The contrast between the sober façade and the rich tympanum, and discrepancies
within the tympanum and its frame, have fostered various hypotheses regarding the
original disposition of the portal—which may well have included the beautiful
Annunciation and the figures of Isaiah and John the Baptist now mounted on the internal
face of the north-transept façade.
Tympanum of the Last Judgment,
Conques, ca. 1130–35. Reprinted by
permission of Giraudon/Art Resource,
New York.
Of the splendid objects in the remarkable treasury, the oldest and most venerated is the
10th-century gold reliquary statue (head and some jewels are earlier) containing the relics
of St. Foy, brought from Agen to Conques by subterfuge. Part of the Romanesque cloister
of Abbot Bégon (r. 1087–1107) is still preserved.
Jean M.French
[See also: RELICS AND RELIQUARIES; ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE]
Aubert, Marcel. L’église de Conques. 2nd ed. Paris: Laurens, 1954.
Bernoulli, Christoph. Die Skulpturen der Abtei Conques-en-Rouergue. Basel: Birkhauser, 1956.
Bousquet, Jacques. La sculpture à Conques aux XIe et XIIe siècles: essai de chronologie comparée.
2 vols. Lille: Service de Reproduction des Thèses, Université de Lille III, 1973.
Desjardins, Gustave. Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Conques-en-Rouergue. Paris, 1879.
Gaillard, Georges, et al. Rouergue roman. La Pierre-qui-vire: Zodiaque, 1963.
CONSANGUINITY
. One of the chief preoccupations of medieval church law was consanguinity, the degree
of relationship between two people such that a marriage between them would be
incestuous. Roman law had forbidden marriages between people related “within four
degrees.” The Romans had calculated degrees by counting from one prospective partner
back to the common ancestor and then down to the other partner, so that first cousins
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 484