Wednesday 9 January 2013

Capital Chaps


 A crouching man.

 A bearded man holding a bell.

 A monsterous animal.

These medieval carved capitals are in the 12th century church of Notre Dame de Fougeray hors les Murs Abbaye.  The name of the church means Our Lady of Fougeray outside the Abbey Walls. This church was constructed for the local parishioners on the orders of the huge Benedictine monastery in Cormery, now ruined and incorporated into later village buildings. Niall and Antoinette wrote about the monastery and its history on Chez Charnizay, but they didn't visit the parish church, which is the largest and highest in the Indre Valley.

8 comments:

chm said...

The imagery of the Middle Ages is absolutely fantastic. Excellent photos.

Tim said...

I love these... especially Snoopy in the first picture...

Susan said...

chm: fantastic is literally the word in many cases! I had to work fairly hard on these photos to make them publishable so I'm glad you appreciate them :-)

the fly in the web said...

So if bored by proceedings in a language you didn't understand you had plenty with which to distract yourself...

Susan said...

Fly: I think a lot of the time the sculptors were entertaining themselves too.

Niall & Antoinette said...

Nope we didn't get round to seeing it and it is still very much on our 'to do list' :-) But we'll wait until we get some good light--not the rain or grisaille we have now.

The first chappie looks a bit like Yoda...

Aussie in France said...

I love the sculptures on capitals. You get to see the personalities of the sculptors.

cindyp said...

Great pictures. So interesting. I always like to spot the gargoyles on churches etc.. I too have got holiday pictures of no sea or sand but lots of gargoyles. I have a little gargoyle selection in my garden too...

Cindy

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