The 12th Century French Abbey of St. Pierre, Moissac

Following the Revolution, the monuments of the Middle Ages lay dormant before the very eyes of people now taught to disregard their power. Only this can explain the mining of the great abbey of Cluny, whose destruction in 1810 differed from the focused acts of violence that happened during the Revolution and were the result both of vandalism and of rage. The monuments became little more than a mass of unsorted material. Not surprisingly, all the texts of this transitional period from the historical to the art historical concern the archeology of the building – the attempt to recover what had been buried in the past. [ 1 ] While the romantic fascination with ruins protected the monuments and kept them within a certain kind of public awareness, [ 2 ] serious historical studies retold the stories of the buildings as a way of recapturing their past.

The first such study of the abbey of Moissac, published in 1849 by Jules Marion (the type of scholar, seen before in the region, whom Meyer Schapiro describes as a “learned traveler”[ 3 ]) made extensive use of the 15th century chronicle of Aymery de Peyrac, making this chronicle, in spite of its drawbacks, the definitive work on the early history of the abbey. [ 4 ]

The monumental studies of Lagréze-Fossat in 1870, 1872, and 1874, [ 5 ] recounted the history of the abbey, provided an invaluable description of the sculpture of the building, and placed the abbey within its environment of the surrounding city.

These studies were followed in 1897 by the work of Ernest Rupin who depended closely on Lagréze-Fossat but whose work benefited from the addition of illustrations of the sculptural decoration. [ 6 ]While, as Meyer Schapiro observed, the sculpture was “limited by the use of drawings and the lack of a sound comparative method and analysis of style,” the work was significant. Rupin used drawings of necessity, photography being still in its infancy, and no sound comparative method had yet been developed. As for analysis of style, that fell to Schapiro; Rupin was still occupied with the task of seeing the monument at all. His work represents a cusp, fully historical and grounded in the best of the historical documents, and yet with sufficient attention to the visual elements of the architecture to bring them forward as new elements for consideration. Line drawings of each of the capitals, the portal, and the movable sculptures, after all, require considerable care and investment of time. The abbey became an "overnight success" in the new discipline of art history.

Regional Priority
Almost immediately, the portal of Moissac became the subject of a futile and relatively short-lived argument over regional priority. The argument concerned the problem of categorization according to lineage and the associated problem of deciding which came first. With a zeal comparable to that of the contemporary polar explorers, scholars rushed to choose up sides and campaign in favor of their own favorite for the honor of having been first - first to build a “great portal,” first to build a tympanum, or a proto-tympanum, first, indeed, to “revive” monumental sculpture.

Paul Deschamps, who devoted his career to this method of sorting the material, saw Romanesque art as proceeding in a logical and predictable development from the crude to the sophisticated as represented by increasing degrees of naturalism. Although his use of value judgments and open nationalism compromise his ability to weigh evidence consistently, he concludes, in a response to Charles Oursel in 1924, that the argument over priority could not be settled and that, in fact, the sculpture of Burgundy and Languedoc developed simultaneously and independently. [ 7 ] Deschamps nevertheless regarded the study of the works of the period as a sort of intellectual struggle in which he engaged the other scholars of the field as much as the works themselves.

One with whom Deschamps frequently tangled (and who did not hesitate to meet him on the same terms) was Arthur Kingsley Porter, whose system of organization - the sculpture along pilgrimage routes - in spite of its overtly geographical character, encouraged him, when drawn into arguments over priority, to favor Spain. Nevertheless, in an article which preceded his monumental tabulation of sculpture along the pilgrimage routes, Porter made a strong claim for the inclusion of Moissac within the circle of influence of Burgundian Cluny, claiming that the tympanum at Cluny inspired those at Moissac, Vezelay and Autun. After establishing this line of parentage, he acknowledged the role of Toulouse by saying that Moissac was of local workmanship, by sculptors who "knew Toulouse but were inspired by Burgundy." [ 8 ] Porter amplified this position in Romanesque Sculpture of the Pilgrimage Roads, insisting not only on the priority of Cluny but on the absolute derivation of Moissac from Cluny:

The composition of the tympanum of Cluny was reproduced at Moissac; the only essential difference is that at Moissac, for lack of space, some of the elders are crowded over into the tympanum....the sculptor, while undoubtedly influenced by local tradition, was essentially Cluniac...It is clear what a gulf separates Moissac from the heavy massive art of Toulouse,and what close bonds connect it with Cluny. [ 9 ]

Porter, too, uses value judgments to determine dating [ 10 ] yet, in spite of his occasional wrangles with Deschamps, he conceived of Romanesque sculpture as essentially international, extending across national boundaries along the lines of pilgrimage travel. Nevertheless, his passion for his material does not prevent him from viewing the role of Cluny in the development of these roads as somewhat less than completely spiritual: “The rulers of the great abbey were quick to realize the success of the pilgrimage, and far-sighted in driving, at an early date, their fingernails firmly into the carrot of Saint James.” While Porter’s emphasis on the heavy hand of Cluny in the affairs - and, by this argument, of the artistic style as well - of her dependencies is certainly justified, he was later to defend the flow of influence in the opposite direction. In 1926 he says: “Throughout the entire eleventh and part of the twelfth century the great current of art in Europe was moving from the south to the north.”[ 11 ] This shift in his perspective came about as a result of the publishing of new material - the catalogue of architectural works in the province of Leon by Manuel Gomez-Moreno - whose impact he does not hesitate to acknowledge. [ 12 ] As a result of this new information, Porter sees Spanish influence in the pier reliefs of the Moissac cloister where before he had seen only Cluniac.

Iconographical Interpretation
Four years before this expansion of Porter's vision, Emile Mâle had seen Spanish influence in several major French monuments and primarily at Moissac. In part because his study was limited to iconography and in part because he termed the influence as occurring from manuscripts to sculpture, rather than from Spain to France, Mâle did not become embroiled in arguments over national precedence. At the same time, the thoroughness of his successive studies of religious art in France virtually closed the book on the question of the iconography of the sculpture at Moissac for nearly 40 years. Even today, after the revisions of Louis Grodecki and Meyer Schapiro, Mâle's words continue to determine many of the questions asked of the tympanum.

Mâle said of Moissac that, among others, it represents the origin of monumental iconography and that its iconography derives entirely from manuscript miniatures. [ 13 ] He specifies the Christ in Majesty page of the Beatus Commentary of St. Sever which he says was the sculptor's model. Although Mâle's identification of model as well as his assurance that monumental sculpture came into being as a result of copying manuscript miniatures has since come to be regarded as out-dated, it is nevertheless useful to examine Mâle's own evidence for the way in which he saw the tympanum. He says:

“This was the Moissac sculptor's model. From a manuscript closely resembling it he borrowed the new type of elders of the Apocalypse. In fact, it is only in the Beatus manuscripts that we find them with their crowns, chalices, viols like Spanish guitars, and their thrones of carved wood. The splendid figures of the elders passed almost unchanged from miniatures into monumental art. Since the sculptor could not arrange them in a circle, he ranged them in tiers, rising as high as possible on each side of Christ. The Moissac Christ does not, it is true, resemble the Christ of the manuscript exactly. He does not hold the long scepter, as in the St.-Sever Apocalypse. But it is quite likely that the miniature serving as the sculptor's model was slightly different.”

Mâle sees in terms of iconographical motifs; the presence of crowns and chalices lead him to see the two sets of elders as “unchanged,” the lack of a long scepter makes the Moissac Christ different from the Christ in the manuscript. That Mâle did not see the enormous differences in conception and impact between the two works that we see today should be regarded less as a consequence of faulty information on Mâle's part as of the expectations Mâle carried with him as he approached the works. In his careful article that refutes Mâle's evidence and in reference to the scroll in the eagle's claws, Meyer Schapiro says:

“The 'little detail,' however, raises serious doubts. Far from being a rare element limited to the Beatus manuscripts and a few works copied from them, it is extremely common; it appears even on several portals reproduced by Monsieur Mâle in the same book and overlooked by him.” [ 14 ]

That Mâle might have overlooked evidence is not surprising in light of the enormous amount of material he had to deal with. On the other hand, Mâle simply may not have seen evidence that did not fit his system of organization. Schapiro, in his article just cited, shows the extent of the evidence that Mâle did not see which calls into question as well Mâle's certainty of a Spanish origin. Schapiro's work suggests that the Beatus page itself might have derived from a Carolingian model which might also have inspired the work at Moissac. Nevertheless, the monumentality of Mâle's work, while it has resulted in revisions such as that of Schapiro, on individual works, has never resulted in the questioning of his underlying assumptions. Mâle assumes, for instance, the presence in the library at Moissac, of a copy of the Beatus Apocalypse because that is the manuscript which was copied in the tympanum. (Presumably, one cannot copy a manuscript without that manuscript in hand.) While the question of literal copying of manuscript to tympanum is no longer an issue, a related question still remains - the source of the apocalyptic imagery.

There is no real doubt that the imagery in the tympanum is apocalyptic in some way. The identification of the particular passage from the Book of Revelation which the tympanum represents, however, has been the cause of considerable anxiety on the part of scholars, still seeking, if not Mâle's choice, still a single source - either in the text itself or in illuminations of that text - for the sculpture. In 1963 Louis Grodecki recognized in the tympanum a composite of different Biblical sources and finally to turn the focus of the iconographical search away from Spain and toward the north. [ 15 ] Without a single source, the sculpture could no longer be an illustration of a text, an observation which opened the possibility of the sculpture having a spiritual value of its own, not simply that which it derived from a literary text.

Theology: Facie ad faciem
Yves Christe took up this line of thought in 1969 in his book Les Grands Portails Romans which, as its subtitle suggested, studied the iconology of the Romanesque theophanies and emphasized the importance of theological texts associated with Cluny in the development of the concept of theophany. [ 16 ] In spite of his title, Christe’s study considered tympana only, the usual placement for the representation of Divine appearance in any of its various guises, but placed great emphasis on the experience of theophany as one made available through the intermediation of angels and by virtue of the role of Mary. He also insisted on theophany as an immediate experience, “facie ad faciem,” although he qualified this by saying that this direct vision is “like that which will mark the end of time.”

Although Christe included chapters on esthetics and style, his argument was based on the translation of theological and philosophical texts into iconographical programs. Although his work was to have a significant impact upon later art historical interpretations of the doorway, that impact was confined to his thorough exposition of the relevant literary texts. Later scholars have either agreed or disagreed with his interpretation of these texts but have not questioned their primacy as evidence. Christe's assertion that stone sculpture actually represents a vision which is to be understood as experienced facie ad faciem passed virtually unnoticed amid the preoccupation of art historians with chronological ordering and the resulting need for a general theory on which to base that ordering in instances where documented dates were lacking.

Historical Theories
Having outgrown previous general theories, scholarship found itself in a situation which M.F.Hearn said effectively prevented the writing of a unified history:

“The resulting conflicts [brought about by the recent disturbance of previously perceived relationships among monuments] remain unresolved because there is no general theory of development against which they may be tried. The issue at stake is that so few facts can be known about most sculptures that without a general approach there is no adequate basis for deciding which among several possible interpretations is the most likely.” [ 17 ]

Hearn's concern for validation led him to offer a “systematic theory of the development of Romanesque sculpture, based on the integration of several types of data and grounded in a unified method of classification.” He intended this theory to link the multiplication of local studies and monographs on individual monuments to form a history by providing the means by which to check the order. Although in many ways seductive, his system nevertheless contains unexamined assumptions that threaten the very validity it seeks.

Hearn establishes a chronological order based on the fundamental structure of revival and of generations of monuments following that revival. He develops this line of thinking by placing new emphasis on the esthetic writings which would have been familiar to the abbots of Cluny, particularly the writings of Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite. Christe had relied on Dionysian theology for the development of the idea of the theophany, but Hearn emphasizes Dionysian esthetics, as well as drawing on the writings of others, to justify the lack of naturalism of much of the sculpture of this period. He concludes that Cluniac spirituality had developed a concept of “expressive beauty” that required appropriate representation - that which was not human would be represented appropriately in a non-human, or non-natural manner.

In applying this concept to the portal at Moissac, however, Hearn makes claims for the use of this style as though it were a kind of ingredient whose different proportions carried different meanings. The “use of the expressive style was modulated to produce a violent contrast between the immobile form of Christ and the turgidly mobile figures of the Evangelists and seraphim”; the figures of the Elders “became more expressively mobile the closer their proximity to Christ”; in the side reliefs the expressive style is “severely tempered”; the figures on the jambs and trumeau have “a degree of stylistic expressiveness appropriate to authoritative and visionary character.”

Hearn, as had Christe before him, has established the concepts of theophany and expressive style as highly intellectual, demonstrated and supported by the presence at Cluny of the appropriate texts which, in addition, had a documented impact. He says, for instance: "A copy of Eriugena's treatise had been given to the library of Cluny in the tenth century by Abbot Mayeul, who is recorded as having spent many nights passionately reading it."

Having made the concept of expressive style the final step in his general theory - “...the style and format of a Romanesque sculpture are dependent on its meaning, that the meaning reflects the object's purpose, and that the purpose reflects specific aspects of medieval thought about the function and nature or images” - and having made the adoption of a general theory a prerequisite to deciding “which among several possible interpretations is the most likely,” Hearn then sees only those influences that contribute to the demonstration of that theory as being significant to the understanding of the individual work. Although he acknowledges the presence of sculptors in the work he minimizes their impact on meaning, which he attributes only to Cluny. “Since there is no evidence that the sculptors of Languedoc and western France came from Cluny, the means of transmission was not from the artists themselves” and “The great portals..were not the inevitable result of a particular formal aspiration on the part of the sculptors but were inspired by a new conception for the use of sculpture by the patrons.”

Hearn makes a sound case for the role of Cluny in inspiring the sudden appearance within a relatively small geographical area of “great portals.” In emphasizing the role of texts, and especially of certain texts to the exclusion of all others, however, he remained fundamentally within the school of thought initiated by Emile Mâle at the beginning of Moissac's history within art historical texts. He sought - and found - the “answer” to Moissac by reference to a literary document and a literary document of a certain kind.

Style
Meanwhile, as early as 1931, while other art historians were arguing over the question of regional priority, Meyer Schapiro's masterful study of the sculpture of the cloister and the portal appeared in The Art Bulletin. [ 18 ] Unsurpassed today for the elegance of its language and the sensitivity of its observations, this study represented a continuation of the tradition of Ernest Rupin who, through the use of line drawings, had made his readers see the sculpture as they had not before. Schapiro, too, saw the stone; his study never left the stone, in fact, and his vision was so complete that it appeared to close the book on formal and stylistic analysis.

His approach did not include either a general theory of sculptural development (only rarely did he draw comparisons to other monuments) nor was it concerned with the sort of theology of stone that was to interest Yves Christe. Schapiro brought to the sculpture of Moissac the mind and the words of a scholar. His study has no underlying theory, no point he sets out to prove, and no conclusion. His argument is self-contained, deriving from the sculpture itself and ultimately returning to it.

In his focus on style, Schapiro had a kindred spirit whose vision, nevertheless differs markedly from his. Marguerite Vidal, for many years the keeper of antiquities and life-long scholar of the abbey, saw with a similar intense attention to detail and ultimate faith that the stone itself holds answers. Her temperament, as well as the centuries-long association of her family and people with this land and this building, led her to see beyond the intellectual to the spirit of the building. Mme Vidal's work celebrated a living tradition, based upon daily association, in which pilgrimages to the church still take place, much as they did in the 12th century. In her contributions to the volume Quercy roman, Mme Vidal described the architecture and sculpture of the abbey church as spiritually alive and potent. Her choice of language, unusual for an archaeologically-minded art historian, conveyed a sense of place that gives to the geographical surroundings of the abbey - the stone and rivers - an importance equal to that of the building itself. [ 19 ]

In addition to her contributions to Quercy roman, which concern not only Moissac but also the other major Romanesque sites in the region, and a small guidebook to the abbey, [ 20 ] Mme Vidal has written articles on the history, monuments and culture of Moissac and its dependencies, frequently addressing problems no one else has approached, such as stone crosses that appear to be Cathar. [ 21 ] Although the period of crisis in Moissac concerning the presence of heretics occurred somewhat after the time the doorway was installed, still the documentation of a significant presence, to which the stone crosses bear witness, provides an interesting counterpoint to the general assumption of the spiritual dominance of the theology of the Cluniac abbey within the region. Mme Vidal has traced and mapped the pilgrimage routes through the countryside and into the town, located rest stops and shrines along the way and hospices and hospitals within the city. Her particular contribution lies, to a great degree, in her willingness to enter areas of scholarship for which there can be no proof but which, nevertheless, merit investigation.

The Tympanum
When scholars began to take a dispassionate interest in the church of St. Pierre in the late 19th century, they focused primarily on the tympanum, along with the sculptures of the cloister. Many scholars have seen nothing else in the doorway except the tympanum, or have chosen to make use of the tympanum as the salient aspect of the door, as though it contained within itself the meaning of the door as a whole.

Early scholarship isolated the apocalyptic content of the iconography, although in different ways. Emile Mâle explained the tympanum simply as a copy of a manuscript of the Beatus Commentary on the Book of Revelation. Henri Focillon, on the other hand, saw apocalyptic imagery in the sculpture's form:

“Christ the Judge, whose kingdom is founded on the destruction of the universe and the punishment of sinners, emerges from the mystery of the end of time like an apparition suddenly risen before the eyes of His terror-stricken followers. Surrounded by convulsive shapes, He is accompanied by the twenty-four Elders carrying lamps and viols....The Oriental Potentate of Moissac is Lord of a world from which the Good Shepherd of the catacombs, the Christ of Psamathia, and all those figures of Hellenistic Christianity who still combined divinity with youth and harmonious beauty have passed away. One might believe that the Romanesque Apocalypse trembled still with millenarian terrors, passed on by Beatus' illustrated commentary, which served as its guide through this Divine Comedy in stone.”[ 22 ]

Focillon's beautiful description links the ideas of apocalypse, judgment, and fear: “The faithful entering the church were not welcomed by the evangelic Christ of the thirteenth-century trumeau, but compelled to file beneath the tympanum of the Last judgment as if they themselves were about to hear their sentence from the mouth of the inflexible Judge.”

Other scholars, including Otto von Simson, Whitney Stoddard, and Linda Seidel share the association of these ideas. [ 23 ]

The idea of fearful judgment, furthermore, is now so firmly entrenched in our system of perception that it tends to override other, and possibly conflicting, elements:

“Although Christ is making a gesture of benediction, his head is a solid, blocklike form and his staring eyes sternly transfix the beholder. Christ as depicted in this image will be a harsh judge.” [ 24 ]

At the same time, and also within scholarly literature, there runs a theme of majesty and wonder, perhaps best conveyed by Marguerite Vidal in her description of the sculpture:

And it is just so [as described in Chapter 4: 1-9] that the Lord Christ appears at the height of his glory, at the end of time, the Second Coming; immense and majestic on the throne of his power, robed in imperial purple, such that a breath from eternity ripples the silk of his tunic. His powerful lips remain sealed; his impassive look probes the mysteries from beyond; his brow bears the diadem of Byzantine majesty and his cruciform nimbus overlays the twinkling of the stars. His right hand generously blesses while his left hand rests upon the book of life. [ 25 ]

George Henderson also saw glory in the Christ figure and extended the theme of glory throughout the tympanum:

“The colossal figure of God has the physical glamour, vivid strained features, even the broad sharp shoulders, of an Archaic Greek statue like the Acropolis calf-bearer or the marble enthroned Goddess from Taranto or the bronze charioteer at Delphi. The clean stiff edges of his draperies laid out in hard flat zig-zag folds look as though they could cut the hand. Forming an endless figure-of-eight movement around God are the four beasts of the Apocalypse, stretching their necks and turning their heads to gaze in compulsive rapture at the Author of their being, whom they cease not to praise day and night. Two rigid tall seraphim terminate the large central composition, the rest of the tympanum being filled up by the spasmodically twitching agitated figures of the elders, enthroned among the clouds, increasing by their diminutiveness the terrible majesty of their enthroned Emperor, to whom the world is a footstool and the stars a canopy.” [ 26 ]

In something of a compromise between the two views of fear and glory, George Zarnecki saw the promise of the Heavenly Jerusalem:

“The concluding visions of the general resurrection, the judgment of souls, and the Heavenly Jerusalem became favorite subjects for the great tympana, offering sculptors great opportunities for giving visual form to these frightening but wonderful events that were to come.” [ 27 ]

While George Henderson and George Zarnecki shared a reference to the Heavenly Jerusalem, they differ in their manner of speaking of the action of the tympanum. Henderson used the present tense throughout his passage, implying the constancy of the act depicted, while Zarnecki, consistent with any general discussion of the Second Coming, spoke of the events as occuring at a future time, measured in earthly terms.

Focillon, regarding the sculpture formally, saw imminent, even impending, judgment: “compelled to file beneath the tympanum...as if about to hear their sentence....” Henderson, writing so as to place the work within its cultural context, saw continual action: “... turning their heads to gaze at the Author of their being whom they cease not to praise....” Although what they see in the tympanum differs markedly, these two share a directness of approach not found in those who, caught up in theological and symbolic controversies, see the tense of the tympanum as deriving solely from specific interpretations whose meaning rests, as it were, outside the tympanum itself - in the knowledge of the meaning of the closed and open rolls, for instance. [ 28 ]

These scholars reflect in their work not just scholarly differences but philosophical ones as well. They have approached the tympanum from within their own worldview without acknowledging their own active role with the tympanum. They have attempted to discuss the monument as though separate from all frames of reference while the sculptors themselves appear to have been acutely aware of those frames. In many ways, therefore, the best description of the tympanum may be found not in “scholarly” sources (although here again, distinctions blur) but in a novel. Umberto Eco, using suppositions that are not unfounded and yet cannot be proved, describes the very nature of the tympanum, rather than what is left of it:

“ ...The crown on his head was rich in enamels and jewels, the purple imperial tunic was arranged in broad folds over the knees, woven with embroideries and laces of gold and silver thread. The left hand, resting on one knee, held a sealed book, the right was uplifted in an attitude of blessing or -I could not tell -of admonition. The face was illuminated by the tremendous beauty of a halo, containing a cross and bedecked with flowers, while around the throne and above the face of the Seated One I saw an emerald rainbow glittering.” [ 29 ]

By including details of color and of effect (the “emerald rainbow glittering”) Eco both requires and includes a viewer.

Ways of Seeing
These authors recount a history, not just of the abbey and its buildings and sculpture, but also a history of a way of seeing. Scholars writing an over-all history of the period differ not just in their subject matter from those who concentrate on one monument but also in the language they see with. As a discipline primarily dedicated to the writing of history, art history struggles with its own priorities as to what constitutes that history.

In her article of 1978, Elaine Vergnolle stated the problem in this way:

“Behind the establishment of a relative chronology, already problematic, lies the greater question of dating. Considered as an end in itself, dating, in the crystalizing of over-all positions, establishes the debate on a superficial level, substituting implicit judgements for a reflection upon the profound nature of the work.” [ 30 ]

Although recognizing its pitfalls, Vergnolle goes on to reaffirm the primacy of the writing of history:

“The question, however, cannot be avoided, because, in the end, the work of the historian consists of ordering events in their time. Writing the history of art in its chronological order remains the aim.”

Vergnolle, however, seems almost to regret that aim while at the same time acknowledging her own position within the worldview of chronological ordering. Nevertheless, just as Ernest Rupin’s line drawings of the sculpture, which he intended as accurate records, reflect the style of the time he lived in, so each of these authors reflects a style of perception, each of which combines to form history.

NOTES
1. See especially Henry Calhiat, “Le tombeau de Saint Raymond à Moissac.” Bulletin de la Société Archeologique de Tarn-et-Garonne, I (1869) 113-17;Jean Mignot, “Recherches sur la chapelle de St. Julien,” Bulletin de la Société Archeologique de Tarn-et-Garonne, IX (1881) 81-100; Mignot, “Recherches sur les constructions carlovingienne à Moissac,” Bulletin de la Société Archeologique de Tarn-et-Garonne, XI (1883) 97-105; Jules Momméja, “Mosaiques du moyen-age et carrélages émaillés de l’abbaye de Moissac,” Bulletin archeologique, 1894 189-206; J.B. Pardiac, Etudes archeologiques jointes à la description du portail de l'église de Saint-Pierre (Paris: M. Didron, 1859); and Viré, Chenet and Lemozi, “Fouilles exécutées dans le sous-sol de Moissac en 1914 et 1915,” Bulletin de la Sociétéé Archeologique de Tarn-et-Garonne, XLV (1915) 137-53. return to text

2. Nodier, Taylor, and de Cailleux, Voyages pittoresques et romantiques dans l'ancienne France, Languedoc, I, partie 2, Paris, 1834. return to text

3.Meyer Schapiro, Romanesque Art. New York: Braziller, 1977:138. The essay on Moissac was reissued by Braziller in 1985 as The Romanesque Sculpture of Moissac, with photographs by David Finn. return to text

4. Jules Marion, “L’abbaye de Moissac,” in Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes, 3e serie, I, partie 2, 1849: 89-147. return to text

5 A. Lagréze-Fossat, Etudes historiques sur Moissac (Paris: Dumoulin, 1870, 1872, 1874). return to text

6 Ernest Rupin, L’Abbaye et les cloitres de Moissac (Paris: Picard, 1897, reprinted by Treignac: Les Monedieres, 1981). return to text

7. Paul Deschamps, “Notes sur la sculpture romane en Bourgogne,“ La Gazette des Beaux Arts, Ve periode 6 (1922) 61-80. And Paul Deschamps, “Les débuts de la sculpture romane en Languedoc et en Bourgogne,” Revue Archaeologique, Vol. 19-20, (1924) 173. return to text

8. A.K. Porter, “La sculpture du XIIe siècle en Bourgogne,”La Gazette des Beaux Arts, V, per 2, 1920: 84-86. return to text

9. Arthur Kingsley Porter, Romanesque Sculpture of the Pilgrimage Roads (Boston: Marshall Jones, 1923) 135-136. return to text

10. “There is a perfection, a refinement, a decadent quality in the work of the exquisite artist of Vezelay, which makes Moissac seem very vigorous, very primitive ... we may, I think, safely infer that the Moissac tympanum can not be very much later than 1120.” Porter 138-139. return to text

11. Arthur Kingsley Porter, “Leonesque Romanesque and Southern France,” The Art Bulletin, VIII (1926) 250. return to text

12. Manuel Gomez-Moreno, Provincia de Leon. Catalogo Monumental de Espana. (Madrid: Minister de Instruccion Publica, 1925). return to text

13. Emile Male, Religious Art in France, ed. by, Harry Bober (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978) 5-6. return to text

14. Meyer Schapiro, “Two Romanesque Drawings in Auxerre and some Iconographic Problems” (1954), Romanesque Art (New York: Braziller, 1977) 307. return to text

15. Louis Grodecki, “Le problème des sources iconographiques du tympan de Moissac,” Moissac et l'Occident au XIe siècle: Actes du colloque international de Moissac (Toulouse: Edouard Privat, Editeur, 1964) 59-69. return to text

16. Yves Christe, Les grands portails romans: Etudes sur l'iconologie des théophanes romans (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1969). return to text

17. M.F. Hearn, Romanesque Sculpture: The Revival of Monumental Stone Sculpture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1981) return to text

18. Meyer Schapiro, “The Romanesque Sculpture of Moissac,” The Art Bulletin, 1931, reprinted by Braziller in 1977 and again in 1985) 131-264. return to text

19. Marguerite Vidal, et al, Quercy roman (La Pierre-qui-vire: Zodiaque, 1979). return to text

20. Marguerite Vidal, Moissac, (La Pierre-qui-vire: Zodiaque, 1976). return to text

21. Marguerite Vidal, “Pierres tumulaires à croix cathare dans la region de Moissac,” Cahiers Ligures de Préhistoire et d'Archéologie, 5 (1956) 213-216. return to text

22. Henri Focillon, The Art of the West: Romanesque Art (London and New York: Phaidon Books, 1963). return to text

23. “At Moissac the Divine Judge is a fearful God, a God of wrath, perhaps the most monumental evocation of the dominant religious attitude of what we call the Romanesque Age.” Otto von Simson, “The Cistercian Contribution,” Monasticism and the Arts (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1984) 118.

“The portal...portrays the choice of good and evil and Christ's role as judge of the universe.” Whitney Stoddard, Art and Architecture in Medieval France (New York: Harper and Row, 1972) 75.

“It is a 'distant' program, one that is eschatological in content, emphasizing as it does Christ's reappearance at the end of time. Moreover, an inherently judgmental tone is reinforced by the broad, and at times forbidding, forms of sculpture which, as at Moissac, bar or occlude the entry rather than encourage passage within.” Linda Seidel, Songs of Glory: The Romanesque Facades of Aquitaine (Chicago: University Press, 1981) 47. return to text

24. Robert Calkins, Monuments of Medieval Art (New York: Dutton, 1979) 101. return to text

25. Marguerite Vidal, Moissac (La Pierre qui Vire: Zodiaque, 1976) 49-50. return to text

26. George Henderson, Early Medieval (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972) 196. return to text

27. George Zarnecki, Romanesque Art (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1971) 60. return to text

28. This should not be understood as a criticism of those who wish to study the problem of the closed and open rolls. These rolls constitute a critical part of the iconography of the tympanum, their prominence being clearly premeditated. This study suggests, however, that the meaning of the tympanum does not now rest solely on the interpretation of their meaning, for that meaning not only eludes us within the 20th century, but surely also eluded the ordinary viewer of the 12th who cannot be expected to have been familiar with the intricacies of philosophical thought. return to text

29. Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose, trans. William Weaver (San Diego, New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980) 41. return to text

30. . Elaine Vergnolle, “Chronologie et méthode d'analyse: Doctrines sur les débuts de la sculpture romane en France,” Les Cahiers de Saint Michel de Cuxa, 1978: 142. return to text

© 2001 Susan R. Dixon