Conques is a town on a pilgrimage route between Le Puy and Moissac, on
the way to Toulouse. The town contains a church dedicated to a child saint, a
small girl martyred at an unknown date. Her
name is St. Foi—foi means “faith”—and she
was much venerated in England and France,
although her legend is possibly unhistorical.
This church contains the Last Judgment (c.
1130, tympanum, portal), depicting Christ
with the blessed and damned. Christ is in the
middle with the blessed to his right and the
damned to his left. St. Foi is depicted in the
corner as a child saint who is blessed by the
hand of God.
Several ¿ gures are shown, including one
who may be St. Peter, welcoming the
righteous into heaven, as well as Abraham,
the patriarch. A knight, representing pride,
is depicted on the side of the damned. We see two doors; through one, the
blessed are welcomed into heaven, while the damned are pushed into hell
through the other.
In Souillac, not far from Conques, another church offers one of the most
dramatic Romanesque sculptures—Isaiah—in the church of St. Mary. This
sculpture was originally on the front of the church but was moved inside
from the jamb of the old west portal. It dates from the ¿ rst third of the 12th
century. The prophet Isaiah, who was believed to have prophesied the birth
of Christ, holds a vertical scroll that once had the words of his prophecy
painted on it. The drama here is in the twisting posture of Isaiah, his left leg
swung around in front of the right and his head turning back to gaze at us.
Note his long, agitated beard and the counter-curves of the broad edges of his
sweeping robe. In this carving, some have called him the “dancing prophet.”
Less than 100 miles from Paris, the abbey at Vézelay was founded in
Carolingian times but gained its ¿ rst distinction during the 11th century when
the supposed relics of St. Mary Magdalen were brought there, making it an
important pilgrimage site. We will look at the nave in Vézelay, Ste. Madeleine
Although the Roman
Catholic Church
remained powerful,
another rising force
was feudalism, an
economic system that
allowed peasants to
use land owned by
lords in exchange for
service, often military.