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Paradoxplace France Photo Galleries Links to all French Cathedral and Abbey Photo Pages in Paradoxplace
Tours (and a white van tale)
September 2007
Link to Maps of the Pilgrimage Roads of France Link to some early medieval French Saints, Kings and Queens
Link to more photos of the Stained Glass Windows of St-Gatien
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We went to the Cathédrale St-Gatien in Tours without any great expectations, and were gob smacked by its soaring late gothic lines, height and light, and by its stained glass.
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A "Tree of Jesse" window occupies pride of place at the far (east) end. On the right (we think) - the Annunciation (bottom), the Nativity and waving Magi.
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ST-GATIEN (FIRST HALF 200s - 301)
St-Gatien (Gatianus) was one of the Bishops sent to Gaul (Tours) by Pope Fabian. Others in the group included Denis (Paris), Trophimus (Arles), Paul (Narbonne), Saturnin (Toulouse), Austromoine (Clermont), Martial (Limoges) and they joined Irenaeus who was already in Lyon.
Link to some early medieval French Saints, Kings and Queens
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The apse of the Cathedral St-Gatien - some of the most flying of flying buttresses around
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The North Transept Rose Window - St-Gatien's Cathedral - the central pillar was necessary as the brilliant window was too big to support itself.
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LINK TO MORE PHOTOS OF THE STAINED GLASS OF ST-GATIEN
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After a quick look at the unmemorable bit of cloister, the final step was to take some photos of the facade, and that led to an interesting series of events ......
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Firstly, a white van was parked in front of the cathedral, with driver eating lunch and reading the newspaper and not about to move .....
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.... just to the left of the van was the interestingly named L'Hedoniste Restaurant ..... |
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.... it being lunch time, we popped in for a plate of oysters and a bottle of wine ..... and it did the trick because after these and a spot of liver (a blokey meal) ..... |
... the white van had gone, but it been replaced by a tourist train. Never been on one of those before, and it seemed an effortless way to do a tour around the medieval quarter which was a bit of a walk away .....
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.... so it was all aboard and off we went - and would you believe, ten minutes in to the 40 minute tour, we had a collision with a white van (that's our train driver in yellow, it was her first train accident and she was not best pleased) .....
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... moving on after several interestingly abusive French verbal exchanges and many phone photos .... this is one of the squares in the medieval quarter - the renovation and repopulation of which has obviously been a great success. In fact Tours generally is a grand old town with a good feel about it.
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SAINT MARTIN (c316 - 397 (81))
Saint Martin de Tours is also a Patron Saint of France. He was a Hungarian who, unusually, survived life in the Roman army as a declared Christian, and went on to an apprenticeship in Poitiers under its bishop St-Hilaire, before reluctantly accepting the role of Bishop of Tours in 371. At heart, like many of his medieval ilk, he was an aesthetic hermit monk with a lot in common with the late 1100s St-Francis, and amongst other foundations he was responsible for building up Marmoutier (Wikipedia page on Marmoutier - there's only a few ruins left today) into one of the greatest early medieval abbeys. On the way he got a reputation for having visions and doing miracles, and after his death soon became widely venerated as a saint and generated a lot of pilgrim business for Tours. Along with St-Hilaire, he was one of the earliest non-martyr saints.
Link to some early medieval French Saints, Kings and Queens
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Surviving capital - Basilique St-Martin
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The Basilique St-Martin was originally built in the late 400s to house the saint's tomb and then greatly upsized after several fires and rebuilds, until the Huguenots (Protestants) came along in 1562 and did a pillage job. The huge old Romanesque lady never really recovered, getting more and more dilapidated until, like many of her sisters in France, she was made into stables in the early post-revolution 1790s, before generally collapsing shortly afterwards. So at the beginning of the 1800s most of the huge monastic site was cleared and used for roads and housing (see map on right). A new basilica was built in the corner to house St Martin's tomb, an unexpected survivor in the surrounding mess.
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And .... we did eventually get a vehicle-free photo of the facade of St-Gatien, which looked much better in the later afternoon sun .... there's usually a reason ....
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