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Stone Faces Stone Faces



Keywords

monkey
Centre-Val de Loire
Louis VII
Notre-Dame de Déols
Odo of Cluny
Odon de Cluny
Cluny II
Louis le Jeune
Henri Plantagenêt
Curtmantle
Châteaumeillant
ape
18
France
Cher
Saint-Genès
Eleanor of Aquitaine
corbel
Henry II
Temple of Reason Temple de la Raison


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Châteaumeillant - Saint-Genès

Châteaumeillant - Saint-Genès
Saint-Genès, erected in the 11th and 12th century, was the church of the priory Saint-Etienne, dependent from the important Abbaye Notre-Dame in Déols. This abbey, now in ruins, had been founded in 917 and developed into one of the most powerful regional institutions. It was one of the first in the Cluniac network. Odo of Cluny (+ 942) was abbot of three monasteries: Cluny, Massy and Deols. This is important, as Saint-Genès has architectural parralells to Cluny II.

The building got severely damaged, when Louis VII (aka "Louis le Jeune", 1. husband of Eleanor of Aquitaine) burnt down the town in 1152 during a feud with Abbo II de Déols, a supporter of Henri Plantagenêt (aka Henry II, "Curtmantle", 2. husband of Eleanor of Aquitaine). In 1569 the Huguenots set fire here - and many restorations followed that. During the French Revolution the bell tower was destroyed and the church became a "Temple of Reason".

The walls of the nave are embellished with many sculpted capitals and corbels.

Some of the corbels under the roof are very rough. Here is the head of a weathererd monkey.

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