Jeremiah, Church of Saint-Pierre, Moissac

Cross posted from Monstrous Beauty


The Church of Saint-Pierre, Moissac was on of the stopping points in southern France on the great pilgrimage road to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. The church and its cloister host one of the greatest and best preserved collections of Romanesque sculpture in France. Amongst the sculpture is the famous Jeremiah contained within the trumeau (center post) on the south portal. The front of the trumeau has three sets of crossed lions. The lions create a gently scalloped contour along the sides of the trumeau, mirroring the the deeply scalloped jambs on either side of the portal. On the right side of the trumeau, is the sculpture of the prophet Jeremiah. The elongated body and graceful cross-legged posture rises and falls above the over-sized feet to match the scalloping on the front of the trumeau. The hair and beard are stylized plaits formed of groups of incised parallel lines. The stylized drapery clings to the body. The face, unusually well preserved for a sculpture positioned so easily within reach of vandals, is delicate and expressive. The entire effect is not one of portraiture, but instead one of idealized spirituality and reflection.








Image credits:

Detail of head, Emmanuel (epierre) on Flickr.
Portal, Elena Giglia (eg65) on Flickr.
Frontal view and oblique view, tilina25 on Flickr.

Salisbury Cathedral

Salisbury was my first. I was an ignorant 18 year old, just graduated from high school, spending the summer in Europe. My brother and I were on our way to Stonehenge and when we got to the town of Salisbury and we found that we had missed the bus. The next one wouldn't run for an hour. We noticed a spire looming over the town, and decided to go take a look. Finding a massive cathedral set in the middle of a park, we thought it would be worth exploring. In 1981, you couldn't enter through the main west portal, instead you entered on the west end, but off to the side. As I came in, it all felt very familiar, we were in the sort of vestibule that any Anglican church might have. Then we turned a corner and were in the nave. To this day, the feeling of absolute awe I felt has stayed with me. Only one other time, high in the Rocky Mountains, have I ever been so completely struck. On that trip we saw other cathedrals, Canterbury, Westminster Abbey, and St. Stephen's in Vienna, but, for me, that initial feeling of shock and joy will always belong to Salibury. We didn't catch the next bus either.



Salisbury, is unusual amongst cathedrals in that it was built entirely one building campaign and was happily spared major renovations in later centuries. There were no previous buildings on the site that could have constrained the plans. As a result it was built largely in a single style and has a unity that many cathedrals lack.



Image credits:
First exterior, michaelday_bath on flickr
Second exterior, Stephen McParlin (stephen_dedalus) on flickr
Nave, ajoh198 on flickr

Adventures in bibliography

So, as if I don't have enough projects up in the air, I decided to tackle something that has been hovering in the back of my head for about a decade, which is to create a bibliography of medieval texts which have been translated into modern English. I have no idea how a professional bibliographer goes about creating such a bibliography (although I will, I hope, learn in the next few years.) But this is how I started.

First I needed a list of medieval authors. I started at the obvious place: Wikipedia. I entered the first medieval author that came to mind, Bede. I noted that the article is in several categories that will be fruitful to explore later, but see that in the "See also" section there is an article "English historians in the Middle Ages." It contains several lists, which I swipe. That article points to a second article, "List of English chronicles", which I also swipe. After collating the lists together and alphabetizing, I have a list about 100 medieval authors and texts, more than enough to start with.

First up on the list is Adam of Usk, a late 14th and early 15th century cleric, who spent some time around important people. He wrote a chronicle about the stuff he saw. I never heard of him or his chronicle before today. After reading his Wikipedia article, I'm off to find out what I can about English translations. A quick Google search finds me this blog entry, from which I find out that there was a nineteenth century translation and a late twentieth century translation. Next stop, the Library of Congress. Their catalog reveals 4 editions dated 1904, 1980, 1990 and 1997. The middle two are reprints of the 1904 edition, which I discover is the second edition. The 1997 is a new translation. I grab the pertinent information and move on. Swinging back by Google I find that Googlebooks has a preview of the 1997 edition. The preview includes the discussion of the manuscript tradition. It seems that Adam's chronicle survives in a single manuscript. The bulk of the manuscript is in the British Library (Add MS 10104), but at some point the final quire became separated from the manuscript. It wasn't rediscovered until 1885, after the first translation was published. The second edition included the text and translation of the lost quire. This explains why the reprints are of the second edition. Next stop is Worldcat, where I find the publication information for the first edition. I don't find any other English editions. I do find an Italian edition, though, which I ignore. For good measure, I check Bookfinder, but don't find any other editions. I am done with Adam. Repeat 10-20 times a day for ten years, and I might finish this project.

Adam of Usk, fl. 1400. English chronicler.
Thompson, Edward Maunde, Sir, ed. and trans.; Chronicon Adæ de Usk: A.D. 1377-1421 (London: J. Murray, 1876) (N.B. Adam's Chronicle survives in a single copy. The final quire of that copy became separated from the main manuscript at some point. It was not rediscovered until 1885. Thompson's second edition includes this fragment. The second edition, or the Given-Wilson edition are preferred over this edition.)

Thompson, Edward Maunde, Sir, ed. and trans.; Chronicon Adæ de Usk, A. D. 1377-1421, 2nd ed. (London: H. Frowde, 1904) Reprinted: Chronicon Adae de Usk, A.D. 1377-1421 (New York: AMS Press, [1980]): and The Chronicle of Adam of Usk, A.D. 1377-1421 (Felinfach, Lampeter, Dyfed: Llanerch Enterprises, 1990) (with abridged introduction).

Given-Wilson, Chris., ed. and trans.; The Chronicle of Adam Usk, 1377-1421 (Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1997)