Reliquary of saint Foy of Conques, Slides of Sculpture

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MASARYKOVA UNIVERZITA

FILOZOFICKÁ FAKULTA

Seminář dějin umění

Bakalářská diplomová práce

Reliquary of saint Foy of Conques

Dorota Vahančíková

Vedoucí práce: doc. Ivan Foletti, M. A., Ph.D.

Brno 2016

Čestne prehlasujem, že som bakalársku diplomovú prácu vypracovala samostatne s využitím uvedených prameňov a literatúry. ….............................................................................

CONTENTS

• 1 INTRODUCTION…..............................................................................................
• 2 STATE OF RESEARCH.......................................................................................
  • 4.1 PRIMARY SOURCES AND LITERATURE................................................
  • 4.2 SCIENTIFIC DEBATE BETWEEN YEARS 1860 AND 1950....................
  • 4.3 MODERN LITERATURE...........................................................................
  • 4.4 CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE...........................................................
  • 4.5 SUMMARY.................................................................................................
• 3 PROCESS OF MAKING...................................................................................
  • 3.1 ORIGIN OF THE HEAD............................................................................
  • 3.2 THEORIES ON THE ORIGINAL VERSION OF THE RELIQUARY..…
  • 3.3 THE STATUE “ DE INTEGRO REFORMATA ”..........................................
  • 3.4 THE CROWN..............................................................................................
• 4 HISTORICAL CONTEXT.................................................................................
  • 4.1 FURTUM SACRUM AND THE LEGEND OF SAINT FOY......................
  • 4.2 THE CULT OF SAINT FOY AND THE RITUAL....................................
  • 4.3 EFFECT ON MEDIEVAL WORSHIPPERS..............................................
  • 4.4 THE MODERN POINT OF VIEW?...........................................................
• 5 CONCLUSION.....................................................................................................
• 6 BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................................................................................
• 7 APPENDIX............................................................................................................

De sainte Foy, patronne de Ruthènes, Je veux chanter les trépas glorieux, Sa renommée aux provinces lointaines, Et son doux culte aimé des nos aïeux; Je veux chanter ses miracles sans nombre, Ses jeux divins, sublimes, gracieux, Son nom enfin, astre sortant de l'ombre, Pour resplendir plus brillant à nos yeux^1_._ 1 Firminhac, 1879, pp. 11-

with two long earrings. In her stretched hands, dated back to the 15th^ century^11 , saint Foy is holding two small golden scabbards, in which flowers are often placed (fig. 3). The whole statue is adorned with 63^12 precious stones and intaglios. The last complex work was published in year 2007^13 , yet some questions about this statue are still not answered, for example the date of making of the crown. In the first chapter of this bachelor thesis, I will introduce the bibliography on this subject and summarize it, in order to identify the already answered questions. In the second chapter I will describe the gradual process of making of the statue and its transformations. Subsequently, I will discuss the cult of the saint Foy in Conques and its ritual practices; and in the end of this thesis, I will try to explain how a medieval viewer percieved the statue and compare it with the perception of a modern person.

2 State of research

The strangeness and unique nature of the golden statue of saint Foy have always been an object of interest of many authors over the last two centuries. The first mention of the reliquary dates back to the 11th^ century, when a scholar from Angers visited the monastery in Conques for the first time and was astonished by statue's appearance, comparing it to a pagan goddess. Eight centuries later, the reliquary had a similar effect on several historians. In the two last centuries, the main objective was to determine the time period of creation of the reliquary, whereas recently, historians have been studying the engagement of the reliquary in rituals and the significance of the statue in the context of medieval sculpture.

2.1 Primary sources and literature

The first to mention the reliquary statue of Sainte Foy was a scholar named Bernard of Angers in his work Liber Miraculorum Sancte Fidis^14 (hereafter Liber Miraculorum ) from 11th^ century. This text also contains the first known description of the statue. Bernard's desription roughly corresponds to the statue's current looks^15. The text is 11 Fricke 2015, p. 32 12 Ibidem, p. 153 13 See Fricke 2007 14 see Bouillet (ed.) 1897 15 Taralon, Taralon-Carlini 1997, p. 14

divided into several parts which include Passio, the part about the life and martyrdom of the saint, Traslatio, in which the author discuses the theft of her relics from the city of Agen and their transportation to Conques, and the last part Liber Miraculorum , that focuses on the miracles which are associated to her. These three parts correspond to his three visits of the abbey in Conques^16. Liber Miraculorum is the core of any scientific research on the statue, the most important work for every author who wants to write about this topic. The reliquary statue is briefly mentioned in the text of Translatio Metrica S. Fidis Virg. Et Mart. ad Monasterum Conchacense by anonymous author. The text is included in Acta Sanctorum Octobris^17 from 1770. Prosper Mérimée who found the statue in one of the cellars in 1838, was “not prepared to find so much wealth in such a desert,...^18 ”After centuries, he was the first to mention and shortly describe the reliquary in his work Notes d'un voyage en Auvergne from 1838 , where he states that the golden statue of Sainte Foy reminds him of 11th century's work. According to him, the head of the statue is out of proportion to the body, and may be a result of a restauration in a later period^19. However, his notes are nothing but impressions and therefore, we can not consider this work as scientific. Although the two resources mentioned above only contain brief descriptions and mere references to the statue, they are indeed fundamental for subsequent research of the reliquary in the 19th^ century.

2.2 Older literature and determining the date

The main subject of the scienific debate in the 19th^ century was to determine the date of creation of the reliquary. A number of authors adressed this problem by developing various theories which they believed provided them with the most accurate answer. The first to tackle the issue was Alfréd Darcel in his work Trésor de l'église de Conques^20 in 1861. According to Darcel, the golden reliquary statue was created in the time of the transfer of the relics from city of Agen to the monastery in Conques, during 16 Bouillet (ed.) 1897, p. XIV 17 see De Raemsdonk, Byeo, Suysken, Bueus (eds.) 1770, pp. 289- 18 Mérimée 1838, p. 190 – (Fr.) “nullement préparé á trouver tant de richesses dans un pareil désert,...” 19 Ibidem 1838, p. 190 20 see Darcel 1861

Limoges also contains illustrations of the crowned head and a number of ornaments displayed on the throne. Like Desjardins before, Auguste Bouillet in his L'Église et Le Trésor de Conques: Aveyron: Notice Descriptive^31 published in 1892, attributed the making of the statue to the period of the abbacy of Étienne II, in the second half of the 10th^ century^32. Nevertheless, he claims that the state of the statue as we know it is a result of many transformations throughout the centuries, due to many gifts and offerings from the pilgrims which were used to adorn the reliquary^33. The text contains a detailed description of the statue, including a description of the materials and ornaments, as well as an illustration of the whole statue. Émile Molinier thoroughly analyzed the golden statue in his work Histoire générale des Arts appliqués à l'Industrie du Ve à la fin du XVIIIe siècle. L'Orfèvriere religieuse et civile^34 published in 1902. The author refused Alfréd Darcel's theory, which states that the reliquary was made in the 9th^ century as well as the theory of Ferdinand de Lasteyrie, who dated the statue back to the 11th^ or 12th^ century. By extensively quoting Bernard's Liber Miraculorum , Molinier claimed that the Majestas sancte Fidis had been indeed made in the time of Étienne II, between the years 942 and 984. Furthermore, he suggested that there had been de facto two statues, the first one being more modest, and the second statue, described by Bernard in Liber Miraculorum , that had been“entirely remade” in the time of Étienne II^35. In the second part of the text, Moliner scrutinizingly described the golden reliquary as well as the throne. Additionally, he emphasized several details, such as hair, which he considered to be a “poorly understood” imitation of Byzantine hairstyle, the crown that had nothing in common with the works from the region of Conques, and several ornaments, that may have been of Spanish influence^36. Another author, that is worth noting is Émile Mâle and his work L'Art religieux du XIIe siècle en France. Étude sur les origines de l'iconographie do Moyen Age^37 from

1922. In a chapter about “ Majestés ” from Auvergne, he noted that the statue of saint Foy was not the only majesty in that region and mentions some other examples like the 31 see Bouillet 1892 32 Ibidem, p. 50 33 Ibidem, p. 50- 34 see Molinier 1902 35 Ibidem, p. 109- 36 Ibidem, p. 112 37 see Mâle 1922

Majesty of saint Marius from the monastery of Vabres, the Majesty of saint Amaud and the Majesty of Saint Géraud from the abbey of Aurillac. He claimed, that these statues were probably a work of monastic artists and suggested that here may have been an art workshop in the monastery of Conques. In the matter of datation, he agreed with Bouillet, and comfirmed that the statue had been made in the 10th^ century. He also provided a short description of the reliquary statue, stating that it possesed a “miraculous aureole”. Most importantly, Mâle was the first author since Bernard in Liber Miraculorum, to briefly describe a ritual, in which the reliquary was engaged. After two decades, in 1944, Jean Hubert published a short article La Majesté de sainte Foy de Conques in Bulletin de la Société Nationale des antiquaires de France^38_._ This article is the first one to focus solely on the statue of saint Foy. Hubert's conclusion is that the first statue “ ab antiquo fabricata ” was made a long time before Étienne II., shortly after the transportation of the relics to the abbey. Regarding the transformation of the statue (“ de integro reformata ”), he expressed an opinion, that the statue had been repaired so many times, that it was imposible to determine the time period of the remaking^39. The last one to mention and examine the golden reliquary before the restauration works in 1954 was Paul Deschamps in his article L'orfèvrerie à Conques ver l'an mille , published in Bulletin Monumental in 1948^40. Deschampes went back to the Rupin's theory and the two terms “ ab antiquo fabricta ” and “ de integro reformata ”, and suggested that the statue had not been entirely remade but only transformed, recoated with even more magnificent layer of gold, and embellished with precious stones. He also suggested that the original wooden head coated with thin metal had been replaced by a new hollow head made of thick gold leaf^41. All of these resources are very important for further research on the reliquary statue of saint Foy. The authors mentioned above had delivered information and developped theories, which were the basis for the most influential works about the Majesty of saint Foy, and also helped many other authors to start or continue their research on this subject. In addition, they indicate the state of the reliquary before the restoration works of the treasury of Conques in 1954. 38 see Hubert 1944 39 Taralon, Taralon-Carlini, 1997, p. 17 40 see Deschamps 1948 41 Deschamps 1948, p. 90, in: Taralon, Taralon-Carlini 1997, p. 16-

coming from all regions of France and abroad. By citing Bernard's Liber Miraculorum , he mentions several examples in the text when someone gave a piece of jewellery or gold to the statue as a votive gift, after the statue had appeared to them in a dream, demanding the particular piece^48. His conclusion is that the shortage of gold in Carolingian times was probably caused by religious institutions who used the golden gifts from the pilgrims for goldsmithing works or stored it in their treasuries^49 (as, for example, the monastery in Conques). A similar problem concerning the origin of the jewellery that adorns the reliquary, was adressed by Jean-François Fau in his short article Aveyron. Au sujet des objets d'origine islamique du trésor de Sainte-Foy, à Conques in 2002. Fau has found an intaglio of islamic origin, decorating the gown of the statue of saint Foy, that even bears an inscription in arabic^50. In 1978, Ellert Dahl in his article Heavenly Images: the statue of saint Foy of Conques (Aveyron) and the signification of the medieval 'cult image' in the West in Acta ad Archaeologiam et Artium Historiam pertinentia^51 discussed the power of the relics hidden in the statue, and the effect of the reliquary on medieval worshippers. After several years, in 1990, another problem was adressed by Amy G. Remensnyder in her article Un problème de cultures ou de culture? La statue-reliquaire et le joca de sainte Foy de Conques dans le Liber miraculorum de Bernard d'Angers^52_._ Her main subject of interest is the medieval cult of the statue of saint Foy and the attitude of the two cultures, clerical and popular, towards it. The northern elite clerical culture, represented by Bernard of Agers, percieved this cult and the reliquary of saint Foy as a matter of the popular, illiterate cultre. The text of Liber Miraculorum is a proof that the opinion of Bernard of Angers on the statue of saint Foy has changed over time. Furthermore, representatives of the cleric culture in the south competed with each other to be patrons of the reliquary-statues of this type^53. With these arguments, Remensnyder proves that in the context of devotion to saint Foy, these two attitudes coexisted and even converged. Remensnyder mentioned the golden reliquary of saint Foy in her other article Legendary Treasure at Conques: Reliquaries and Imaginative Memory^54 in 1996. Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheigorn, the author of the English translation of Liber 48 Ibidem, pp. 108- 49 Ibidem, p. 110 50 Fau 2002, p. 187 51 see Dahl 1978 52 see Remensnyder 1990 53 Ibidem, pp. 351- 54 see Remensnyder 1996

Miraculorum^55 , discussed the cult of saint Foy, and the ritual in which the reliquary had been involved, in their article An Unsentimental View of Ritual in the Middle Ages or, Sainte Foy Was No Snow White^56 published in 1992. Jean Taralon presented the results of the restoration works three times, first in 195557 , second time in 1978, in his article La Majesté d'or de Sainte-Foy du trésor de Conques^58 published in Revue de l'art , and at last in 1997, in his extensive article La Majesté d'or de Sainte Foy de Conques^59_._ This last work was written with the help of Dominique Taralon-Carlini and appears to be the most complex work on this subject yet. Taralon summarized all existing theories about the date of creation of the reliquary and confirmed the theory of Jean Hubert, that the original statue was made in the 9th century, and underwent many modifications since then. He also found out that the head had been made a long time before the original statue and dated it back to the 4th^ or 5th century, claiming that the head belonged to a statue or a bust of an empreror. By examining all parts of the reliquary, Taralon was able to determine the time period of fabrication of each one of them. In addition, he discused the origin of the maiestas statues and the importance and the role of the reliquary in the context of medieval sculpture and its direct decscendants in the southwest of France^60. Regarding the discovered facts and accuracy of results, this work has not yet been surpassed and is recommended for all subsequent researchers.

2.4 Contemporary literature

The most recent works include an article Sainte Foy on the Loose or, the Possibilities of Procession^61 from 2001, where the authors Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheigorn returned once more to the ritual which featured the reliquary of saint Foy, this time discussing the procession in which the statue was employed. Danielle Gaborit-Chopin summarized the research on this subject in her short article La Majesté de sainte Foy de Conques published in Monumental in 2003 , presenting 55 see Sheigorn, P., Robert, L. A. C. (eds.), 1995, The Book of Sainte Foy. Philadelphia 56 Ashley, Sheigorn 1992 57 see Taralon 1955 58 see Taralon 1978 59 see Taralon, Taralon-Carlini 1997 60 Ibidem, p. 52 61 see Ashley, Sheigorn 2001

originally a bust of a ruler from Late Antiquity^70. Rather than focusing on the origin of the golden head, Fricke discusses the golden face and the vivacity of the gaze and its effect on a viewer. Fricke noted that the eyes ...”capture the viewer's gaze with a magnetic force...”^71 Her conclusion is that anthropomorphic reliquary statues, which include the reliquary statue of saint Foy, are just one important phase in the process of the revival of three-dimensional representations of saints in the Middle Ages, along with crucifixes and body-part reliquaries. Although Beata Fricke often agrees with Jean Taralon, she offers a critical approach to some of his arguments. Neverthless, the work of Beate Fricke is, as was the work of Jean Taralon before her, one of the most complex and significant works on this subject yet and I strongly recommend it for future researchers.

2.5 Summary

To summarize, the restoration works in 1954 made it possible to confirm the theories of Alfred Darcel and Jean Hubert, who estimated that the oldest parts of the headless statue had been made in the second half of the 9th^ century. The golden head is dated back to the 3rd^ or 4th^ century. In addition, the restoration works delivered information on the age of every part of the golden statue and therefore allowed to clarify the gradual evolution of the reliquary. Modern researchers agree on the process of making over the ceturies and thus the question of the time period is more or less concluded. Another question was discussed by several authors – the origin of the anthropomorphic reliquaries such as the statue of saint Foy. Several theories were developped, the first one stating that these statues originate in the pagan cult and its idols, other one claiming, that these statues are a result of the cult of relics and their veneration. However, this question is too general and and it can not be answered by solely focusing on the reliquary of saint Foy. The role of the golden majesty of saint Foy and other similar reliquries in the revival of monumental sculpture in the Middle Ages is another issue, which has been discussed several times, first by Raymond Rey in 1956 and subsequently by Jean Taralon and Beate Fricke. For Jean Taralon, the golden reliquary is a predecessor of bust-reliquaries 70 Ibidem, p. 149 71 Ibidem, p. 152

in southwestern France^72 , for Beate Fricke, anthropomorphic reliquaries are just a phase of the revival. Concerning the ritual, in which the statue used to be engaged, the first mention can be found in Bernard's Liber Miraculorum. Émile Mâle is the next to shortly describe the ritual in 1922^73. This ritual was also the object of interest of Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheigorn, who published two articles on this subject, discussing the procession in which the relics in the reliquary used to be venerated. The effect of the statue and of its uniqueness on medieval viewers and worshippers is relatively roughly described in the previous research. The authors often described their own impression, that the statue had on them, however, not enough attention has been given to the effect on a medieval viewer. I personally, consider this issue very interesting, and I would like it to be further developped in this bachelor thesis.

3 Process of making

The statue of Saint Foy as we know it today is a result of many modifications throughtout the centuries. The restoration works in 1954 made it possible to determine the age of many parts of the golden reliquary, and thus partially reconstruct the gradual process of making of the statue. Over the years, the reliquary was, of course, damaged several times, whether it was the passage of time or frequent use of the reliquary for cultic purposes. Jean Taralon even noted that there were several cases of “larcenies”^74 , when people ripped out and stole a number of plates of leaf gold, in which the statue had been covered. Consequently, the statue had to be repaired many times, covering the most damaged parts like the back, the chest and the knees of the statue in silver or in vermeil^75. Moreover, smaller and less damaged parts were fixed by inserting intaglios and gems to the ripped out areas. In this case, we can say that not all of the jewellery and intaglios adorning the statue were originally gifts from pilgrims^76. Despite numerous reparations and modifications, we are able to conclude, that the statue looks more or less the same than it did thousand years ago, when the intellectual and theologian Bernard visited the monastery in Conques and decribed the statue for the 72 Taralon, Taralon-Carlini 1997, p. 52 73 see Mâle 1922 74 Taralon, Taralon-Carlini 1997, p. 15 – (Fr.) “larcins” 75 Ibidem, p. 14 76 Ibidem, p. 14-

probably used to attach a laurel wreath on the head^82 (fig.5). This discovery allowed him to affirm his theory, that the head had been originally a part of a bust or a statue of an empreror. The features of the face, like the head itself, are displayed in a peculiar angle (fig.6). The statue is looking up, with the head tilted back. This strage position can be explained by the fact, that the head most likely had to be adjusted, in order to attach it to the rest of the statue. However, the interesting angle allows “the statue to make eye contact with a viewer standing in front of the statue.^83 ” The most striking feature of the face are its vivid eyes. After dismantling the head, Jean Taralon found out that they were made independently, on two different small plates, which were subsequently glued to the golden masque with wax, from the inside (fig. 7). Suprisingly, they are not made of enamel, like most of the previous researchers thought (except Émile Molinier^84 ), but of glass. The iris and the pupil are made of dark blue glass, while the sclera is made of a white opaque pieces of glass^85. This interesting method of making of the eyes provided their distinctive vivacity. Jean Taralon was astonished by the fact that the eyes were made independently, immediately posing a question, whether the eyes were made at the same time as the rest of the head. He answered this question right away, noting that they were clearly made at the same time, because there are no visible traces of subsequent manipulation of the eye holes^86. Several authors, for example Beate Fricke and Cyntia Hahn^87 , acknowledged Taralon's theory about the Late Antique head. The latest author, who wrote a complex publication on this subject in 2007, Beate Fricke named it “an exceptional example of reuse.^88 ” When looking at the head of the golden statue of saint Foy, an interesting question emerges in one's mind. Why has a male head of an unknown ruler been used to portray the young female saint^89? After many centuries, there was no preserved representation of saint Foy. In order to represent the saint, whose physical body had been dead for more than six centuries, the author had to portray “a fictive and imaginary likeness of 82 Ibidem, p. 24 83 Fricke 2015, p. 152 84 Taralon, Taralon-Carlini 1997, p. 55 85 Ibidem, p. 27 86 Ibidem, p. 27- 87 Hahn 2010, p. 168 88 Fricke 2015, p. 32 89 Ibidem, p. 149

the saint^90 ”. In this case, instead of displaying a random appearance of saint Foy, the author decided to use the ancient head of an unknown ruler. The head was probably in possesion of the monks, placed in the treasury of the abbey. Taralon suggested that “...the head was not made for the statue. It's the statue, that was made for the head.^91 ” While searching for the material that could have been used to create the reliquary, they decided to reuse the head. The author then made the wooden parts of the statue in order to fit the head. Beate Fricke called this reuse “a fundamental shift in how venerable persons were represented in three dimensions^92 ” in the high Middle Ages.

3.2 Theories on the original version of the reliquary

Based on the text of Bernard's Liber Miraculorum and his terms “ ab antiquo fabricata ” and “ de integro reformata ”, we now know that the statue we know today, is not in its original version. The golden reliquary-statue has been transformed or remade into its current version shortly after the miraculous recovery of the eyes of Guibert “the Illuminated” by the statue of saint Foy, which occurred around year 985^93. There are two existing theories about the original version of the statue, one developped by Jean Taralon, who suggested that the wooden torso had simply been adjusted to the new throne. On the contrary, Beata Fricke argued that the statue had been originally a bust- reliquary redesigned into a full figure reliquary several years after the miracle. Regarding the question, if the golden head was originally a part of the first version, or the second, transformed version, Taralon refuted the theory of Paul Déschampes, who thought, that the golden head had replaced the original wooden head, coated in gold. One of the oldest parts of the statue is the wooden core. It is made of two pieces of yew wood, one for the neck and torso, and the other for legs. These two wooden parts are connected. There are other wooden parts added to the two main pieces, like forearms and feet, but these parts were made from a different tree trunk^94. The relic, a piece of skull of saint Foy, was placed in a cavity in the torso, through the back of the statue. The wooden core was made only as a fundamental support, and was never 90 Ibidem, p. 183 91 Taralon, Taralon-Carlini 1997, p. 18 – (Fr.) “la tête n'a pas été faite pour la statue. C'est la statue qui a été faite pour la tête.” 92 Fricke 2015, p. 149 93 Taralon, Taralon-Carlini 1997, p. 32 94 Ibidem, p. 21