More From Lagrasse...
Oct. 20th, 2012 02:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
endlessraritiesTime for some ecclesiastical architecture now...
There's an abbey at Lagrasse, and a very splendid one, too. But there's also a church, right in the middle of the town and hemmed in by buildings (the painted ceilings, incidentally, were in a residential building attached to the church - not exactly a Bishop's Palace, but still representing quite a comfortable residence, thank you very much!)
As usual, the church architecture showed plenty of complexity. I was particularly struck by this doorway, which had previously been much larger. I suspect though, from the ogival shape of the larger archway, that this didn't mark the original entrance - it looks a bit fifteenth century to me, while the church itself is earlier...
Inside, we have another example of these apsidal ended churches which proliferate throughout the area (comparable with the church of St Vincent in the Bastide de Saint Joseph, Carcassone...):-
There's an abbey at Lagrasse, and a very splendid one, too. But there's also a church, right in the middle of the town and hemmed in by buildings (the painted ceilings, incidentally, were in a residential building attached to the church - not exactly a Bishop's Palace, but still representing quite a comfortable residence, thank you very much!)
As usual, the church architecture showed plenty of complexity. I was particularly struck by this doorway, which had previously been much larger. I suspect though, from the ogival shape of the larger archway, that this didn't mark the original entrance - it looks a bit fifteenth century to me, while the church itself is earlier...
Inside, we have another example of these apsidal ended churches which proliferate throughout the area (comparable with the church of St Vincent in the Bastide de Saint Joseph, Carcassone...):-
I'm not sure if the lop-sided character of the vault is real, or a trick of the camera angle. The Narbonne church which now houses the carved stone repository certainly features a lop-sided vault, so I wouldn't be at all surprised. I don't recollect spotting such weirdness in this church at the time of our visit, though, so it could be purely an illusion. Or else I was still in such a daze and a dither after gazing upon the painted ceilings that I didn't even notice...
This isn't another example of the meridional gothic form which is so commonly found throughout this part of France. Instead, we see quite a complex arrangement of vaulting, as opposed to the plain barrel-vaulted form with its hefty diaphragm arches which I've featured previously:-The painted walls are, of course, much much later than the medieval ceilings I featured yesterday, too!
