This handsomely produced volume marks one of several publications on the monastery of Ste-Foy of Conques that stem from a grant funded through the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. As a group, these publications have invigorated interdisciplinary conversations concerning this UNESCO World Heritage Site by inviting leading scholars to offer new perspectives. This latest volume exemplifies the nuanced, multifaceted insights garnered through this approach.
Following a brief introduction by Adrien Palladino, the first two articles offer readings of Bernard of Anger’s celebrated eleventh-century text, the Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis, a collection of miracle stories associated with the monastery’s sacred patroness. This project was continued by the monks after Bernard’s death. Sébastien Fray offers a critical assessment of the argument advanced by Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn that both Bernard and Sainte Foy acted like a trickster, a concept borrowed from anthropological literature on North American Indians. Fray interrogates various aspects of this claim, such as Bernard’s use of the word joke (ioca) in reference to some of the saint’s actions. While we might be tempted to read this Latin word as aligned to the trickster type, Fray suggests, among others, that it conveys Foy’s youth, a feature stressed again and again by her devotees. The chapter concludes by suggesting that a dialogue between anthropology and textual historicism can offer productive insights into the social realities of eleventh-century France.
William Diebold unpacks a single, short passage by Bernard that cast Crucifixes as the only acceptable form of sculpture; representations of saints, the cleric suggests, should be restricted to paintings and texts. Diebold develops two arguments with respect to this passage. First, he unpacks the theological roots of Bernard conferring special status to the Crucifix, rooting this justification largely in Incarnational doctrine, including the Eucharist. Second, Diebold argues that the association of text and image as analogues because they are two-dimensional media offer insights into a semiotics that does not necessarily distinguish between word and (two-dimensional) image. This argument is situated in a broader art-historical discourse on how medieval objects were understood to produce meaning.
Martin Naraschewski offers a systematic analysis of the many formal resemblances between the monumental sculpture and architectural details of Bamberg and the churches along the Via Podiensis, especially Conques. These are enumerated in several helpful tables. Positing a “transregional dynamics,” he suggests that southern France held significance for the Hohenstaufens. Naraschewski suggests that his approach can offer insight into complex institutional interrelations that could span great distances, both political and geographic.
Building on the recent architectural studies of the site, including those of Éliane Vergnolle and Lei Huan, Éric Spauhubert focuses on the motivations for the design of Conques’s chevet and transept, unprecedented in churches south of the massif central. His interest lies less in the practical motivations, such as accommodating pilgrims or the monastic liturgy, than in considering the symbolic import. Its strong resemblance to earlier churches to the north, most notably Saint-Martin (Tours), which housed the remains of the apostle to Gaul, evoked a mausoleum befitting Conques’s sacred patroness. Sumptuous decoration, including the paving removed during the nineteenth century, served to exalt Sainte Foy. Spauhubert situates this celebratory message within the context of rivalries with other regional churches.
Benoît-Michel Tock surveys eleventh- and twelfth-century textual sources from the monastery to discuss how the laity and cloistered community interacted. While it is well known that monks relied heavily on lay donors, Tock identifies several particularities, some of which warrant further research. Among these is that entry into the monastery required a gift, continued lay control over donated properties, and the large number of lay neighbors to Conques’s property.
Kris N. Racaniello approaches the celebrated reliquary statue of Ste-Foy as a “translike” object. Racaniello acknowledges that this term may be construed as an anachronism but adopts it to signal that the object incorporates a complex visual language that extends beyond traditional gender norms, including a pose that recalls the Virgin Mary as Throne of Wisdom (sedes sapientiae) and a head that can be read as masculine. In this way, the statue ruptures earthly categories to evoke a “sacred expansive gender.”
Erik Thunø asks what the statue of Ste-Foy might owe to local conditions. Surveying far-flung Christian sites in which figurative arts featured prominently (e.g., the monastery of St. Catherine’s at Mount Sinai), Thunø suggests that the innovative, plastic forms of the statue of Ste-Foy might address local concerns. In other words, artistic invention need not be the product of a political, economic, or ecclesiastical center. Pilgrimage to a remote site might itself drive the creation of new visual forms.
Xavier Barral I Altet provides a helpful overview of the substantial transformations of the church of Ste-Foy from the nineteenth century to the present. On the west façade alone, these include the addition of upper stories of the towers and a reconfiguration of the portal, involving, inter alia, the removal of a trumeau figure of Ste-Foy. Transformations of the interior included the addition of stairs to the tribune and replacement of the paving stones. Barral I Altet suggests that these alterations were motivated by aesthetics, as well as the changing audiences and uses of the building, today a site of mass tourism.
In a similar vein, Valérie Fasseur makes the case for a new edition, translation, and commentary for the Chanson de Sainte Foy that would more adequately meet today’s needs. Although the Chanson stands as one of the oldest literary texts in a Romance language, it remains little known beyond specialists. Fasseur walks through some of the challenges of translating this text for a broad public in a manner that honors the medieval language. She concludes with the intriguing suggestion that the Chanson, as well as the pilgrimage along the Via Podiensis, were eleventh-century inventions emanating from the ranks of ecclesiastics associated with the great abbey of Cluny in Burgundy.
The volume concludes with an acoustic study by Kris N. Rancianello. The author acknowledges that the robust data collected provide just a “snapshot” of the building in June 2021 and is very frank about limitations, such as the ways textiles alter soundscapes. That said, the primary goal of the study is to add to the body of research on the sonic aspect of medieval buildings.
As is evident from this overview, the contents of this volume range broadly in approach and focus. Such polyphony seems appropriate to such a rich site that has enjoyed nearly 200 years of scholarship. Admittedly, those new to the study of Conques might find themselves a bit disoriented, a shortcoming shared by many edited volumes. That said, the authors of this volume repeatedly, and generously, point to productive avenues for future research. In this way, this volume provides a great service.