Marjorie Greene <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>See Linda Seidel's _Legends in Limestone_ for a thorough discussion of this
issue. You've got the basics right.
MG
--- "Jotischky, Andrew" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> I'm sure this example of a double cathedral city is cheating, but what about
Autun? I believe that the existing 12th cent church of St Lazare, which was in
fact the canons' church, was used as the bishop's seat for periods in the
later Middle Ages, while the 'proper' cathedral,
St-Nazaire, just across the road (which now only survives in fragments
incorporated into later buildings, and a recently excavated cloister),
was under construction.
> Andrew Jotischky
> Department of History
> Lancaster University
sorry, i didn't realise that Andrew Jotischky had already mentioned the Autun
situation --or perhaps i haven't recieved his post yet?
indeed, my source for Autun was this recent (1999?) book.
Professor Seidel is a thoroughly qualified, imaginative and somewhat prolific
art historian (professor at Univ. of Chicago).
however --and this was the reason why i posed the question to the list--
interesting though *some* of her ideas may be about Saint-Lazare (the church)
and "Gislebertus"'s role --if any-- in the creation of the famous sculptures
which adorn that building, i have to say that i found her work to be
*thoroughly* unreliable when it comes to the purely historical material she
rather superficially examines.
while dealing with cartularly sources is not a particularly difficult
discipline (compared to, say, mastering the intricacies of exegetical
theology), like the latter, it does require a bit of work and, at the least,
some degree of (self-) training. Professor Seidel's treatment of this
material --especially in regards her embarassing and thoroughly inept search
for other "Gislebertae" in the charters-- makes it clear
that she has not grounded herself in the basics of the discipline. (i could
elaborate in some specificity, but that is off the point of the present
discussion.)
in her defense, regarding the question of the actual nature of the "new"
church of St-Lazare, we should note that (according to her) virtually nothing
has survived in the way of original documents directly concering the place.
it is worth noting, however, that she is, in typical art
historical fashion, utterly reliant solely upon the published primary and
secondary sources.
in any event, though the church did, presumably (is there a document?),
*belong* to the canons of the cathedral, i don't believe that she says that it
was, originally, "the canons' church" in the sense that they were installed
there --she only speculates that it was probably serviced by
some sort of body of canons (who may or may not have been actual canons
of the cathedral), the exact nature of which we cannot, apparently, discern.
it looks to me that the piecing together the 12th century situation, if
it can be done at all, would require a careful and thorough examination and
knowledgeable deconstruction of *all* of the existing source
material, contemporary (12th c.) and, especially, the later
medieval/early modern sources, which latter might, inadvertantly, reflect on
earlier matters.
a difficult task, to be sure.
best to all from here,
christopher
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