medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

From: John Briggs <[log in to unmask]>

> >> Did the abbey nave have any parochial function?

>> there was a parish church, dedicated to St. Hilaire, just off the
north side of the choir, perhaps visible in a 19th c. postcard here
in a later incarnation the facade of that (now destroyed) church is quite late
(classical) and i don't *believe* that it was a medieval building.
>> but i do think that there was a parish church more or less in that
position, vis-a-vis the abbey church quite early on.


 
> It is quite likely that there was a parish church in the abbey nave - most
likely in the north aisle, and that the 13th century door marked the access to
it.  

possible, i suppose.

there is certainly no trace of any 'wall' in that part of the church which i
can recall.

there was a new building campaign in the 1120s which was still going on by the
time of the "inventio" of the tomb of St. Gilduin in the 1160s and it might be
that the (external) parish church of St. Hilaire dates from this period --my
too dim memory is that there are mentions of it at least that early.


>There always tends to be friction, so the parish church tends to get 
moved outside, but close to its original position.

yes, in this case, if your hypothesis is true, as close to its original
position as possible.

i would suppose that the _burg_ around St. Peters was pretty tightly packed
--in the early 12th c. it would still have been a seperate, walled "suburb" of
the walled city proper up on the hill, and free real estate was scarce.

but the monks might have owned the _atrium_ near their church and placed the
new parish church there.

all this speculation is only driven by the fact that i don't have my books to
hand, which might provide something resembling a real answer.

> > the curious 13th c. double columns on the butresses flanking the
third bay east of the portal *

http://ariadne.org/cc/abbeys/st-peter/nave-ext-north.jpg

>may* have had something to do with St. Hilaire --or not.
 
> Possibly, but the capitals being at different heights woould take a bit of
explaining.

i don't see how they could have been, structurally, any part of the
freestanding church of St. Hilaire (if, indeed, it was freestanding).

those detached columns are reminiscent of the "screen" of columns which we see
on parts of the cathedral

http://classics.uc.edu/~johnson/hum98/slides/set2/slide040.jpg

which was under construction at about the same time as the 13th c. campaigns
at St. Peter's.

> What about on the south side of the tower?

i don't recall.

it is not visitable in the present configuration of the buildings, but one can
catch a view of it from a sidewalk which skirts the edge of the hill,
approximately following the line of the wall in the upper left of the 1684
drawing here

http://ariadne.org/cc/abbeys/st-peter/1682drawing.jpg  (hey, there's the
business end of St. Hilaire, peeking out from behind the apse of the abbey
church) 

i have no memory of seeing any trace of a portal on that side of the tower
--otherwise i would have made an especial effort to visit it.

as far as perforations at ground level in that west tower, there is a doorway
in the east side, opening into the nave of the church; and a full fledged
portal with two columns, "cushion" capitals and bases which look like late
11th or early 12th c. work, on the north side.

and that's it.

> I was thinking more about processions leaving the church (to circumabulate
it, for example).

in common with most other Benedictine houses, circumambulation would have of
necessity involved more than just walking around the church itself, since the
cloister and conventual buildings (as visible in the 1684 bird's-eye) would
have required circulating all the way around them, too.

>> if the monks wanted to go "uptown" for some shopping or touristing or
processing (no ordinary from St. Peter's has survived, i believe)
they would probably want to have a doorway in their church which
opened in that direction, wouldn't they?
 
> No, it doesn't work like that - see below.

>> and, even if the parish church out in the "place" on the north did
serve the population of the bourg, that populace would not be
*forbidden* from entering into the abbey church, would they?

> It depends. The Cistercians were not keen on any laity entering their 
church, and certainly not women - which is why they had a cappella ante 
portas.  

St. Peter's of Chartres was definitely not a Cistercian house, newly- founded
away out in the sticks.

it was a typical ancient Benedictine house, presumably functioning in the same
fashion viz-a-vis its nearby cathedral city as did all the other Merovingian
Benedictine foundations in a similar location --St. Germain-des-Prez, St.
Martin's of Tours, St. Germain of Auxerre, etc.

(the Ministre de Kulture has a very, very nice site devoted to the lattert
abbey, btw: http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/auxerre/en/ )

St. Peter's was *intimately* part of the fabric of the lay world around it,
from those in the population of its surrounding _burg_ to those of the
landowning families in the Beauce, from which some of its abbots were drawn
and, presumably, a goodly percentage of its monks.

>Benedictines were more relaxed, 

a masterful understatement.

>and it is probably safe to say that there was some parochial presence in
Benedictine naves.  But there would not have been unrestricted access.  Unless
there was a solid internal wall, I would expect 
access to the church nave to be only via a gatehouse in the precinct wall.

no gatehouse evident in the 1684 drawing that i can make out --though there
surely must have been one.  perhaps it was on the site of the gate which we
see in the 1684 drawing and had been remodeled out of existence by that time.

it seems like the "solid internal wall" was gone at least from the time of the
13th c. campaign.

>> that doorway is, literally, the monks Door Onto the World.
 
> No - they didn't go via the nave.  In fact, they would probably only go into
the nave in the Sunday procession. 

there *must* have been a doorway from the south side of the church into the
cloister, but i have no memory of seeing the traces of it --though i do now
recall some sort of rudimentrary transept there in the right place.  it's not
a true transcept, i don't think, more of just an enlarged bay.  the tomb of
St. Gilduin was there, on the east side of it.

if the monks made so little use of the nave, one might wonder why it was that
it was so necessary to have such a large one (there are quite a few cathedrals
which are smaller than St. Peter's of Chartres).

> Access to the outside world from the cloister would typically be through the
claustral buildings into the inner courtyard, through the inner gatehouse to
the outer courtyard, and through the outer gatehouse to the outside world.  

i presume that's the "inner gatehouse" visible at the opposite corner of the
south wall of the cloister

http://ariadne.org/cc/abbeys/st-peter/1682drawing.jpg

>For shopping it would be easier for the traders to come into the inner
courtyard and deal with the abbey servants.

lighten up, John.

i was just joshing wit you about that "shopping" stuff.

c

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