Former church, former town hall, former village centre

Whilst creating my interactive map of Romanesque churches in Saône-et-Loire, locating the church of Ozolles appeared to be not as straight forward as I thought it was. The church was mentioned on Eduard van Boxtel's website, and I had assumed the church to be the village church, which seemed perfectly logical. According to van Boxtel however this was not correct. He knew that it was supposed to be a "former church, next to the mairie, in lieu dit St-Martin". Ozolles is not exactly next door for us, hence we decided to wait until we had to go to the Brionnais to see a client. And since we were then in the vicinity, we could look out for that church.

Mairie - Ozolles

Some time ago we had to go to the Brionnais. That day we were going to try to locate the church of Ozolles and a chapel in Pomey, a hamlet of Ozolles. The "new" church in Ozolles was found fairly quickly, not far from the mairie. Around the mairie there was a plot of open land, which possibly once surrounded an old church. We found somebody walking around the village, but according to this person there was only one church in Ozolles, possibly built on the foundations of its predecessor. The trip to Pomey was not much more successful. Pomey was not shown on the Michelin map, and a sign pointing towards Pomey ended up in a totally different hamlet. After this debacle we put both Ozolles and Pomey on hold.

Interior of the modern church - Ozolles

However, the quest was not given up so easily. The next time we went to the Brionnais we came better prepared. I had received more detailed information from van Boxtel about the Romanesque church in Ozolles. The church was a former church, next to the former mairie, in the former village centre of Ozolles. The old village was centred around Saint-Martin, a hamlet slightly north of Ozolles. The church was one of a cluster of 3 buildings. From one of the other buildings one could clearly see the facade of what once had been a church.

The end of the former church - St-Martin (Ozolles)

In these sort of cases Google Maps as well as the French Geoportail.fr (option IGN maps) gives far better information than Michelin. Saint-Martin was quickly spotted, there was only one group of three houses there, and the chapel of Pomey was also well indicated. A screen dump of the map with Saint-Martin resp. Pomey made it quite easy to find both buildings.

Facade of the former church - St-Martin (Ozolles)

The former church of Ozolles was easily found. The owner, who was according to van Boxtel's source not very helpful where information about his property was concerned, was not home, the gates were not locked, in a word, nothing or nobody stopped me from making a tour around the property. That was Ozolles out of the way.

Chapel from 1877 - Pomey (Ozolles)

Pomey turned out to be easy to find with the detailed map I had printed. And the first building I encountered whilst entering the hamlet appeared to be a chapel. After having had a good look around I noticed a sign saying that the chapel had been built in 1877; not exactly a year famous for its Romanesque building activities! Studying the map closer showed that the chapel (Chapelle des Blancs) was just a tiny bit further down the road. It was a chapel without a roof, and despite of the lack of cover the chapel still seemed to be in use. There was a primitive altar with a cross, and in front of it stood a simple wooden bench.
Despite the fact that these trips are not always as successful as one wishes, one really gets a kick in case the looked for item is indeed found!

Chapelle des Blancs - Pomey (Ozolles)

The Brionnais is well worth a daytrip from La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Reading is not really my strong point

I had visited the church in Ougy (commune of Malay) at least three times, the last two times to make some more detailed pictures of the inside and the outside of the church. Inside the church itself there are a number of remains of wall paintings, and one of them should depict Philip the Apostle. I had looked a number of times at all the fragments, but I had never spotted someone who could have been Philip.

The church of Ougy

The apse hosts some very vague remains of a Chist in Glory, and a picture of a winged bull (Luke the Evangelist) on the left hand side and of Luke himself on the right hand side. And further there are some remains of a mourning band with the coat of arms of the Family du Blé of Uxelles, the Lords of Cormatin.

Interior with western door

In October 2013 Eduard van Boxtel asked me if I could provide him with a big size photograph of the interior of this church; he wanted to cut out a picture of the fresco of Saint-Philip to his website. And that question woke me up. Indeed, just above the western door, which is always closed, one could distinguish with a bit of effort, in a half circle, a fresco. Because the walls of the church have rather suffered a long time from moisture, and were hence pockmarked with stains, the fresco did not look so much different from those stains at a distance.

The coat of arms of the Du Blé family

The larger picture was transferred in no time, with a promise that I would pop by the church again to take a proper picture; we quite regularly pass by Ougy anyway. I had never seen this church closed, so it was quite a surprise to find, on Wednesday 6 November, the door locked with a notice pinned upon the door :"Church closed from 4 November to 3 March 2014, except on Saturdays and Sundays". No big deal of course: on Saturday 9 November we were back. However, irrespective of the promise on the notice, the church was closed. Sunday 17 November we had more luck; the side door of the church stood wide open.

The symbol of Luke the Evangelist

Even now it was not directly clear what the fresco was all about. The painting is located in a rather dark part of the church, but once my eyes had adjusted themselves to the twilight it was obviously the one I was looking for. Because I prefer to take pictures without flash, and because my partner discovered that the door was not locked but bolted with a beam resting in recesses in the wall, it did not take much time to discover how to unbolt the door which made the fresco perfectly visible.

Luke the Evangelist

Anyway, shooting some detailed pictures was a doddle, and after that it was just a matter of closing the door and put the beam back into place.
In hindsight I could have found the fresco easily on a previous visit. According to a brochure the fresco is located "on the other side of the West portal". This may not be as clear as "inside, above the front door", but for a weathered church spotter the location in the brochure should be clear enough.
Which proves again, that he who does not use his brain, will have to resort to using his legs, in my case his car!

Philips the Apostle

It takes only 15 minutes by car to get from La Tuilerie de Chazelle to Ougy.

Decorations (3)

It is essential to view the pictures of this blog at full size; by clicking on the relevant picture it will be sufficiently enlarged.
Picture 1 shows a number of relatively simple decorations, applied to the facade of the abbey church of Tournus. The Lombard bands, supported from lisenes are clearly visible; the facade also has two more friezes. The upper one shows a flat saw teeth motif in the plane of the wall; the lower one has a protruding saw teeth motif with the teeth protruding perpendicularly to the wall.

1. Saint-Philibert - Tournus

In a book about Romanesque art I once read a good piece of advice: when you go visit a church, it is a good idea to bring a torch and a pair of binoculars. This may sound a bit strange, but crypts can be rather dark, and a torch can help you to see an interesting capital. The same goes for capitals high in the nave of a church. A pair of binoculars could make those capitals visible. How to go about high capitals in a dark church is something the author did not tell. A pair of binoculars however can also be useful for studying tall bell towers.

2. Saint-Philibert - Tournus

Picture 2 shows a number of finely sculpted columns, three with a helical motif (on the corners) and three in the shape of an human figure (on the top storey, in the middle and on the right hand corner). The modillons are also beautifully carved.

3. Saint-Philibert - Tournus

The decorations in picture 3 are a bit less exuberant, however not less interesting. Here also very distinct bandes lombardes, but exceptionally interesting are the sculpted capitals in the shape of distorted faces. For these sort of pictures a zoom lens is worth every penny. I am quite content with the results I obtain with my 18 - 105 mm zoom lens.

Tournus is only 25 minutes driving away from La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Ignorance

In the area we live in one encounters regularly signs saying "Site Clunisien", which are located at the beginning of a village or, in some cases, fixed to the wall of a building, usually a church. I had always assumed that those were references to interesting Romanesque churches operating under the umbrella of and ruled by Cluny abbey. I am referring to churches like those of Chazelle, Malay, Saint-Gengoux-le-National, Saint-Hippolyte, etc. Analogous to this the church of Chapaize was a subsidiary of Tournus abbey, which would explain why there was no sign like that in Chapaize. This "theory" turned out to be based on sheer ignorance.

Sign at Saint-Hippolyte

The first time I assumed that there might be more to the word site clunisien than I thought was during an excursion I made in honour of the introduction of the website "clunypedia.com", a site hosting an interactive map of sites clunisiens in and outside France. Apart from Cluny abbey we visited the Chapelle des Moines in Berzé-la-Ville and the Domaine des Vignes du Maynes, a vineyard in Cruzille. Maynes appeared to be a corruption of the word Moines, so the connection with Cluny did not seem to be totally illogical. The monks from Cluny had been producing wine here, a long time ago. However, I completely failed to see the connection between a vineyard and a church building. Apart from that, the interactive map of sites clunsiens was not exactly densely populated with sites around here, something that surprised me a bit. The man who gave the introduction to Clunypedia emphasized that the whole site was still under construction, which would explain the lack of churches on the map.

Clunypedia - Sites Clunisiens around Cluny

Recently I was browsing on yet another website, "sitesclunisiens.org", and it seemed like a good idea to plot out all the sites clunisiens, at least around Cluny, on a map. I assumed beforehand that this site would show considerably more sites clunisiens than Clunypedia did. However, that turned out to be not true. On the picture the density of sites clunisiens around Cluny is not high at all, at least not when one knows how many Romanesque churches there are around here.

SitesClunisiens - Sites Clunisiens around Cluny

The picture below shows how many Romanesque churches there are in roughly the same area. The difference is stunning! A closer look at "sitesclunisiens.org" revealed the following: according to this site there were not more than approx. 110 sites clunsiens in the whole of France. All entries on this site are exclusively prieurés, doyennés or domaines (vineyards). And it was only then that the penny started to drop.

Romanesque churches around Cluny

A prieuré (priory) is a subsidiary, hence a "daughter" monastery of the "mother" abbey. And that Cluny abbey had quite some daughters was well known to me. A doyenné (deanery) is a supplier of agricultural goods to an abbey or priory, and since monks cannot live on fresh air alone it seemed logical that there were quite a few deaneries near the many monasteries in the area. A doyenné has a different meaning in the hierarchic structure of the Roman Catholic church as well, which will be explained later. That wine suppliers ranked quite high among the sites clunisiens can be explained by the fact that Cluny is located in Burgundy. Sacramental wine has got to come from somewhere, right? The amount of sites clunisiens was by now more or less equal and identical on both websites concerning this subject.

The doyenné of Chazelle

But whatever happened to all the other churches around Cluny, such as Jalogny, Ameugny, Ougy, just to name a few? Were they excommunicated because they had been disobedient, and kicked out on the harsh streets of the Clunisois? Or had they decided to gang up with other abbeys, such as Tournus or La Ferté? It was then that the penny really dropped. An abbey or monastery is simply not in charge of parishes or parish churches! Parish churches fall under the jurisdiction of a doyenné (to increase the confusion, a doyenné in French is also the administrative layer between the individual parishes and the diocese), and the deans running those deaneries are reporting to a bishop, not to an abbot or prior! And of course, most or all of these sites clunisiens have a church; the reason is simply that every priory or abbey has a priory or abbey church. And that is very often the only remaining part of the priory or abbey.

Domaine des Vignes du Maynes - Cruzille

Who would however ever have thought that an interest in Romanesque churches would lead to thinking about the organisation charts of the Roman Catholic church?
Despite the story above, around La Tuilerie de Chazelle there are more than sufficient sites clunisiens to keep those interested busy for a day!
http://www.latuileriechazelle.com/home.html

Decorations (2)

Before I became deeply affected by Romanesque architecture, I hardly knew anything about the subject.

Chissey-lès-Mâcon

That only came with time. Hence I was slightly unpleasantly surprised when somebody, looking at my pictures of the church in Chissey-lès-Mâcon, said : "Ah, you managed to find the modillons as well!". I did not even have the foggiest what a modillon could haven been! Since that time I have learned a few things. A modillon is a short corbel, supporting a roof edge or cornice.

Châteauneuf

Whatever was so special about those corbels remained a mystery to me, until I realised that corbels decorated with a relief are not present on every church. I have experienced that the more you look for them, the more you find. And not only at roof levels where you can spot them with the naked eye; they can also be found at the roof edges of relatively high bell towers, where one can hardly distinguish them.

Châteauneuf

It still happens from time to time, that whilst processing my pictures I blow up the top of a bell tower, indeed finding some interesting details which I had not spotted whilst taking the picture.
And the more churches one investigates this way, the more one starts to appreciate the sometimes bizarre details one finds. By now I have an impressive collection of men sticking out their tongues, men hanging upside down, modillons with a double head, a cow's head, a dog's head, hands in all sizes and shapes, geometric patterns, etc. etc.

Châteauneuf

This blog does not go into the deeper meaning behind those depictions. I am sure there is one, but I simply lack the knowledge to say something sensible about it. Despite this, I still like to go into the Brionnais, because many a church in that area has sufficient nice or funny or gruesome modillons to fill several films of 36 exposures.
All pictures except one were taken in Châteauneuf; the only reason behind it is the fact that it was the first series (but certainly not the only one!) in my collection giving me more than sufficient photographs for this blog.

Châteauneuf

The Brionnais is less than an hour's drive from La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Decorations (1)

In many Romanesque churches one finds, between the end of a column or pilaster and the beginning of the arch an impost, a usually trapezoidal ridge protruding from the face of the column or pilaster. One could call an impost a decoration, albeit not a very exuberant one. I think that it also served as a support for the centring, the wood construction carrying the stone arch as long as it is not finished and hence self-supporting.

Centring (Wikipedia)

The first time I stumbled upon a decorated impost was in the Saint-Pierre in Brancion. Apart from the frescoes this is one of the very few decorations in the church. What exactly is shown in this relief is not very clear to me; to me it resembles a relief of two fighting dragons, battling head to head.

Saint-Pierre - Brancion

But I found also something interesting in the Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption in Champlecy. This is clearly shown on the picture below. On the right hand side of the picture there is a "normal" impost, which you can find in almost every church. The left hand side one however, has been decorated with a sculptured cylinder attached to the slanting side of the trapezium.

Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption - Champlecy

Something similar I encountered in the Saint-Nizier in Baron. The first picture shows an impost as described above, but here the cylinder has been intrinsically decorated as well; the second one shows an impost decorated with a row of cylinders in a billette pattern.

Saint-Nizier - Baron

Saint-Nizier - Baron

Finally, in the Saint-Pantaléon in Trambly I found an impost decorated with a pattern consisting of a row of circles, similar to a pattern with oves. On top of that the slanting side of the trapezium has been replaced by a rounded rectangle. Besides, (see 2nd picture) the face of the rectangle perpendicular to the longer side shows a curl, suggesting a stone "scroll".

Saint-Pantaléon - Trambly

Saint-Pantaléon - Trambly

I had never imagined that something at first sight looking so relatively simple as an impost would lead to such an extensive blog!
For the website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle, click here.

Slow and steady wins the race, once more!

In a previous blog I mentioned that I might have found the former church in Ciergues, a hamlet near Donzy-le-National. In the meantime I have made an interactive map of Burgundian Romanesque churches, and this "church" is indicated on that map as well. The menu on the left of the map itself contains a list of alphabetically ordered place names.

Shed (left) with other buildings behind it

We still regularly drive through Ciergues, and every time I look to see whether there is somebody home to acknowledge the fact that the shed I had found was indeed the church. Recently we drove through the hamlet again, coming from the north, and this time we stopped at the first cluster of three that make up Ciergues. And what we had never spotted, due to the angle the road makes, we spotted now: behind the shed with the buttresses another building was hidden, consisting of two parts. The panorama photo shows the shed left in the foreground; the building behind it can be seen on the right hand side. A consultation with our export revealed the following: the left hand part of the building in the background had church potential.
There were three characteristics supporting the candidacy of this building over that of the shed:
1. the pignons (gable ends) on both sides of the building, slightly protruding above the roof;
2. the small window with round arch, on the left hand side of the wall;
3. the modillons (corbels) under the lower edge of the roof.

Click on the picture to enlarge

The first search action took place in October 2012, the second a year later. Did I hear someone say that I give up easily?
For our own website, click here.

The Priest of Ars

The Priest of Ars

As a non-Catholic it always surprised me to see, apart from the usual Christ, Mary and Joseph statues, the statue of a small guy with a rather pointed nose dressed in "modern", i.e. non-biblical clothing in Catholic churches around here. Asking an American Anglican Reverend (!) whether he knew who this could be, he came up with the name of Jean-Baptiste Marie Vianney, in England also known as Saint-John Vianney, the patron Saint of all (Catholic) parish priests.
On a lovely day we drove off to Ars-sur-Formans, a village in Ain (01), for us on the other side of the Saône. Very soon we stumbled upon road signs pointing to "Village du Saint-Curé" (village of the Saint-Priest) - the real name of the village was hardly ever displayed on those signs - and it did not take long to find the place. From the Michelin travel guide I had learned that Ars is an important place of pilgrimage, and not only for priests. Each year Ars is visited by half a million worshippers.
The whole village breathes Saint-Curé.

The bell tower of the Basilica

His house is converted into a museum, the old village church has been replaced by and partially incorporated into a new basilica (1862), which houses the remains of the priest (a rather tasteless grotesque building by architect Pierre Bossan who also built the Notre-Dame-de-Fouvière in Lyon), there is a museum with wax effigies of the priest during the various stages of his life, in short, the former parish priest still "lives" in this village. Inside the Basilica one can see the priest's body, and for the heart of the man a separate chapel has been built.
There are, in the bell tower of the "old" church, still six old Romanesque columns and capitals, originating from the cloister of a partially demolished priory church, that of Salles-en-Beaujolais.

Saint-André in Saint-André-de-Bâgé

After all this rather modern church-spotting we decided to visit the very interesting 11th Century Saint-André in Saint-André-de-Bâgé on our way back, still on the same side of the Saône, just opposite Mâcon. The apse of this church boasts an interesting arcade, a number of the columns have elaborately carved capitals, the portal of the church is beatiful as well, in a word, this church turned our visit to Ain into a great succes.

Between Ars and Saint-André we stumbled upon some 12th Century churches, those of Biziat, Saint-Julien-sur-Veyle and Sandrans. Only the church of Saint-Julien-sur-Veyle was open to visitors.

Saint-André in Saint-André-de-Bâgé - lust

A concise overview of Romanesque churches in Ain bordering Saône-et-Loire can be found on this map.

Saint-André-de-Bâgé is only a day trip away from La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

An unexpected discovery

Recently we visited an artisan in Bonnay, who produces miniature wooden things. Not only does he make tiny little toys and elaborate knickknacks, very popular in the sixties to be displayed in type cases, no, next to his workshop he has a small museum where he displays all the items he has made in the past. He keeps one specimen of everything he has ever fabricated for this museum.

Everything moves!

One of the cutest things for sale at the moment is a tiny workbench of not higher than 2 inches, of which the vice actually can be operated by a thin wooden handle. Apart from items for sale he has a beautiful collection of music boxes, a merry-go-round, a clock (of which the only part not made of wood is the protective glass casing), a large wall cabinet with many small doors carrying the names of professions; opening a door will bring a violin maker into action, etc. etc.
This museum is certainly worth a visit, and to get an impression of the work of Joël and Maryse Dedianne, click here.

The old bell tower (left)

One of the walls of the museum is covered with information about Bonnay and surroundings. A picture of a piece of wall in opus spicatum caught my eye, the only part still existing of the original Romanesque church of Bonnay. Next to it a blow-up of an old picture postcard was displayed, showing the bell tower of that church next to the new church. The tower still existed around 1935.
I am now 100% convinced that the piece of wall, about which I once wrote a blog, indeed belonged to a church one day!


Bonnay is at cycling distance from La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Church spotting

L'Abergement-de-Cuisery

I have kept myself busy for quite some time now composing an interactive map of (amongst others) Saône-et-Loire, which enables the user to easily spot where exactly to find Romanesque churches. Basis for this job was the inventory of Romanesque churches in Burgundy to be found on "Le site sur l'Art Roman en Bourgogne".
That sounds simpler then it is in reality.
Firstly one starts off with a place name and preferably a postal code.
Those two pieces of information will locate at least the village or the town quite accurately in Google maps or in Geoportail, the French equivalent of Google Earth.

Chapaize

For villages one has to start looking for a church on the satellite map. A church is often recognisable (but not always!) from its cross shaped plan, from the fact that a church is often (more or less) orientated along a west-east axis, and from the often semicircular chevet which closes off the body of the church on the east side. If the map gives street names, a street name contaning the word "église" is a give-away as well. An excellent example of such a church is the one in L'Abergement-de-Cuisery.
Another give-away is that lots of churches are located on or next to a graveyard, like the church in Chapaize.

Cathédrale - Autun

That not all churches are to be found so easily can be seen from the aerial picture of Autun Cathedral. The orientation is more north-south than west-east, it does not show a clear cross shaped plan and the semicircular chevet can hardly be recognised on the picture. Fortunately Google maps locates the church for you when you enter "Autun Cathedral" in the search window.

Trivy

Another interesting example is the church in Trivy. This church is easily recognisable as a church, however, it is even more clearly north-south orientated than Autun Cathedral. The eastern arm of the cross has a semicircular ending. This church was once a "normal" church, and orientated west-east. The present semicircular chapel was once the chevet of the church; when the church became too small the nave was demolished, and a new nave was built in north-south direction because there was more space available than in the "correct" direction. the old chevet hence became a side chapel.

Chapelle Saint-Nicolas - Autun

A chapel is often even more difficult to find. It is quite often rectangular, hence not having a semicircular chevet, and the orientation is sometimes random. This is clearly the case with the Chapelle Saint-Nicolas in Autun. Again, searching in Google maps for a street name or for "Chapelle Saint-Nicolas", or asking somebody who has sufficient knowledge or literature will solve this problem.

IGN zoom level 1 - Chazelle

Ordinary road maps can also be of help. The Michelin road maps and the IGN walking maps indicate churches quite accurately, showing the researcher at least on which side of a road or of a village one can find the church. The aforementioned site Geopotail.fr offers even better options. When starting up this site it offers a satellite map; however, in the lefthand menu it offers a variety of maps to choose from. The first option is the IGN map. To illustrate the use of Geoportail I have chosen to look for the church of Chazelle, because I can find this church in real life with my eyes closed.

IGN zoom level 2 - Chazelle

When I enter "71460 Chazelle, Cormatin" in the search window, I end up at zoom level 1. the picture shows roughly where the church can be found in relation to the main roads.
Zooming in further, I end up on the ordinary IGN walking map.
This zoom level 2 shows more accurately where the church is, although at this scale one can only pinpoint the church quickly when one knows from zoom level 1 where to look.

IGN zoom level 3 - Chazelle

Zooming in even further to level 3 shows the church very clearly, when one knows that grave yards are coloured violet, and churches are coloured purple. Once this far, Chazelle church can easily be traced on the satellite picture as well.

Satellite picture - Chazelle

Most of the above I have found out by trial and error. Certainly when I started off with these maps like the one of Saône-et-Loire I had to ask Eduard van Boxtel, the webmaster of "Le site sur l'Art Roman in Bourgogne" many a question concerning the location of certain churches.
But, at the end of the day both of us can say that together we have cracked the system!

Chazelle church can also be found easily by asking for it at the owners of La Tuilerie de Chazelle.