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Paradoxplace South West France Photo and History Pages Paradoxplace France Photo & History Pages Links to French Cathedral and Abbey Photo Pages in Paradoxplace
Musée Saint Croix, Poitiers
Link to Maps of the Pilgrimage Roads of France
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Poitiers in 1569, when it was besieged by Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France. Gaspard, a Huguenot leader, was murdered in Paris in the St-Bartholomew's Day Massacres in August 1572.
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The church of St-Porchaire has survived in the main centre of Poitiers, though in a somewhat diminished spatial form to what it would have been in the 900s, which is when these two bas-reliefs were in the church.
Poitiers' St-Porchaire was the Abbot of the Community of St-Hilaire at the end of the 500s. His sarcophagus was later incorporated into a pilgrimage shrine, and nowadays can be found in the church bearing his name next to a chocolate shop in the centre of Poitiers.
Above - a hunting scene
Below - A stone mason at work
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A medieval rumble - "Chapiteau de la Dispute" - from one of the Poitiers' mansions.
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A bishop's blessing - 900s or 1000s
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The beast at the back of this exhibit is "La Grand-Goule", a dragon who roamed the lowlands around Poitiers in the 500s, killing nuns and other travellers. Ste-Radegonde bravely sought him out and killed him, and later this effigy was paraded around the town once a year to celebrate the event.
The provenance of the dragon and rider in the foreground is not known, though there is an air of Don Quixote about the rider, and the (working) canon poking out of the dragon's tail would have given attackers something extra to think about.
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Links to other pages in Paradoxplace
All original material on this site © Adrian Fletcher 2000-08 - The contents may not be hotlinked, or reproduced without permission
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