medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
From: John Briggs <[log in to unmask]>
>> i'm opting for a land route --at least for the cathedral. St. Peter's is
down on the floor of the valley, just a few steps from the river, and a water
route to it remains a possibility.
> Stone was always transported as far as possible by water.
yes, as far as i can see, as long as you've got a few inches of water beneath
your barge you were ahead of the game, polling upstream or down.
i'm not up on the geology of the region, but from observing quite a few
churches in the Chartrain Beauce it seems to me that there were sections of it
which were very poor in building stone --quite a few are in "petite appareil"
or even of a kind of flint-like rubble embedded within cement/mortar, covered
with a smooth finish of cement (outside) or plaster (outside).
one of the places i'm thinking of specifically is the village of Dangeau,
which lies en plien Beauce
http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/France/Central/Centre/Dangeau/photo56352.htm
but is also on the Ozanne,
http://ariadne.org/cc/MISC/DANGEAU.JPG
a tributary of the Loir (*not* the Loire), not far from Bonneval, which is on
the Loir proper and has a large abbey from the late 11th - early 12th c.
constructed in fine ashlar stone, one of the most important buildings
surviving in the region (now a ruin, alas)
http://ariadne.org/cc/abbeys/bonneval/crossing-elev.jpg
http://ariadne.org/cc/abbeys/bonneval/nave-elev.jpg
there is also an early 13th c. parish church in the town, done in a
Bercheres-like limestone (which i don't seem to have a shot of).
and some fine 13th c. houses:
http://ariadne.org/cc/abbeys/bonneval/13c-house.jpg
http://ariadne.org/cc/abbeys/bonneval/13c-house2.jpg
however, we also see in Bonneval city walls and gates which are a mixture of
ashlar work and petite appareil
http://ariadne.org/cc/abbeys/bonneval/towngate.jpg
ditto, some later m.a. houses
http://ariadne.org/cc/abbeys/bonneval/bonneval-bay.jpg (isn't that a
*spectacular* window?)
clearly something else is going on here than just the nearness to water, both
at the stone source and the building site.
>Land transport was incredibly expensive as well as difficult.
yes, it is said that the *stone* is free, just lying there in the ground,
waiting for the labor to dig it out, shape it, transport it, finishshape it,
raise it up and put it into place.
no question about it, water was preferred.
in the case of Bercheres stone, carting it the km or so to the river at
Morancez and loading it onto barges, floating it downstream to the City, and
offloading it for use at sites *down in the valley* was certainly a
possibility (at least so it appears, from my comfortable armchair view).
but hauling it up the hill, through the town, to the cathedral seems to be
enough of a task to obviate the laborsaving achieved by using the water
route.
>As late as the eighteenth century, the British Admiralty gave instructions
that timber was not to be cut further than 10 miles from a navigable waterway.
There are alleged to be still "Admiralty Plantations" in Sussex that were
bought up at a time of panic over timber shortage - but it was found cheaper
to transport it from
the Baltic or North America.
yes, just as the U.S. regime is discovering as we speak, it takes an Empire to
support a decent Navy.
c
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