Could you open that door, please?

In the past we have had our share (as described in a number of previous blogs) of problems with accessing a church. However, once we had the name of the person holding the key (the mairie, the sexton, someone living next to the church) we usually obtained the key without any problems. On the other hand, there must be people randomly ringing someone’s doorbell near the church asking them whether they have the key. And that not everybody is happy with these unsolicited visits is clearly shown on the picture below.

Opposite the church - Chazelle

Chazelle church is normally open, although Mme S. who keeps the key and usually opens the church door in the morning, sometimes forgets or might be a bit on the late side. And although Chazelle church is a very charming one, to say that hundreds of tourists are flocking in day in day out to visit the church is a bit of an exaggeration.
However, the person living opposite the church must have regular callers, and that must aggravate this person so much that he or she has put the following notice on his or her door:
"- I do not hold the key to the church
- I am not the caretaker of the church yard
- Please contact the mayor of the commune (with full name and address)
- Thank you"

Gate and door, both open

The second sentence is a bit odd. The church yard has two gates, but neither gate has a lock. And what sort of people, other than the one and a half tourist per month, would be ringing the door bell opposite the church regularly? The only people I can think of are Taizé goers. Despite the fact that they have two churches in Taizé at their disposal one regularly encounters some kids, often but not always rather unworldly and zombie-like, in the churches, of Ameugny, Chazelle, Bray and even in Cormatin. They take possession of those churches as meditation centres. And there are far more of those kids around than the aforementioned one and a half tourist per month!

Interior Notre-Dame - Chazelle

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

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

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.

Why not still another blog?

Quite some time ago I stumbled upon a website about Romanesque architecture in Burgundy, le site sur l'Art Roman en Bourgogne, which is a subject I am certainly interested in. This site (in French) suggested that it was an inventory of every Romanesque church in Burgundy. Please note the word every!
My first impulse was to look up the church in our own village, Chazelle. Not being hampered by lack of patience I could not find Chazelle, at least not in the alphabetically ordered list of thumbnails of churches, hence I decided to contact the web master of this site. Mr. van Boxtel, a Dutchman running this site answered promptly; below the list of thumbnails were more lists (only text) of churches in this area, and lo and behold, Chazelle was mentioned there. I found soon out that if there was a thumbnail shown on the site, there were more pictures of the church available; was a place only mentioned in the lists there were no pictures available, at least not yet. Obviously then there were no pictures for Chazelle (now there are!).

The church of Chazelle by night

Since that first set of emails I have been in regular contact with Mr. van Boxtel, and we have found consensus with respect to how we could benefit from each other. If I have questions on the subject I can ask him, and in exchange he has by now received all the pictures I have ever taken of Romanesque churches in mainly Saône-et-Loire. So bit by bit my knowledge increases and his site becomes more and more complete. This way everybody is happy!
During our contact, which is still continuing, Mr. van Boxtel posed the question whether I was going to do "anything else" with my own pictures in the future. I had never given that any thought, apart from using some photos in an occasional blog, but his question made me think of writing a blog about the lesser known churches in the area, and mainly the ones which are mentioned on his site, but of which he does not want to (for whatever reason) publish any pictures.
And that is what the next blog posting will be about! 

Practical information (courtesy of Eduard van Boxtel) : 
Church Notre-Dame in Chazelle (Cormatin), 12th century, 3*

For our own website click here.