Birthday outing

One of the habits I took up from my partner is to organise a special outing on my birthday, instead of spending the whole day as if it were a normal working day.

Sainte-Madeleine, facade

One of the things I had on my list for a long time was Vézelay. We had been there twice, once in 2004 and once in 2007. Strangely enough I had only 5 (five!) pictures of Vézelay in my archives, which given the fact that I have never been shy when it comes to shooting lots of pictures is very strange, to say the least. The church obviously had not made an unforgettable impression on me. Reason enough to drive for two and a half hours to renew the acquaintance. In view of the long trip we headed off quite early, hence we were in time in Vézelay to attend the mass, which was sung utilizing Gregorian chants.

Sainte-Madeleine, narthex

A one hour mass was a bit too much for me; after 10 minutes I disappeared in order to have a good look at the exterior of the basilica and at the narthex. After half an hour I was joined by my partner, and together we admired the capitals of the narthex. By the time the mass was over we decided to go for lunch, and after having eaten we wandered through the mediaeval streets back to the basilica.

Sainte-Madeleine,interior

There we had ample time to view the inside of the church and the beautiful capitals. Unfortunately the crypt was temporarily closed for maintenance, and it would only be re-opened in a couple of weeks. Why I ever had considered this church to be not very interesting became a bigger riddle with each view and each new capital I saw…. Well, to err is human, is not it?

Sainte-Madeleine,capitel

In the meantime the Musée de l'oeuvre Violet Le-Duc had opened its doors. The museum hosts a number of original capitals of which a copy is installed in the church itself (however, the basilica has an immense number of original capitals). This museum turned out to be very interesting as well.

La Cordelle

After the basilica we wandered off to find a chapel located just outside the walls of Vézelay, La Cordelle or La Chapelle de Sainte-Croix. The path to the chapel came past the spot where a cross was erected in memory of the call to arms for the second crusade by Bernard of Clairvaux in 1146.

Monument Bernard of Clairvaux

Although Vézelay turned out to be very interesting indeed, we decided that it was time to go home, after a long trip, an exhaustive visit to basilica and museum and another long trip in store. Well, go home…

Saint-Père, Notre Dame

Via Bourgogne Romane I had received a clue saying that Saint-Père boasted an interesting Gothic church, something not very common in Burgundy. And since we passed through Saint-Père on the way back, why not make a brief stop there? Between the parking area where we had abandoned the car and the Notre-Dame we bumped into the remains of an old Romanesque church, the Saint-Pierre.

Saint-Père, Saint-Pierre

This day out had been a great success; pity only, that the crypt had been closed….
Click here for the website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

It is finished

It must have been in July 2012 when I tried to get in touch with Eduard van Boxtel about his site “Bourgogne Romane”.

Orangerie - Cluny

Ever since that day a steady stream of emails went up and down between Chazelle and Rotterdam at first, Amsterdam later, with questions, answers, remarks, but mainly with pictures of Romanesque buildings in (for the biggest part) Saône-et-Loire. It started off with transferring pictures which I had in stock for possible future use on our own website. After I started studying van Boxtel’s website in greater detail I came across a number of buildings I did not know yet, but which seemed worth a visit.

Former church, now habitat - Ciergues

This soon lead to an interesting day out looking for a specific church, a quest for remains of Romanesque houses in Cluny, a long and tiring search for former churches almost unrecognisable due to renovations into a habitat, several expeditions in search of a chapel which was mentioned somewhere, but which could not be traced on any map (nor in real life after inquiring with the locals, I might add).
In the meantime, after having gotten the hang of it, I started to plot out all churches mentioned on “Bourgogne Romane” in Google Maps, which gave me even more inspiration for even more search actions…

Romanesque churches in 71

In short, the contact I built up with van Boxtel kept me until a few weeks ago off the streets (as it did van Boxtel, because he meticulously studied the pictures I sent him and put them on his site when appropriate), and it gave me and my better half, despite a bit of aggravation every so often with local authorities who did not want to play ball, two years of pleasure and satisfaction. But all good things come to an end, and even though a very small number of items on “Bourgogne Romane” still has not been solved by us (due to a combination of not interesting enough, not findable, too far away, and/or not accessible), I dare say that Romanesque Saône-et-Loire has been almost completely covered by us on the map as well as in real life with pictures.

That's all that rests in 71, folks...

That does not mean that there is nothing more to be visited; revisits sometimes bring unexpected surprises, but the big bulk of work has been done. A comparison between the number of 6, 5, 4 and 3-star churches which are covered with a separate page by van Boxtel in Saône-et-Loire, Côte-d’Or, Nièvre en Yonne speaks volumes. I really do like statistics, and that results in the following percentages (the percentage of churches with a link to one of van Boxtel's web pages related to the number of churches on his overall list):

Saône-et-Loire : 68% (281 of 411 churches) Bourgogne Romane resp. Google Maps.

Côte d’Or : 25% (76 of 306 churches) Bourgogne Romane resp. Google Maps.

Yonne : 21% (49 of 228 churches) Bourgogne Romane resp. Google Maps.

Nièvre : 16% (30 of 185 churches) Bourgogne Romane resp. Google Maps.

The 68% for S&L is rather conservative. In the category 1 or 2 star churches van Boxtel possesses pictures of the majority of those churches, but this material has not (yet) been translated into a web page. When I consider all placenames of which I am sure van Boxtel has pictures, the percentage all of a sudden goes up to 97% (400 of 411 churches).

Somewhere here lies a motte féodale - Loisy

How many churches in Saône-et-Loire already had their own web page before I started my contributions I cannot (unfortunately) retrieve. A cautious estimate is between 25 and 50%.
This however does not mean the end of this blog; during my trips I have stumbled upon sufficient interesting material to keep me going for a while. Hence: will be continued!

Revisit : capitals - Saint-Bonnet-de-Cray

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

Announcement

Since early August 2013 the original URL to the site "Le site sur l'Art Roman en Bourgogne" is no longer valid. In various blogs and on the interactive maps of Romanesque churches in Burgundy I rather abundantly refer to this website; obviously these links do not work anymore either. The problems around that site have been solved; click here to find the new "Le site sur l'Art Roman en Bourgogne". The links on my maps have been changed accordingly.

Don't you have anything better to do???

As I did describe in a previous blog, I have been busy for quite a while composing an interactive map of department 71 (Saône-et-Loire), containing all romanesque buildings in this area.

Saône-et-loire (71)

In the mean time however I have extended my action radius to the other departments of Burgundy as well, and although not 100% ready, I now have maps available for the whole of Burgundy. It seemed logical to stick to the set-up of Eduard van Boxtel's website, and that is exactly what I did. And, as usual with these sort of chores, the final product differs quite a bit from the first set-up.

Côte-d'Or (21)

The status at this moment in time:
Saône-et-Loire (71) is ready. Everything that is found on van Boxtel's site can simply be found on this map. The left hand menu gives the place names in alphabetical order. By zooming in or out one can easily see whether there are any more buildings in the vicinity of the place name, and if yes, how interesting they are. For that purpose I used the rating system of van Boxtel. In order not to duplicate blogs I have incorporated the "Instructions for use" of the maps in my "Glossary of romanesque Archirtecture". The link here after gives direct access to the "Instructions for Use for Department 71" (these instructions are however also valid for the remaning departments))

Nièvre (58)

The link to the maps themselves is given below:


Interactive map Saône-et-Loire (71)

Interactive map Côte-d'Or (21)

Interactive map Nièvre (58)

Interactive map Yonne (89)

Yonne (89)

Côte d'Or (21), Nièvre (58) and Yonne (89) are now also completely ready.

Interactive maps of Romanesque churches in Burgundy

These are short instructions for use of the interactive maps of Romanesque churches in Burgundy. . This description is entirely based on the interactive map for the department Saône-et-Loire (71), but is als valid for the remaining 3 departments (21, 58 and 89).

The Romanesque churches in Saône-et-Loire

This map is entirely based on a web page , further referred to as EvB, where (almost) all Romanesque churches in Département Saône-et-Loire (71) are inventoried. Only a few churches outside this department are included, basically because they are just outside 71 and because they are normally included in travel guides for this department, e.g. Charlieu -42-, Neuilly-en-Donjon -03-.


A short explanation on how this map works:

1. Symbols

The lefthand side menu contains a number of symbols.

1a. The first symbol, the red house, points to our house, the basis for our tours in search of Romanesque churches in the area.

The basis of this map (71)

Symbol 1a : the red house




















1b and 1c. The information symbol i points to general, not necessarily building or edifice related information.

Link to the "instructions for use (71)"

Symbol 1b : the information symbol  i  .
This particlar i gives a link to the "instructions for use" of this map.

Places of interest in and around Cluny (71)

Symbol 1c : the information symbol  i  .
This particlar i points to major places of interest, enabling the user to "jump" straight to a specific town or area (Cluny, Tournus, Brionnais, etc.). From there it is easy to zoom in or out to find edifices in or around the area itself.




1d. Symbols in the shape of various pointers.

The remaing symbols are pointers, in various shapes : upside down drops (called drops) in various colours, with or without en eye in the middle, drawing pins in matching colours, blue question marks and purple cameras. The colours of drops and drawing pins are all related to the rating of the buildings.



The matrix below shows how the various edifices are indicated.
Vertical :
The colours of the markers follow the rating of Eduard van Boxtel's website (EvB).
The dark-blue markers on the lefthandside are used for edifices wit a rating of "6" on a scale of 6, hence for buildings of extraordinary architectural interest (e.g. Cluny, Tournus).
To the right the importance diminishes from "5" (red) down to "1" (dark-violet), where the latter is a building with very few romanesque features (e.g. a window opening, a baptismal font).
The column on the utmost righthandside (purple pointers) indicates that EvB so far has had insufficient information to properly rank the building; they are indicated as ranking "1 or 2".
Horizontal :
The top row (drops with a black eye in the middle) indicates that there are pictures available on the internet. The description of the buildings gives a link to EvB's site only. The rating of those drops runs from "6" down to "2". As soon as as I have my own pictures available, the drop will be replaced by one without a black eye in the middle. In principle the amount of drops with a black eye in the middle should decrease.
The middle row (drops without a black eye in the middle) indicates that there are pictures available on the internet. The description of the buildings gives a link to a Picasa Album of myself, Cees van Halderen (CvH) as well as (sometimes, not always) to a page of EvB's site. The rating of those drops runs from "6" down to "1" and to catagory "1 or 2" (undetermined). In principle the amount of drops without a black eye in the middle should increase.
The bottom row (drawing pins) indicates that there are not yet pictures available on the internet (at least not from EvB or CvH). The rating of those drawing pins falls in the catagories of "3", "2", "1" and "1 or 2". In principle the amount of drawing pins should decrease.

The matrix of pointers

2. Tags or labels

A typical tag (71)

Header and description of a tag


















The header contains:
Postcode
Place or hamlet name. Place names or hamlet names in the side menu are ordered alphabetically, with in case of hamlets the name of the commune between brackets behind the hamlet's name.
Name of edifice.
Rating in stars on scale ranging from 6 to 1 (EvB).


The description contains:
Some particulars about the edifice, if available.
The century the building was erected.
Accuracy of the location on the map.
100% spot on, 90 to 50% reasonable, 0% unknown.
A link to one or more picture albums.
Bourgogne Romane (EvB): gives a short description of the edifice and photographs.
Cees van Halderen (CvH): gives only, but usually more photographs.
Sometimes there is a link to both albums, sometimes to one of either albums.



3. Examples

Some examples of the various entries are given below.
Needless to say, that these are only examples; a drop with a black eye in the middle or a drawing pin could in the meantime have been replaced by a drop without a black eye in the middle.

Edifice with "6" star rating (71)

Building rated "6" out of 6 based on EvB's scale.

Edifice with "2" star rating (71)

Building rated "2" out of 6 based on EvB's scale.

Edifice with "1 or 2" star rating (71)

Building rated "1 or 2" out of 6 based on EvB's scale.
Edifice of which neither EvB nor I have yet photographs or detailed information available.














4. Buildings of which is not even sure whether they are Romanesque at all

Edifice without rating, no pictures available (71)

Building which has no rating (red question mark).
Edifice of which it is not even sure whether it is romanesque at all.
neither EvB nor I have yet photographs or detailed information available.

Edifice without rating, pictures available (71)

Building which has no rating (red camera).
Edifice of which it is not even sure whether it is romanesque at all.
Although I have some photographs available, they are insufficient to qualify the building as romanesque.
People who might be able to clarify this are requested to contact me via email. 



Information can be sent to the following email address:
ceesvanhalderen@gmail.com

Niet romaans gebouw (71)

A building of which it became clear that it has no Romanesque featues (red exclamation mark). There are only pictures available on the internet taken by CvH. The edifice is still shown on this map because there is either still a link between this building and another (often demolished) Romanesque building, or because the building is worth visiting despite it not being Romanesque. There are however very few buildings marked thus; at this moment there are only two.



5. remaining departments 

Boundering departement

Finally the map shows a number of "speed limit signs". the figures on display are however not speed limits, but department numbers. The signs with the numbers 21 (Côte-d'Or), 58 (Nièvre) and 89 (Yonne) contain a link to the map of the relevant department; they are almost as complete as the one for department 71. Because romanesque architecture in Burgunduy does not stop abruptly at the present border of this region, the bordering departments (e.g. 01, 03, 10, etc.) are indicateed with their own "speed limit sign". For most of these departments van Boxtel has made a (limited, arbitrary) choice from the romanesque churches in in a belt of roughly 25 km around Burgundy.
N.B.: the partial maps of the boundering departments 01, 03, 10, 18, 39, 42, 45, 52, 69 and 77 are incomplete and onnly give an impression of the area around Burgundy.

6. conclusion

Needless to say that this map does not pretend to be complete. It is virtually impossible to keep two separate sites, i.e. this map and van Boxtel's site completely in line with each other. When the latter adds a photo page to his site this will not automatically mean that this map will be updated as well. However, I think that this map is very usefull for those who would like to find out which churches can be found in a certain area.
Comments are always welcome!