, Saint-Loup-de-la-Salle (interior), Mellecey (interior).
Well, we are getting there slowly!

Saint-Loup-de-la-Salle

Churches which are undoubtedly entirely Romanesque can be found a stonethrow away from La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

A private chapel on private property

We had already seen the church or chapel of Nancelle, a hamlet near Mâcon from a distance.

Saint-Martin - Nancelle

The chapel however is located on private property and in private hands, and a sign “Beware of the dog” certainly stopped us from sneaking in any further. Recently I heard from van Boxtel, that he had contact with the owner, and that he was invited to visit the chapel.
However, he does not exactly live next door, and he had mailed the owner that he could not make it to France this year anymore, but that he knew someone who lives in the neighbourhood and who is also interested in the subject. We received the phone number, made the call, and we could pop by the same day.

The cupola on squinches

The owner and his wife were a very amiable couple. I was allowed to photograph to my heart’s content, we were given a very interesting tour in and around the chapel, were told the history of the place and were assured that we could freely use the pictures I had taken and the brochure he had composed. Hence this picture album! And if we wanted to know anything at a later time, we should not hesitate to give him a call.

Interior Saint-Martin - Nancelle

Of course it was very convenient to have an invitation.
However, I am convinced that those who are really interested in this little Romanesque gem, and who take the trouble of finding their way to Nancelle will find the owner most likely more than willing to give those who ring the bell at the gate the same treatment we received!

Detail of the bell tower

The Mâconnais, not far from La Tuilerie de Chazelle boasts a rich collection of Romanesque churches.

Only one star!!!

Whilst trying to sort out the last Romanesque churches in 71 I had not seen yet I did not have high expectations anymore.

The choir, seen from the nave

More often than not I receive an answer from van Boxtel to the extent that there is hardly anything interesting after he has studied the pictures of the latest batch. It happens seldom that a church is promoted to a one star or even a two star church, but that is about it. Bu now I should have developed an eye for the value of a church, but…
Saint-Léger-sous-Beuvray was such a church. At arrival I found a plaque on the wall saying, that the present church was built between 1856 and 1858, and that it had had 4 predecessors : a 4th C. pagan temple, a 7th C. church, a 12th C. Romanesque church and a 16th C. church.

The choir

That did not sound very promising. According to the brochures of Pastourisme, of which I found one in the church, the choir was partially Romanesque. A few lines down, in the same folder it even mentioned the whole choir as being Romanesque. When we entered the church, I was struck by the beautifully lit apse, which had in the centre a lovely cross (1852). It seemed that this might be an interesting discovery. The strange thing about the apse was, in my opinion, the shape of the arcatures. I have seen quite a few of those arcades, but these shapes seemed new to me. For some unclear reason they resembled to me something I had seen in some English Norman churches. But anyway, when Pastourisme declares something to be Romanesque, it has to be Romanesque! Hence I started an extensive photo session.

Arcatures

Each capital, the arcatures, each interesting detail, etc. was photographed. Whilst taking pictures of the choir I stumbled upon a pilaster canelé (fluted pilaster) which was according to Pastourisme "modelled after the pilasters of the Cathedral of Autun". In my view they could have been old, but they could also have been neo-Romanesque. Anyway, it looked old enough to merit a picture.
After I had passed on the pictures to "Le Site sur l'Art Roman en Bourgogne" the answer came quickly.  The church was only worth one lousy star, and only because there were some old fluted pilasters from the Romanesque period to be found in the church! Which proves that appearances can be deceptive, certainly when one lacks thorough knowledge of the subject….

Romanesque pilaster

Churches which are undoubtedly entirely Romanesque can be found a stonethrow away from La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

History and statistics

As mentioned earlier, this blog has strong links with "Le Site sur l'Art Romane en Bourgogne".

It all started with Chazelle

Even though I was already interested in Romanesque architecture, also possessing a not insignificant number of photographs of Romanesque churches in many villages in the department Sâone-et-Loire, my picture collection started to be taken more seriously when I started to study the above mentioned site a bit more in detail. The first serious step was creating an interactive map with "all" Romanesque churches in the area. The next step was a logical one: create similar maps for the remaining three Burgundian departments. But, since Sâone-et-Loire is my homebase, and not exactly unknown territory, I concentrated heavily on this area.

Cluny followed quickly

My first contact with the webmaster of the above mentioned site, Eduard van Boxtel, goes back to approx. August 2012, after which date I started to transfer bulky batches of photographs to the Netherlands.
May 2013 my interactive map for 71 was ready, and then it became challenging to visit those places of which neither van Boxtel nor I possessed any photographs. Of course there were plenty of places I had never even heard of, but when you start near home it does not take long to scrap places off the list as "being done".
At the moment my cooperation with van Boxtel has been going for almost 2 years, and I managed to complete his list of 4-star churches as wel as that of 3-star churches with my photographs; hence it is time to make up the balance.

Interactive map 71

Sâone-et-Loire boasts in total roughly 456 small and bigger Romanesque churches or buildings, of which it is partly (33%) unknown whether there are Romanesque remains at all. Of these 456 churches I have visited, before and after 2012, 391 churches, which is 86%. Of those 391 churches van Boxtel has chosen 231 buildings of which he has used one or more of my pictures for his site "Bourgogne Romane". That makes up for 51% of the total number, and 59% of the churches I took pictures of. These figure are a bit obscure, since van Boxtel does not prepare separate picture pages for every and each church he considers to be a 1-star or 2-star church. It means however, that if I wanted or could complete van Boxtel's collection, there are about 65 churches still to be visited.

Former church / habitat - Confrançon

There is a snag in this figure of 65. Of a small number of churches it is only known that they are located in a certain village or hamlet. In some cases the remains of these churches are hidden inside a habitat, or even completely revamped into a residential house. Some good examples (and there are more!) are the unfindable chapel in Laives, or the church in the hamlet of Vincelles near Nanton. Neither of them could be found, at least not without assistance of a local historian, and even a local person we addressed in the street had never heard of remains of churches or chapels around there.

Former church / habitat - Ciergues

The bottom line is, that there are still approx. 50 churches on my list. Amongst those there is one 3-star church, one 1-star church and there are three 2-star churches. Those are churches of which van Boxtel (still) has more information than I have. The rest of the churches to be visited fall under the category "still to be studied, before an assessment can be made". And then there are still some churches which could be interesting inside, but which were closed during a previous visit. For those it is a matter of returning one day the town hall is open (sometimes only 4 hours a week!) to ask for the key.

Chapelle Saint-Pierre? - Jalogny

Slowly the net around the churches of 71 is closing in around the "unknown" churches of 71. And one day I hope another email will arrive, similar to the one quoted below:
"Hi, Cees,
A festive instant: all 3-star churches of S&L have a page on my site! Of this I am very proud, and I would like to thank you again, because thanks to your enormous contribution this has been realised a lot quicker than I had anticipated."
And that is a nice boost, is it not?

Chapelle and source Saint-Nizier? - Jalogny

A good base of operations for search for Romanesque churches in 71 is :La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

In the right place at the right time

Some time ago I received an email from a lady of the Office de Tourisme of Buxy with the question if she could use some of my pictures of the Romanesque churche in Saint-Martin-du-Tartre for a tourist guide of this typer of churches in the ccScc (a body uniting a number of communities in the South-Chalonnais).

ccScc

She had been browsing the internet in search of pictures, and she had stumbled, through the site “Bourgogne Romane”, on one of my picture albums. The guide was an initiative of the ccScc, not published before, and it would make an inventory of the 19 Romanesque churches in the area. The lady coordinated the project, a group (Pastourisme), specialised in the churches of the diocese of Autun would write the texts, and the Chalon branch of a French club of amateur photographers would provide the pictures. In a word, why in heaven’s name did they need my pictures of that church? I am certainly not an outstanding photographer!

2012 Saint-Martin-de-Tartre

The answer was a logical as it was simple. I visited this church for the first time on a foggy day in October 2012. The church was open (which is not always the case in churches around here), so I could shoot as many pictures of the interior as my heart desired. I visit rather a lot of churches in the course of time, hence I do not always remember whether a church was open or closed during a previous visit. When we were near that church again, this time on a sunny day in May 2013, I decided to make some pictures of the outside with a nice blue sky. The door was open, and just to make sure I had not missed it I walked in to take some pictures of the interior. This time however there was scaffolding up, making crossing and choir inaccessible, and it hid the interesting parts of this church from view.

2013/14 Saint-Martin-de-Tartre

At the beginning of 2014, when the photo club was on its way to photograph the 19 churches, they found the interior of this church still under renovation; hence they could not take any pictures of the crossing and choir of the church. And that is where I came in the picture, like a ministering angel. The lady asked for, and obtained permission to use my pictures, and in March I was invited to the opening of a picture exhibition of the 19 churches at the Office de Tourisme in Buxy, during which the guide would be presented to the public.

Speeches, speeches, speeches, speeches....

The opening of an exhibition in this part of France consist most of the time of a number of interminable speeches, where each speaker extensively thanks all collaborators, their wives, their children, their servants, their neighbours and their pets. Just grin and bear it. After half an hour, in which my attention was waning, each one present received a free copy of the guide, at which it was aloso time for the obligatory glass of Crémant de Bourgogne and some snacks.

Guide touristique

The guide is now for sale in the town halls and the Offices de Tourisme in the area for the very reasonable price of € 5. And since I do not receive any royalties of this extravagant amount of money, I can, without moral dilemma, warmly recommend this tasteful booklet of 48 pages. It indeed contains a wealth of information on the subject, which is otherwise not at all or hardly available for those interested.
The above mentioned 29 churches are only a short distance away from La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Giving up so easily?

One of the things I have been looking for for a long time, and which I never found, is the Chapelle Saint-Nizier near or in Jalogny.
The only clue I had came from ”Le site sur l'Art Roman en Bourgogne”; the chapel or remains thereof were near a source named after Saint-Nizier. Since Jalogny is not such a big place we decided to give it a go.

Somewhere around here....

The church of Jalogny we had found during previous missions without any apparent problems. A certain chapelle Saint-Pierre (in ruins), located on top of a hill with the same name was already a bit trickier. The hill was indicated on the map, however, we did not find one trace of a chapel. Of course the remains could be hiding in the bushes on the top of the hill, or in someone’s back garden, or even under a newly built house.
In the village itself we found a source or fountain, but that one was called Fontaine des Chèvres. That seemed to be the end of our quest. Until I discovered, that the French internet site Geoportail, Google Earth’s small cousin, not only had aerial views or satellite pictures available, but also a wide range of different maps with a wide diversity of accuracy. One of the available options was the IGN map, not dissimilar to an ordnance survey map. On this IGN map, in between Jalogny and Vaux, there was a field with the name Saint-Nizier printed on it.

Aerial photograph of roughly the same area

Once, while we were in the vicinity, we met a farmer on a tractor. He knew about a source on the edge of the forest, not far from where we met him (see the red circle with no. 1 written in it in the bottom IGN map). We decided to drive in the direction the farmer had indicated, towards the circle with 4 written by it, turned right there, and turned right again at the next crossing (with 323 written by it), entering the forest. Underway we had seen nothing of interest, and due to the weather and the amount of water that had saturated the soil it was not feasible to enter the forest, and a drive along the edge of the forest revealed nothing at either side of the road.
When we got home I studied the map again, this time finding a blue dotted line along this road: water! Where there is smoke, there is fire, and where there is water there must be a source somewhere. During a trip with better weather and soil conditions we investigated this option, went into the forest, looked for the brook, but all to no avail (see the ellips with 2 written by it).

Cassini : Saint-Nizier is to the right of Vaux

In the meantime I had discovered that Geoportail could also produce the Cassini maps. These maps, made by the 18th C. French cartographer César-François Cassini, showed the Chapelle Saint-Nizier in all its glory, although not where we thought it should be. The chapel was located along a path used by pelgrims to Santiago de Compostella, a chapel not being unusual along those sort of tracks (see the red circle with 3 written in it in the bottom IGN map).
And again we drove to Jalogny / Vaux, and again in vain. But this blooming chapel should, sure as hell, be somewhere around there!

Blow up of IGN map

When looking at the map again I got another brainwave. Not being hampered by a good memory for places I "discovered", at the edge of the forest (see the red circle with 1 written by it) a spot with some buildings. One of them could well be a source, or even better, a chapel! When I mentioned this to my learned assistant, she dampened my enthusiasm by saying that that was the place where it all started. But, since you never know, we decided to drive back to this spot.
Needless to say that it was indeed the farm where we had started our investigations. However.... when we rounded the corner (red circle with no. 4) I had seen, from the corner of my eye, a cylindrical hut. When we drove back we found there a covered cylindrical structure, with a little door. When I peeked through the door I saw a pit, source or well, albeit dry. A bucket however "proved" that it once had been a pit. And that is the reason I officially close this investigation into the chapel of Saint-Nizier.

The source Saint-Nizier(?) - Jalogny

For those of our guests of La Tuilerie de Chazelle who are the first to locate the chapel Saint-Pierre, or even better, the correct location of the chapel Saint-Nizier, we have a bottle of wine in the fridge as a reward for their effort!

What’s in a name?

When I was working on my interactive map with Romanesque churches in in Saône-et-Loire based on “Le site sur l'Art Roman en Bourgogne” I stumbled upon Loisy, a village in the Bresse, which should have a Romanesque house.

Château - Loisy

With the help of various maps it is often not too difficult to find a church, but a house somewhere in a village is something different. The driving force behind the earlier mentioned site, van Boxtel, told me that Loisy was a bit more complicated than it seemed. Loisy was the site where several Romanesque statuettes from the motte féodale were found. The statues themselves had been transported to various museums. He could however quite accurately tell me where this motte could be found; near the château in the middle of the village.
Not at all hampered by being modest about my language skills, I assumed that a motte was the same as a moat in English, something that sounded quite plausible given the location of this motte near a castle. A dictionary should have prevented me from drawing this conclusion, but why on earth would one consult a dictionary when one already knows the “answer”?

"Moat" - Loisy

A few days ago we were on another church hunt in the Bresse when we visited Loisy. In the centre of the village we easily found the castle, and a rather shallow ditch could pass, with a bit of fantasy, for the remains of a moat. The only thing that did not really fit in with this interpretation was the fact that van Boxtel almost always, if not always, gives the exact crime scene. And the statues in the moat could have come from anywhere. My burning question now became: where did these statues originally come from? From the chapel that belonged to the castle, or from an old church that stood there once? The answer came quickly. A motte féodale was a motte-and-bailey castle, built on top of an often artificially built hill. Arundel Castle in England is a good example of such a castle. The statues hence came from the original castle, of which nothing remained but the hill on which the remains of the more modern castle still can be found.
The next items on the list to be investigated are the statues, hidden somewhere in the museums of Romenay and Mâcon!

Remains of the castle - Loisy

Guests of La Tuilerie de Chazelle can find more in the Bresse but no longer existing buildings; Louhans for example boasts on Monday mornings a very interesting, big market, where one can, next to vegetables, food, clothing etc. also find and buy fowl and small animals.

Breaking and entering

Have you ever tried to open a locked door, then discovering that you had forgotten the key?

Supper at Emmaus - Saint-Julien in Laizy

Depending on the type of door this does not always involve calling a locksmith. With double doors, where one part is bolted with a vertical pin falling into a hole in the floor, whilst the other part is then locked with a key, one can be lucky. Sometimes (but certainly not always!) somebody has forgotten to lower the pin, and in that case it is possible , by pushing gently but firmly against both door parts, to force the catch in the first door out of its hole in the second. If that works, both doors swing open simultaneously.

Capital - Saint-Julien in Laizy

This knowledge was put to good use when I wanted to visit the church in Laizy in the Morvan. The door was locked, but there was sufficient movement in both door panels. After trying and pushing a bit, I pushed a bit harder, and with a pang both doors swung open and I could go inside.
Of course this can and should be classified as breaking and entering, even though not with the intention to steal something. But some churches contain valuables, and of course there could be an alarm attached to the door, or simply, a neighbour could have warned the police. And how do you explain in French that the door opened itself spontaneously when you just leant against it?

Capital - Saint-Julien in Laizy

In view of the above I decided to quickly take the pictures I had come for and after that disappear on the double. I could not close the door properly, but for a casual passer-by it looked as if the door was at least closed.
The interior of the church was more than worth the effort. I have seen quite a few churches in that part of the woods, but Laizy is certainly a pearl in the crown of the Morvan churches.
The moral of this story? Always try whether there is any movement in a door. It will not be the first time that one of us thought that a door was closed, while in reality it was just sticking.

Arcatures - Saint-Julien in Laizy

For a complete series about this successful break-in, click here.

A day-trip to Autun from La Tuilerie de Chazelle is not complete without trying the door of the church in Laizy!

A pleasant surprise

It does not happen very often, but sometimes…..

Did I come back for this??? Noooo....

One goes somewhere to take some pictures, and when returning home one remembers something that might have been interesting, but one forgot to take a picture of it. It is getting even worse, when that day there had been 4 photo sessions, and one does not remember in which place these pictures should have been taken.
After having visited 4 different churches in the Brionnais I remembered some promising heaps of stones on a piece of grass just outside a church, which I wanted to explore further. I forgot to do so, as well as I had forgotten the name of the place the church was in. During a next visit to the Brionnais we were close to 3 of the 4 places we had visited previously, and they were certainly not that place. Elimination gave us the name of the place we were looking for: Saint-Laurent-en-Brionnais. Google Maps could have helped us more quickly; it was the only church out of those 4 with a piece of grass next to it!

Well, I certainly did not go back for this!

A third visit solved my problem, and brought two surprises. The first (unpleasant) surprise was that the stones were hardly worth photographing. The second surprise however was a pleasant one. During our first visit there was a choir rehearsal going on. Even though the choir was of an abominable quality I considered it to be rude and impolite to march through the church, investigating every stone, using flash, etc. in short, to disturb them. Hence I did not use flash, avoided the part of the church they were using, and kept well out of their way. The whole session resulting in very few pictures of mediocre quality.

Elaborately carved capitals

During this second visit the choir was, thank heavens, nowhere to be seen, which gave me the opportunity to wander around at my own leisure. And it turned out that I had missed out on quite some interesting things during that first visit.
Not only does the church have a number of very interesting capitals, but a number of columns possesses also interestingly sculpted column bases; there were snakes, a rabbit, some crowned heads, etc.
Which proves, that it sometimes pays off to return to the scene of the crime!

Columnbase with rabbit

For my album of Saint-Laurent, click here.

The Brionnais, and not just Saint-Laurent, is more than wort a daytrip from La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Symphony in Stone Opus 1

When I started to get deeper into the subject of Romanesque architecture, every so often I stumbled upon some Latin phrases. And since I do not have a classical background in that sense I had to resort to looking things up in for example Wikipedia. When I came across the term “opus spicatum” in the glossary of terms used in Romanesque architecture, I decided to see what Wikipedia had to say for itself.
The Dutch as well as the English Wikipedia refer to a way of arranging stones or bricks, a so called bond, and the translation that was given was “herringbone pattern”. However, the English Wikipedia also gave as a literal translation “spiked work”, based on the Latin word for spike, ear or head which is spica.

Appareil en épi de blé - Fontenay

The French Wikipedia refers to the same thing, and translates the term literally as “appareil en épi de blé”, which is “ears of wheat pattern”. However, the French Wikipedia mentions that this “appareil” is often mistaken for “appareil en arête-de-poisson”, hence “fish or herringbone pattern”. This last definition links straight to an entry of the same name, which at the time also refered to the Latin name “opus piscatum”. the link to the Latin word for fish seemed plausible at the time. However, in view of this blog I decided to reproduce the search I described earlier.
Neither the Dutch nor the English Wikipedia gave any surprises; the French however did. The French entry was last updated January 2014, and the last remark in this entry states, that even though the term “opus piscatum” can be found in several recent publications, it is not a proper architectural term. This term is a neologism, and there appears to be no Latin adjective “piscatus”.
However, the French still maintain two separate entries in their Wikipedia; both entries distinguish “appareil en arête-de-poisson”, where the fish bones at angles meet at a straight line, whilst in the ears of wheat pattern the ears meet forming a zigzag line.

Appareil en arête-de-poisson - Château de Brancion

That was my first encounter with “opera” (plural of “opus”) in architecture. The French Wikipedia gives under the heading of “appareil” an impressive list of the various “opera” or bonds in use by the Romans in their architecture. And indeed, when I visited the old Roman harbour Ostia Antica during a vacation in Rome I read on a number of information panels descriptions of the various opera to be found on certain walls.
One of these walls was built using “opus quasi reticulatum”, described on the panel as a bond formed by small tuff pyramids, placed at 45 degrees. This description did not exactly give me an aha-experience, but when I looked at the wall I saw what the writer had meant. Wikipedia gives for “opus reticulatum” stones arranged in a fishing net pattern, and the “quasi” is added when the pattern is not very regular. One could also call it a diamond pattern.

Opus quasi reticulatum - Ostia Antica (I)

By this time I thought I had seen it all: herringbone patterns are not exactly rare in very old buildings in this part of France, ears of wheat patterns are often found in decorative road pavements, and the net or diamond pattern I had never encountered outside Rome. It was quite a surprise when I found this pattern while visiting my brother in Bergum, a small town in Friesland, a northern province of the Netherlands. The church wall of the local Romanesque church not only had some decorative panels in ears of wheat pattern, but also some panels in a diamond pattern! And on top of that, the church was partially built using tuff. As can be deduced from the above story, believing Wikipedia blindly is not always a good idea, and one has to be even more careful when the origin of words is explained without any proper knowledge of etymology, or when culture-historical conclusions are drawn based on “ logic” instead of based on historical knowledge. Hence I would not dare to say that the decorations on this church are based on Roman architecture, however, it is not impossible. There must have been quite a bit of cultural cross-pollination after the Christianization of Europe; think of the Lombard builders who flocked from Italy all over Europe and left their traces everywhere, and certainly in France.

Left Opus spicatum, right Opus quasi reticulatum - Bergum (NL)

It is not unlikely that these people had some knowledge of Roman architecture, and it is also not unlikely that these Lombards (or their pupils) did not wander further north than just France.
Anyway, I will soon force myself to change the entry “opus piscatum” in my glossary of Romanesque architecture according to my recently acquired knowledge.

There are sufficient herringbone patterns from the Romanesque and pre-Romanesque period to be found within a radius of 12 miles around La Tuilerie de Chazelle.