Two Summers in Guyenne by Edward Harrison Barker
page 50 of 305 (16%)
page 50 of 305 (16%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
settle in the plain, give the husbandmen a chance of growing something more
profitable than buckwheat. Beaulieu was once the seat of a powerful Benedictine abbey. The original monastery was founded in 858 by Charles le Chauve, who placed it under his protection. Although the territory was included in the viscounty of Turenne, the Viscount Raymond II., before he went crusading, made over his suzerain rights with regard to the abbey and its dependencies to the abbots, who thus became temporal lords. There is nothing left of the monastery; but much of the abbey church, which dates from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, has been fortunately preserved. The interior is not remarkable, but the large and elaborate bas-relief of the Last Judgment which fills the tympanum of the portal is considered the most precious example of mediaeval sculpture in the Bas-Limousin. The face of the Saviour, expressive of something above all human passions and motives, shows a really God-like combination of serenity and severity. The fantastic spirit of the age is well set forth in the tortured forms of the horrid reptiles and fabulous beasts carved in relief upon the massive lintel, and filling also the broad border at the base of the tympanum. The same spirit finds even stronger expression in the demon figure, so grotesquely long-drawn out, carved upon the scalloped pillar that supports the lintel. The abbey was pillaged by the Huguenots, who lit a fire in the choir, which destroyed much of the woodwork. Notwithstanding the religious wars and the revolutionary convulsions of the eighteenth century, the church has preserved some of its ancient treasure, of which the most precious object is a silver statue of the Virgin of very curious workmanship, dating from the twelfth century. [Illustration: TURENNE.] |
|