Vicki had read of another 11th century church in Caen: St. Nicholas, only a few blocks beyond the Men's Abbey. The monks of the Abbey themselves built it. Probably a make-work project for idle minds, idle hands, idle whatevers. (Abbeys are not generally placed within cities.) Anyway, we walked back the length of our day's journey and found it fairly readily. Only then did we find that it had been deconsecrated and locked up pretty tightly. But our journey was not without reward. Still, I'd like to have gotten into that ancient building, which appears by no means a ruin.
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| Sr. Nicholas from the west; really big, really old |
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| The south side fronts the street |
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| A look at the apse |
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Despite our disappointment, our eyes gazed heaven-ward, and
we were rewarded with this, and then a whole large Romanesque
building's worth of what I have come to call "Norman funnies" |
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| More...all the way around... |
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| Thus |
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| And thus |
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| Religious art scholars dismiss these things as "clumsy" |
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We'll never understand what they are about, but they are all
over the 11th and 12th century Norman world...England, Normandy,
SW France, Sicily... |
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| And thus |
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| St. Nicholas of the Mysteries, from the southeast |
1 comment:
Too bad you couldn't get inside. I'll bet it would have been interesting to see. Love the "funnies."
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