medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
for the sake of hapless tourists who are unable to find it on the map, i
should have mentioned that the present "vocation" (is that the right word?) of
the original St. Martin-au-Val is St. Brice (in the faubourg of the same
name).
c
------ Original Message ------
Received: Thu, 11 Nov 2010 12:52:45 PM EST
From: Christopher Crockett <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [M-R] saints of the day 11. November (part 1)
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> From: John Dillon <[log in to unmask]>
>
> > 2) Martin of Tours (d. ca. 397).
>
> > Dedications:
>
> the mid/late 11th c. church of St. Martin[-au-Val] was the heart (and only
remaining medieval part) of the major priory of the powerful and prolific
Mother abbey of Marmoutier of Tours in the Diocese of Chartres and is the most
important surviving pre-"gothic" building in the region (the imposing abbey of
Bonneval being only a tantalizing, very fragmentary ruin).
> Canon Yves Delaporte's learned article "Chartres" in the Dictionnaire
d'histoire et géographie écclésiastique, XII (1953), col. 560) sums up its
history:
> This monastery, situated in a suburb of Chartres, near the Eure, on one of
the approaches to the city, appears to occupy the site of the first Christian
cemetery of the Chartrain church; several of oldest known bishops' tombs have
been found there, and there are Merovingian sarcophagi to be seen in the
present church, which was itself rebuilt around the beginning of the 11th
century.
> A noticeable lack of documents make reconstructing the early history of the
abbey very difficult indeed. (We may assume that it was pillaged and ruined by
the Norse invasions of the 10th century.) In any case, towards the middle of
the 10th [sic] century it was given over to secular clerics, and, in 1128
became a priory of the great monastery of Marmoutier, near Tours.
> In 1668 it was acquired by the Capuchins, protected by the Chancellor
Séguier, and remained part of that order until the Revolution. Today it is a
hospice.
> The massive romanesque church underwent a radical restoration in the 19th
century; the other buildings date from the time of the acquisition by the
Capuchins.
> After the Hotel-Dieu near the Cathedral was demolished in the 1860s, one of
the 12th century portals from this structure was moved to St. Martin's, where
it is now next to the North entrance to the crypt in the choir.
> **************
> only about a mile from the Cathedral of Chartres, it sees remarkably few of
the 1,000,000 Chartrain visitors (or, remarkably few visitors see it).
> which is a shame, as it is a nice walk through the newer (and flatter) part
of town), and is well worth seeing, though much restored in the 19th c.
> its imposing --albeit rather sterile-- West facade (which only a Hard-Core
architectural historian could love):
> http://ariadne.org/cc/abbeys/st-martin/westfacade.jpg
> a classic "Benedictine Plan" chevet, with radiating chapels:
> http://ariadne.org/cc/abbeys/st-martin/apse.jpg
> a massive nave, with interesting "blind" arcade at the clerestory level:
> http://ariadne.org/cc/abbeys/st-martin/nave.jpg
> an elegant choir, with rather important (albeit drastically "restored")
double capitals:
>
> http://ariadne.org/cc/abbeys/st-martin/choir.jpg
> c
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