Army talk

The Reference Book for the Soldier

When we had a look around the church in Jambles at one stage of our visit a long forgotten sentence I learned in the army popped up in my brain. When I was called up for duty in the sixties, every recruit was issued with a copy of the “Reference Book for the Soldier”. I am not suggesting for one second that that was good reading material, but some of the entries were quite comical in their stupidity. The one I liked best was (this is not a literary quote) : “a soldier should only be reported as fallen in battle when the head is visually separated from the body”. Specialist subject - the bleeding obvious? Another one I liked was : “Argus listens in” (similar to “a slip of the lip can sink a ship”), referring to thousands of Russian spies that were out to destroy the Dutch army. Those were the days that the Russians were our sworn enemy. Another one I quite liked was “Observing is seeing without being seen” about artillery scouts or observers. I imagine a retired field Marshall brooding on that slogan for months on end. And still it was that one that popped up in my anti-military brain. Now what does this have to do with Romanesque churches? Not much, though…

The altar seen from the chapel - Jambles

The church in Jambles has a separate chapel for the Seigneur (Lord of the manor), and that chapel is separated from the space for the altar by a wall. In that wall an opening has been made, not perpendicular to the wall, but at an angle, in such a way that one can see the altar from the chapel, but the church goers cannot see what is going on in the chapel. That way the Lord of the manor can watch the show at the altar without being seen by the bourgois. QED: “Observing without being seen”.

The chapel seen from the altar - Jambles

I had seen similar holes in chapel walls (amongst others in Cruzille, at least something that strongly resembled this one), without knowing why it was there. Well, at least I know now!

A similar wall opening - Cruzille

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