The Cults of Sainte Foy and the Cultural Work of Saints 2020056793, 2020056794, 9780754657330, 9781003178712, 9781032014609

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Figure list
Preface and acknowledgments
Introduction: appropriation and the cultural work of saints
1 Conques: creation of a ritual center
2 Sainte Foy and ecclesiastical agendas
3 The saint as patron of individuals
4 Celebrating noble patronage of Foy’s cults
5 The saint in popular piety
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

The Cults of Sainte Foy and the Cultural Work of Saints

Bringing together artifacts, texts, and practices within an interpretive framework that stresses the cultural work performed by saints, Kathleen Ashley presents a comparative study of the cults of the medieval Sainte Foy at a number of the sites where she was especially venerated. This book analyzes how each cult site produced the saint it needed, appropriating or creating whatever was required to that end. Ashley’s approach is thoroughly interdisciplinary, incorporating visual, religious, medieval, and women’s and gender studies as well as literary studies and social history. She uses the theoretical framework of “cultural work” to analyze how the cult of Sainte Foy was sponsored and received by specific groups in different locales in Europe. The book is comprehensive in terms of historical as well as geographical range, tracing the history of the cult from the early Middle Ages into the present day. It also includes historiographical analysis, examining the way the cults of Sainte Foy have been represented in various historical accounts. Ashley’s narrative challenges the boundary between “elite” and “popular” culture and complicates the traditional vernacular vs. Latin language binary. A chief aim of the study is to show how “art” objects always operated in conjunction with other cultural texts to construct a saint’s cult. The volume is heavily illustrated, showing artifacts such as stained-glass windows and wall paintings which are not readily available from any other source. This book will be of special interest to scholars in art history, medieval history, gender studies, and religion. Kathleen Ashley is Professor of English (Emerita) at the University of Southern Maine, USA.

Cover info: Conques, Treasury, Coffer of Boniface (detail). Photo by Jean-Pierre Rousset / www.compostela-images.com ©2020

Routledge Research in Art and Religion

Routledge Research in Art and Religion is a new series focusing on religion and spirituality as examined by scholars working in the fields of art history and visual studies. Proposals for monographs and edited collections on this topic are welcomed. Tradition and Transformation in Christian Art The Transcultural Icon C.A. Tsakiridou Tree of Jesse Iconography in Northern Europe in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries Susan L. Green Aesthetic Theology in the Franciscan Tradition The Senses and the Experience of God in Art Edited by Xavier Seubert and Oleg Bychkov The Legend of Veronica in Early Modern Art Katherine T. Brown Mormon Visual Culture and the American West Nathan Rees The Cults of Sainte Foy and the Cultural Work of Saints Kathleen Ashley For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Research-in-Art-and-Religion/book-series/RRAAR

The Cults of Sainte Foy and the Cultural Work of Saints

Kathleen Ashley

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Kathleen Ashley The right of Kathleen Ashley to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Ashley, Kathleen M., 1944– author. Title: The cults of Sainte Foy and the cultural work of saints / Kathleen Ashley. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020056793 (print) | LCCN 2020056794 (ebook) | ISBN 9780754657330 (hardback) | ISBN 9781003178712 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Foy, Saint, approximately 290–303—Cult—Europe. | Christian saints—Cult—Europe—History. | Religion and sociology— Europe—History. | Europe—Religious life and customs—History. Classification: LCC BR1720.F67 A84 2021 (print) | LCC BR1720.F67 (ebook) | DDC 270.1092—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020056793 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020056794 ISBN: 978–0–7546–5733–0 (hbk) ISBN: 978–1–0320–1460–9 (pbk) ISBN: 978–1–0031–7871–2 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

Figure list Preface and acknowledgments

vi ix

Introduction: appropriation and the cultural work of saints

1

1

Conques: creation of a ritual center

6

2

Sainte Foy and ecclesiastical agendas

57

3

The saint as patron of individuals

95

4

Celebrating noble patronage of Foy’s cults

119

5

The saint in popular piety

149

Bibliography Index

187 204

Figure list

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 1.20 1.21 1.22 1.23 1.24 1.25 1.26 1.27 1.28 1.29 1.30 1.31 2.1 2.2 2.3

Conques, Church from above Conques, Town and church from below Conques Treasury, Foy Majesty front view Conques Treasury, Foy Majesty profile Conques Treasury, back of head and throne (det.) Conques Treasury, top of head with gems (det.) Conques Treasury, Pentagonal reliquary face Conques Treasury, Hexagonal reliquary box Conques, Abbey church east end Conques, Abbey church west end Conques, Abbey church tympanum Conques, Tympanum (det.), Foy as intercessor Conques, Tympanum (det.), Christ in Judgment Conques, Tympanum (det.), angel with book Conques, Tympanum (det.), angel with censor Conques, Tympanum (det.), Hell mouth and liberation from hell Conques, Tympanum (det.), peeker Conques, Tympanum (det.), upper right angel with trumpet Conques, Tympanum (det.), Holy Women, Holy Men, and Bosom of Abraham Conques, Tympanum (det.), Virgin Mary, St. Peter, and Hermit Dadon Conques, Tympanum (det.), Bosom of Abraham hands Conques, Tympanum (det.), abbot leading king Conques, Tympanum (det.), hands Conques, Tympanum (det.), Satan with torturers Conques, Tympanum (det.), tortures in hell Conques, Tympanum (det.), Foy with church and shackles Conques, Spring beside abbey church Conques, Early 19th c. engraving of village Conques, Abbey church (ca. 1835) Conques Treasury, Coffer of Boniface (det.) Conques Treasury, Coffer of Boniface Conques, Nave capital, Foy led to Dacian Conques, Nave capital (det.), angel behind Foy Conques, Nave capital, Dacian with devil behind

28 28 29 30 30 31 31 32 33 33 34 35 35 36 36 37 38 39 40 41 41 42 42 43 43 44 45 45 46 47 47 75 76 76

Figure list 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 3.1 3.2 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 4.10 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 5.9 5.10 5.11 5.12 5.13 5.14 5.15

Conques, Nave capital (det.), devil Santiago cathedral, Santa Fe chapel left pillar capital Santiago cathedral, Santa Fe chapel left pillar capital, Caprais pointing Santiago cathedral, Santa Fe chapel right pillar capital, saint taken before Dacian Bar-le-Régulier, Church, Foy statue with grill Grand Vabre, Church plaque, Virgin with body of Christ and saints Katherine and Foy Grand Vabre, Church plaque (det.), Foy with grill and crown Morlàas, Foy church, painting on ceiling Morlàas, Foy church, statue of Foy with palm Ste.-Foy-Tarentaise, Church, altar painting of Foy martyrdom Ste.-Foy-Tarentaise, Church, reredo (det.) Ste.-Foy-Tarentaise, Church, silk antependium Ste.-Foy-Tarentaise, Church, red velvet cope London, Westminster Abbey, Saint Faith chapel, altar painting with praying monk Chartres, 1750 map with location of Foy’s church Chartres, Foy chapel seen through Romanesque porch Horsham St Faith, Priory building Horsham St Faith, Refectory wall painting Horsham St Faith, Refectory wall painting (det.) Horsham St Faith, Wall painting, patrons departing on pilgrimage Horsham St Faith, Wall painting, couple imprisoned Horsham St Faith, Wall painting, couple praying Horsham St Faith, Wall painting, Foy liberates couple from prison Horsham St Faith, Wall painting, couple praying in Conques abbey church Horsham St Faith, Wall painting, couple sailing back to England with monks Horsham St Faith, Wall painting, building of Horsham priory Conques, Abbey church, wall painting of Passion of Foy Conques, Abbey church, wall painting of Foy before Dacian Pujols, Foy chapel Pujols, Foy chapel, wall painting of saints George and Martin Pujols, Foy chapel, wall painting (det.), praying onlookers Pujols, Foy chapel, wall painting of Sainte Foy Conches, Ste.-Foy church, window A, education of Foy Conches, Ste.-Foy church, window A, Foy preaching Conches, Ste.-Foy church, window B, Foy kneeling before Dacian Conches, Ste.-Foy church, window B, Foy interrogated by Dacian Conches, Ste.-Foy church, window D, Foy on grill Conches, Ste.-Foy church, window D, Foy in cauldron Conches, Ste.-Foy church, window E, Foy beheading Conches, Ste.-Foy church, window F, Foy in shroud Conches, Ste.-Foy church, window G, mother grieving at Foy’s tomb

vii 77 77 78 78 79 80 81 81 82 82 83 83 84 85 112 112 134 135 136 136 137 137 138 138 139 140 166 167 167 168 169 169 170 171 171 172 173 173 174 175 176

viii Figure list 5.16 Conches, Ste.-Foy church, window C, saints with putti and arms of Levavasseur family 5.17 Calonge, Spain, 18th c. Goigs poster, Santa Fe as parish church patron 5.18 Raurich, Spain, 18th c. Goigs poster, Santa Fe as town patron 5.19 Val-Suzon, Parish church, Foy processional statue 5.20 Val-Suzon, Parish church, testimonial plaques 5.21 Chevigny-Val-Suzon, Foy priory

177 178 179 180 180 181

Preface and acknowledgements

Preface The title of this book foregrounds its central claim: that there was not one cult of the saint but multiple “cults of Sainte Foy.” Scholars of medieval sanctity have tended to submerge local variations within an overarching interpretive framework they call “the cult of Sainte Foy.” The language used for hagiographic discourse produces the effect of similarity and continuity, with difference as incidental. Gregory of Tours’ claim in his Life of the Fathers (c. 591) that we should speak of the “life” not the “lives” of saints led to the widespread assumption in early scholarship that holy lives were modeled upon the same paradigm, which may have discouraged the search for variety and difference.1 Citing Gregory of Tours, Thomas Heffernan emphasizes “the conservative ethos of the genre” [of saints’ life] that “tends to play down differences while extolling socially accepted paradigms of sanctity.”2 Heffernan describes the lives of saints as “sacred stories designed to teach the faithful to imitate actions which the community had decided were paradigmatic. Christ’s behavior in the Gospels was the single authenticating norm for all action.”3 Gregory chooses the singular term “life” because, Heffernan says, “sanctity is derived from the sacred, which is radically singular.”4 Certainly, previous generations assumed that any saint’s cult consisted of a stable package of attributes – iconography, themes and texts – that would be activated by references to the saint in every place or time.5 When the saint’s cult was established in a new location, the invariant package could be put to use to create a functioning cult complete with architectural spaces, artifacts, texts and liturgical practices. By contrast, this study of the child martyr Sainte Foy shares the assumption of most current scholars that saints’ cults are not static or invariant; it assumes there is meaningful variation in any saint’s cult – representing the saint in diverse ways depending on temporal or geographical location, but above all on patronage and reception at a given site.6 Thus it makes sense to speak in the plural of the “cults of Foy,” not of a singular “cult of Foy.” The Cults of Sainte Foy and the Cultural Work of Saints is a comparative study of this saint’s cults throughout Europe, where she was especially venerated during the Middle Ages. From the saint’s martyrdom site at Agen in southwestern France, the cult moved eastward to Conques, where it became a miracle-working shrine in the tenth and eleventh centuries, generating an eleventh-century collection of Foy’s miracle stories, an outpouring of donations and plans for a new church. By the twelfth century, the veneration of Sainte Foy had spread across France to England, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Spain. Some sites put the saint at the center of their religious observances, while others integrated Foy into a complex of many saints

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worshipped in the liturgical year. Representations of Sainte Foy underwent transformation in response to local variations. The Agen martyr was refigured in Conques as a miracle worker on behalf of the Benedictine abbey, while in the Alsace she became part of the imperial agenda of the Hohenstaufen dynasty. In Normandy and England, too, Foy’s early cult depended on noble family patronage, but when family support ceased the cult was left to find new patronage and a new identity. In many places, when the original appropriation of the cult was no longer viable, the cult ceased – leaving only the saint’s name in that location. Some former Foy foundations are known through brief documentary references, but many others retain works of art and literature that continue to fascinate us. Art works include the well-preserved twelfth-century tympanum of the Conques abbey church, the thirteenth-century wall painting of a miracle performed for the aristocratic founders of the priory at Horsham St Faith, England, and the early Renaissance stained-glass windows showing the life and death of Foy in the Conches parish church, Normandy. Texts from Foy’s cult preserved in libraries across Europe reveal other significant adaptations to new sites, including major revisions of the original miracle collection and passio or the creation of new narratives and liturgies. Attention to the history and practice at an individual locale reveals the embeddedness of each cult in its geography and society. At most locations, the cult did not survive into the modern period, but others such as Foy’s home shrine at Conques still draw pilgrims. This is, then, a reception study that looks at the way each cult site selected attributes and stories to produce the saint and the cultic practices it needed.7 Although it traces the cults of Sainte Foy across the centuries and across the medieval map, the aim of the study is not an exhaustive compilation of available information about texts and artifacts in the style of nineteenth-century scholarship – as found in the valuable compendium of Bouillet and Servières.8 Rather, the study will be informed by an explicit theoretical framework that asks what cultural work the saint performed in different times and places. The impetus for creative adaption was the specific work the cult materials were intended to do in their new ritual setting. Jane Tompkins in a study of nineteenth-century American fiction, Sensational Designs, has given a clear description of what is implied by asking about cultural work that a text may be doing: Rather than asking, “what does this text mean?” or, “how does it work?” I ask, “what kind of work is this novel trying to do?” My assumption in each instance has been that the text is engaged in solving a problem or a set of problems specific to the time in which it was written, and that therefore the way to identify its purpose is not to compare it to other examples of the genre, but to relate it to the historical circumstances and the contemporary cultural discourse to which it seems most closely linked.9 Historian Gabrielle Spiegel in her infuential analyses of the intersection between critical theory and historiography argues that “texts incorporate social as well as linguistic realities.”10 While alert to the challenge of combining postmodern language theory with historical analysis, she resists total acceptance of the belief that language “constructs” the world rather than “refecting” it and asks for a way of conceptualizing the “social agency” of texts: What gets lost in the concentration on meaning in place of experience is the sense of social agency, of men and women struggling with the contingencies and

Preface and acknowledgements

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complexities of their lives in terms of the fates that history deals out to them and transforming the worlds they inherit and pass to future generations.11 In an attempt to conceptualize the varied motivations behind differences in the implementation of the cult and representations of the saint, discussion in the first four chapters will be organized around four separate kinds of cultural work that Sainte Foy (and by extension other saints) may be seen to perform: establishing the hegemony of the primary cult site (Chapter One), reinforcing ecclesiastical ideologies and agendas (Chapter Two), expressing the identities and commitments of individuals (Chapter Three), and celebrating noble patrons (Chapter Four). The argument does not rely on conventional modes of analysis. It may, for example, downplay categories such as genre, or the binaries of Latin vs. vernacular texts or of official vs. popular practices that usually structure discussion of medieval culture. Nor does it respect the territorial boundaries that nationalism created but remains open to the possibility that none of these categories is monolithic. By disrupting the expected categories of analysis – including strict chronology – we can identify clusters of materials engaged in the same kind of cultural work.12 While the traditional approach to this and other saints’ cults usually focuses on one period of historical interest (in Foy’s case the eleventh and twelfth centuries), this study looks at cult history beyond the Middle Ages. Foy’s cult remained vibrant in many places throughout the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The nineteenth century saw a crucial revitalization of the cult in Conques, an initiative felt in many former cult sites across France. Narrow disciplinary methodologies are also challenged by taking a thoroughly interdisciplinary approach in which varied kinds of evidence – texts, images, artifacts and practices are brought to bear on the theoretical question of cultural work performed by the saint. Chapter Five explores the probability that several kinds of cultural work would be functioning at one site, either simultaneously or sequentially, as a demonstration of the Foy cult’s true “popular” appeal. In this study, visual images are interpreted as cultural texts.13 The detailed wall painting in the refectory at Horsham St Faith priory, Norfolk, that depicts Sainte Foy’s liberation from captivity of founders Sybil de Cheyney and Robert Fitzwalter arguably played an important role in the monastic experience at that site.14 Likewise, the magnificent stained-glass windows recounting in image and text the life and passion of Foy in the choir at Conches, Normandy, appear designed for maximum visibility and lisibility by the laity in that parish church. A chief aim of this study is to show how visual objects operated in conjunction with other cultural texts in a discursive context to construct a saint’s cult through which people worked to make sense of and thus control their worlds. Foy’s cult in its evolving identities and diverse dimensions illustrates just how creatively “hagiocentric” medieval Catholicism was.15

Acknowledgments I owe a long-standing debt of gratitude to Pierre Lançon, historian, archivist, and librarian at the Société des Lettres de l’Aveyron in Rodez and the Centre de Documentation historique in Conques, for his unstinting support over three decades in gathering bibliographic materials about Conques and its cult. On each of my visits to Conques, he gave me full access to the library holdings, enabled me to copy whatever I needed and alerted me to recent French scholarship. Without his assistance, this book

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could never have been written, and I hope it will repay him – at least in part – for his scholarly generosity. Fellow medievalist Marilyn Deegan has provided comradeship in the search for Sainte Foy from the beginning of my research. Starting in 1992, she took many of the photographs at Conques and various Foy sites elsewhere and shared in my fascination with the female child saint. Her superb technical skills and keen eye for detail have been crucial to this project, and she has proved herself a reliably delightful travel companion. I am also grateful to Jean-Pierre Rousset, dedicated photographer of art and landscape on pilgrimage routes through France, for sharing his photos of the Boniface coffer reliquary in the Conques Treasury. On my early trips to Foy sites in France and Spain, I received travel support from the Dean and College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Southern Maine, as well as from Faculty Senate Research Funds, for which I am grateful. The library staff at the university typically does not receive thanks for their behind-the-scenes work of locating and borrowing the books and articles on which an American medievalist relies for her research, but I fully acknowledge that this book could not have been written without their cheerful and professional support. I especially thank Crystal Wilder and Edward Moore for years of help with this and other scholarly projects. At various stages of research, I presented findings (some with Pamela Sheingorn) at medieval conferences held at Barnard College, NY; University of the South in Sewanee, TN; the Translation Conference in Conques, France; the University of California at Santa Barbara, CA; the Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo, MI; the Medieval Academy in Boston, MA; the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary; the Medieval Congress in Leeds, England; New College in Sarasota, FLA; and the Hagiography Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia. I also gave invited lectures on the cults of Foy at the University of Houston, Bates College, Colby College, SUNY-Binghamton, Davidson College, the European Center for the Study of Romanesque Culture in Conques, and the Conference on Wall Painting in Lisbon, Portugal. My thanks to all those who responded to my presentations. Many scholars have earned my deep gratitude for their contributions at various stages of my research. In the early years, M. Hubert Meyer and Mme. Alexandra Hilde welcomed me to the Bibliothèque Humaniste de Sélestat, which owns the most complete manuscript of the Liber miraculorum sancte fidis, and supplied copies of the manuscript illuminations. James Hirstein offered expert advice on the marginal notes in the hand of Beatus Rhenanus, the Renaissance humanist from Sélestat. Claire de Haas provided insight into the cult and art at Conches. In Val-Suzon, M. Couturier, then mayor, and Mlle. Yvonne Hugi helpfully enabled access to the parish church and to historical materials of the popular cult of Foy ca. 1900. Ann E. Nichols kindly supplied information pre-publication from her catalog of Early Art of Norfolk, and Luís Afonso suggested leads on the cult of Santa Fe in Iberia. I also want to thank David Park for generously sharing his large collection of Horsham St Faith information and images at the Courtauld Institute, London. David and Sonia Simon were stimulating guides to Jaca and the riches of Romanesque sculpture in Spain. Bob Clark, Francophile extraordinaire, provided vital assistance reading the texts on Conches’ stained- glass windows, and I have benefited from his unpublished work on the Chanson de sainte Foi. Frédéric Sée took me to Bar-le-Régulier, Burgundy, where we made a serendipitous discovery of a Foy carving; he also put me in contact with J.L. Bradel, who shared his extensive knowledge of

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the baroque art of Sainte-Foy-Tarentaise church in the Alps. Vinnie Marsicano found me liturgical materials still held in the St. Gall Stiftsbibliothek and hosted a wonderful visit to the church of Santa Fede in the countryside north of Torino. Longtime friends Gail Gibson and Theresa Coletti, with the collaboration of Carole Hill, Richard Beadle, Rebecca Pinner, and Elaine Rushin, organized a delightful personal tour of medieval churches in East Anglia that enriched my understanding of late medieval religious culture there. As a result of a fortuitous encounter in Dubrovnik, Faye Taylor and Fernand Peloux kindly shared their unpublished work on saints relevant to the cult of Foy. Ann Coltman gave me timely assistance reading a German study of the St. Gall cult and, in the final stages of preparing my digital file, Joanne Thompson’s trained art historical eye and digitizing expertise was invaluable. Katie Armstrong of Routledge/Taylor and Francis has been a model of supportive patience while I was trying to finish the manuscript, and her editorial efficiency once she received it was remarkable. To these and many other friends and colleagues who contributed to my project, I give my heartfelt thanks. Sharing my discoveries about the cults of Foy has been one of the joys of this research. Finally, I must register an immeasurable debt of gratitude to Pamela Sheingorn, who first enticed me into hagiography studies and eventually became my valued collaborator in studies of Saint Foy. Shortly after becoming acquainted, we discovered a mutual interest in the figure of Saint Anne – which led to a co-edited volume of essays about Anne’s popular cult in the later Middle Ages.16 Pam had spent many years translating the Latin miracles of Foy into English, and once the translation project was headed for publication,17 she invited me to join in analyzing those fascinating narratives about the child martyr saint. Our work yielded a co-authored book Writing Faith18 and several articles on the cult of Foy. I have since added to my hagiographic studies a book and articles on the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela,19 but I have no doubt it is to Pam that I owe my initial entry into the rich and rewarding field of saints.

Notes 1 Gregory of Tours uses the singular “life” in his title Liber vitae patrum, and in the preface comments, “It is asked by some whether we ought to say life or lives of the saints. A. Gellius and several philosophers have preferred to say lives. But Pliny in the third book of the Art of Grammar says ‘the ancients have said “the lives” of each of us; but grammarians did not think that [the word] life has a plural.’ Hence it is clear that it is better to say ‘life of the Fathers’ rather than ‘lives’ because, although there is a diversity of merits and deeds of power, nevertheless, the one life of the body nourishes all in the world.” Quoted by John Kitchen, Saints’ Lives and the Rhetoric of Gender: Male and Female in Merovingian Hagiography (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 96. Kitchen argues that scholars have misinterpreted this quotation and offers an in-depth analysis of “the complexity of Gregory’s view regarding the unity and diversity of sanctity” (in Life of the Fathers), 97; see his full discussion 58–98. 2 Thomas Heffernan, Sacred Biography: Saints and their Biographers in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 14. 3 Heffernan, Sacred Biography, 5. 4 Heffernan, Sacred Biography, 7. 5 Most compendia of saints are based on the implicit assumption that the legend and attributes of each saint remain stable, with few historical modifications; see, for example, Rosa Giorgi, Saints in Art, ed. Stefano Zuffi, trans. Thomas Michael Hartmann (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2002).

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6 Without using the theoretical language of “cultural work” and “appropriation” with which this study frames its analysis, other scholars document the shifts in hagiographic emphasis of various saints, their cults, and their recipients. Citing the work of Thomas Head and Sharon Farmer, Patrick J. Geary discusses the “intentionality behind hagiographic production,” in Living With the Dead in the Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994, 11–29; “We must rediscover the meaning of hagiographic texts to their producers, the contexts of production and distribution, and the uses of the texts” (27). For St. Edmund of Bury, see Simon Yarrow’s “case study” in Saints and Their Communities: Miracle Stories in Twelfth-Century England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006), 24–62; also Rebecca Pinner, The Cult of St. Edmund in Medieval East Anglia (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2015), who uses an interdisciplinary approach through descriptions of the cult of Edmund in many kinds of writing (not just hagiography), in iconography, and in material culture to trace successive generations of devotees who redefine the saint’s identity; he could be “martir, mayde and kynge” depending on the reception context. Similarly, without theorizing “appropriation,” Tracey R. Sands shows the political implications of restored images of saints in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century churches in Gotland on the Baltic Sea, where Danish identities were erased to create Swedish identities for the saints; “Saints and the Politics of Gotland Identities,” in Symbolic Identity and the Cultural Memory of Saints, ed. Nils Holger Petersen, Anu Mand, Sebastian Salvado and Tracey R. Sands (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018),189–219. In the “Introduction” to the collection Symbolic Identity and the Cultural Memory of Saints, Nils Holger Petersen acknowledges “reception history” whereby “transformations of local or regional identities take place in connection with local appropriations of transmitted materials, ideas and/or structures” (2). Similarly, Barbara Abou-El-Haj offers a case study of three pictorial hagiographies of St. Amand d’Elnone produced between 1066 and 1180 that show the “changing content” of the lives “as the monastery sought to renew its cult while it adapted to new pressures of feudal arrangements in a developing exchange economy”; The Medieval Cult of Saints: Formations and Transformations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 61. For an art historically focused overview of the complex issues regarding patronage, production and agency, see Jill Caskey, “Whodunnit? Patronage, the Canon, and the Problematics of Agency in Romanesque and Gothic Art,” in A Companion to Medieval Art, ed. Conrad Rudolph (Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 193–212. 7 A useful list of “Typical components of a saint’s cult in the medieval period” (based on the work of Graham Jones) is given by Samantha Riches in “Hagiography in Context: Images, Miracles, Shrines and Festivals,” in A Companion to Middle English Hagiography, ed. Sarah Salih (Cambridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2010), 45–46. 8 Auguste Bouillet and Louis Servières, Sainte Foy, vierge et martyre (Rodez: E. Carrrère, 1900). 9 Jane Tompkins, Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790–1860 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 38. 10 Gabrielle M. Spiegel, The Past as Text: The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), xviii. 11 Spiegel, “History, Historicism, and the Social Logic of the Text.” in The Past as Text, 21. 12 A brief list of many functions of saints’ cults is offered by Stephen Wilson in the “Introduction” to his edited volume, Saints and their Cults: Studies in Religious Sociology, Folklore and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, repr. 1987), 1–53. For this study, I identify and analyze kinds of “cultural work” pertinent to understanding Sainte Foy’s cults. 13 The discourse of cultural studies uses the term “cultural text” for almost all forms of social expression, but in the interests of clarity (given its interdisciplinary scope) my analysis hereafter mostly uses “text” for written pieces. 14 Because a majority of her cult sites are in France, I will refer to the saint by her French name, Sainte Foy. Names in other languages (Fides, Faith, Fe, Fede) will be used when necessary. 15 The term is Patrick J. Geary’s, Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 217.

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16 Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn, eds. Interpreting Cultural Symbols: Saint Anne in Late Medieval Society (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1990). 17 Pamela Sheingorn, ed. and trans., The Book of Sainte Foy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995). 18 Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn, Writing Faith: Text, Sign, & History in the Miracles of Sainte Foy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999). 19 Kathleen Ashley and Marilyn Deegan, Being a Pilgrim: Art and Ritual on the Medieval Routes to Santiago (Farnham, Surrey: Lund Humphries, 2009).

Introduction Appropriation and the cultural work of saints

The broadest intellectual framework for this examination of Foy’s cults is provided by cultural studies, especially the version formulated by Stuart Hall, which defines cultural production as the entire range of a society’s arts, beliefs, institutions, and communication.1 Within such a framework, a connection between material objects and symbolic meaning is emphasized, and cultural practices are shown in relation to socio-historical structures of power. To the emphasis of cultural historians on power, I have added insights of anthropologists about the multiplicity of functions one ritual object or practice might have. Taking what Mieke Bal calls “a reception-oriented perspective of cultural critique” enables a focus on “the interaction between the visual and verbal ‘behavior’ of those who deal with, process, or consume” texts of all kinds.2 Bal’s semiotic approach calls for “letting go of a unified concept of meaning” and recognizing the “validity of alternative or conflicting interpretations.”3 For example, the Last Judgment carved on the tympanum at Conques may have been intended by the abbey as a template through which orthodox thought and pious behavior would be conveyed to its viewers, but reception theory suggests that the tympanum could have been variously received by those entering the church. Thus, after analyzing the various cultural tasks that Sainte Foy’s cult could perform – whether for the monastery at Conques, the institutions of the universal Church, individuals, lay patrons, or as part of popular spirituality – the study suggests that on occasion all may be operating around the same site simultaneously for different participants.4 My analysis seeks to avoid a positivist interpretation that privileges one kind of evidence. For example, in the relationship between historical research and material artifacts, written documents are often seen as sources that “explain” objects by positioning them within a stable context. Instead, visual semiotics can be a guide in “problematizing” and “reformulating” the idea of context, which Norman Bryson suggests should be one of art history’s “central and continuing” activities.5 Textual semiotics, too, invite us to see the meaning of a piece of writing as always in play. We must be alert to revisions of the text itself, to shifts in the discourse surrounding the text, and to new relationships with other elements in its cultural context. A key concept for the semiotic reception paradigm that frames this study of Foy’s cults is appropriation. “Appropriation” is a term that gained currency in cultural studies through the writings of Roger Chartier,6 Michel de Certeau,7 and Peter Burke to designate the complex processes of cultural transmission.8 This study follows Roger Chartier in describing appropriation as a “social history of the various interpretations, brought back to their fundamental determinants (which are social, institutional and

2 Appropriation and cultural work of saints cultural) and lodged in the specific practices that produce them.”9 When existing texts, artifacts and behaviors are adopted, contemporary theories of interpretation have emphasized that they do not necessarily carry their meanings over intact into the new cultural situation.10 Rather, in the transmission and adoption there is adaption; new meanings may be added or extant ones removed, as the text, image, object or behavior is reshaped for its new context and new function.11 Processes of revision and reshaping include translation, addition, omission, and layering, as well as potentially subversive modes of poaching, bricolage, and parody. A favored mode of appropriation in religious culture is to take an observable “fact” and develop a meaningful legend around it. Even the placement of an unchanged original into an entirely new framework or setting can transform meaning for the new users.12 Close observation of the development of a saint’s cult like that of Sainte Foy reveals many different parties interested in appropriating the cultural cache of the saint and, in the process, potentially transforming aspects of the cult and its meaning. The impetus for such creative adaptation was the differing cultural work the cult was intended to do in new socio-political and ritual settings. As Véronique Plesch and I suggested in discussing the cultural processes of “appropriation,” we should remain aware of both a diachronic and a synchronic dimension to the process. Acts of appropriation usually “unfold through time, allowing for multiple mutations and transformations,” while a synchronic approach reveals a “spectrum of appropriation, from situations in which almost nothing is retained of an original meaning and/or function to those in which an original continues virtually unchanged.”13 As a result, in studying the appropriation of Sainte Foy we are watching cultural production in action. Whereas some cultural theorists have emphasized the ways in which institutions simply seek to reproduce their own power, changes in the cults of Sainte Foy suggest that creativity and variation are inherent in acts of appropriation across space and through time. To focus on the “cultural work” done by texts and objects in various ritual and historical settings is to open up possibilities, including contestation or conflict.14 Postcolonial theorist Françoise Lionnet’s concept of “transculturation” seems particularly useful in understanding the processes of transformation in space: The prefix “trans-” suggests the act of traversing, of going through existing cultural territories. Its specifically spatial connotations demarcate a pattern of movement across cultural arenas and physical topographies which corresponds to the notion of “appropriation,” a concept more promising than those of acculturation and assimilation because it implies active intervention rather than passive victimization.15 The examination of Foy’s cults in the following chapters shows many different agents actively appropriating the saint for their own purposes in their own locale. As Claire Sponsler emphasizes, appropriation is a continuing temporal as well as spatial process. Whereas the tendency in earlier medieval studies was to focus on origins – to attempt to reconstruct a foundational moment, a lost original or sources – Sponsler looks at diachronic processes in order to understand objects “in transit through culture.” If it can be assumed that whether in the form of scribal copying of a manuscript, the translation of relics from one shrine to another, the co-opting of a ceremonial

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role, the redrafting of an iconographic image, or the reading of a text, medieval cultural productions were to a remarkable degree in transit, then the challenge for scholars, so often confronted with the seemingly static end-product – finished manuscript, enshrined relic, enacted performance, or completed painting – is to find a way of accessing the shifting processes of appropriation that produced those results now apparently fixed in ink or paint or stone.16 The golden reliquary statue of Sainte Foy still on display at Conques cannot be placed at one moment of origin or creation and might be considered the perfect icon of appropriation as a continuing temporal process. As Madeline Caviness says, “She is a composite work, an assemblage built on a Roman core with accretions of gemstones throughout the Middle Ages that constitute a material record of reception.”17 Architectural historians, too, have recently argued for a diachronic approach to buildings that recognizes how transformations over the longue durée respond to changing needs of users.18 With Sponsler’s prompting not to privilege cultural production only at the point of origin but to recognize appropriation as an ongoing process, this study will look at cults of Sainte Foy at multiple places, in diverse objects and texts, and where possible at successive moments in time. However, identifying the cultural forces at work in a given medieval site is often difficult when comprehensive data is lacking, which is an all too familiar situation for medieval researchers. Typically, an artifact or building survives with little contextual information, as for example the Romanesque Santa Fede church, near Cavagnolo, Italy.19 Conversely, written records exist for many now-vanished objects, institutions or practices. Analyzing the varieties of cultural work done by Sainte Foy depends on fragmentary survivals of cult texts, architecture, art works and documents. Each chapter of this study makes its case by assembling the available visual and textual evidence – some richly detailed and some isolated and decontextualized. The survivals at Conques are exceptional for a medieval saint’s cult and together provide solid illustration in Chapter One of the growth and functioning of a cult center until the present day. By contrast, numerous sites mentioned in Chapter Two on the spread of the cult across Europe are known from a mention in a text, the survival of an object, or because an ecclesiastical property has retained the name of Foy – but not much else remains to write a history of the cult there. The appropriation of the saint to individual life stories discussed in Chapter Three is made possible by a few well-preserved writings whose authors are known, even if the larger cultic context is not always well-documented. The impact of noble patronage on the Foy cult can be reconstructed in places like Horsham St Faith or Sélestat, where buildings, cultic materials, and textual culture exist to support the arguments in Chapter Four, while similar donations by families may be known only by a trace left in the Conques cartulary.20 The appropriation model posits a continuing process of adaption and change, but – except for the richly documented history of the cult at Conques – we must piece together the few extant artifacts, texts, and documents for each site, which at best offer snapshots in time of the work done by the cult in that place. Above all, the concept of appropriation draws attention to motivation in the process – “to make one’s own,” the meaning of the Latin verb appropriare.21 The medieval monks at Conques appropriated the legend and relics of Sainte Foy from Agen and decisively made the saint their own abbey patron, a process repeated in the late nineteenth century when the bishop of Rodez re-created the cult of the famous

4 Appropriation and cultural work of saints saint at Conques. Officials of the universal Church took Foy as one of their martyred holy figures to be celebrated in their liturgical practices and visual commemorations in the Middle Ages and beyond. Some individuals claimed a close personal relationship to Foy, while noble families made efforts to show the saint’s special patronage of their interests. Finally, we can see the processes by which the saint was associated with a particular city or region – for example Burgundy, where she was adopted by religious authorities in Val-Suzon and Dijon and also by popular religious culture. Appropriation of the cult by multiple parties in the same location could be mutually reinforcing or conflictual, but either case demonstrates the potency of Sainte Foy as a cultural symbol.

Notes 1 Stuart Hall et al., Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies, 1972–79 (London: Hutchinson, 1980). For an analysis of the early formation of “cultural studies,” see Stuart Hall’s Cultural Studies 1983: A Theoretical History, ed. with introd. Jennifer Daryl Slack and Lawrence Grossberg (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016); see also David Chaney’s The Cultural Turn: Scene-Setting Essays on Contemporary Cultural Theory (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), 1–88. Theories associated with cultural studies were primarily developed by analysts of modern societies, but they have been adopted – and occasionally challenged – by numerous scholars of medieval society. 2 Mieke Bal, Reading “Rembrandt”: Beyond the Word-Image Opposition (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 8. 3 Bal, Reading “Rembrandt”, 13. 4 This is the final point made in Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn, “The Performed Book: Textuality and Social Space in the Cult of Sainte Foy,” in Romard: The Ritual Life of Medieval Europe, vol. 52/53, ed. Robert L.A. Clark (London and Ontario: First Circle Publishing, 2014), 233–55. 5 Norman Bryson, “Art in Context,” in Studies in Historical Change, ed. Ralph Cohen (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1992), 19. 6 Roger Chartier, Cultural History: Between Practices and Representations, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988). 7 Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven Rendall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984). 8 Peter Burke, History and Social Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). The term “appropriation” has been used most pervasively in postcolonial theorizing; see Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies, ed. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin (London: Routledge, 1998), 19–20: “By appropriating the imperial language, its discursive forms and its modes of representation, post-colonial societies are able … to intervene more readily in the dominant discourse, to interpolate their own cultural realities, or use that dominant language to describe those realities to a wide audience of readers” (20). The editors of Key Concepts also cite the opposing (more negative) definition of the term “appropriation” as describing a strategy by which “the dominant imperial power incorporates as its own the territory or culture that it surveys and invades” (19). For an example of the second meaning of appropriation, see D. Spurr, The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing, and Imperial Administration (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993). In discussing Foy’s cult, I will be closer to the first, more open, definition of “appropriation.” 9 Chartier, Cultural History, 13. 10 Within art history, the concept of “spolia” – referring to classical artifacts re-used in a later setting – has been the focus of discussion. “Spolia” is given many meanings, from the purely pragmatic reuse of building materials to a deliberate conversion of pagan to Christian meaning. Alternatively, it may imply that the object or material re-used from a prestigious original setting carries with it some of the original historical significance. For a broad overview of “The Concept of Spolia” see Dale Kinney in A Companion to Medieval Art, ed. Conrad Rudolph (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 233–52.

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11 For a fuller theoretical discussion of the concept of appropriation and its applicability to medieval and early modern cultural production, see the Special Issue of the Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, ed. with “Introduction” by Kathleen Ashley and Véronique Plesch, “The Cultural Processes of ‘Appropriation,’” 32 (Winter 2002). 12 Julia M.H. Smith, for example, analyzes the transfer of relics of Saints Chrysanthus and Daria from Rome to Münstereifel (a dependency of Prüm) in the mid-ninth century, asking “what happened upon their arrival in Frankish churches with which they had no historical association and where their cult reflected no collective memory?” She suggests it could generate new memories, new written expressions, and a new commemorative identity that “could effect a radical redistribution of sacred authority. By translation into a distant shrine, a Roman saint was transformed, altered and refigured.” “Old Saints, New Cults: Roman Relics in Carolingian Francia,” in Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West: Essays in Honour of Donald A. Bullough, ed. by Julia M.H. Smith (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 326. Her full discussion of the two saints in new locations is 326–29. 13 Ashley and Plesch, “Introduction” to “The Cultural Processes of ‘Appropriation,’” 10. As noted above, without explicitly using a theory of “appropriation,” many recent hagiographic studies show how a saint’s representation has been reshaped or re-signified in different contexts. However, relatively few medieval scholars extend their hagiographic analyses past the late Middle Ages. One stellar examination of the diachronic dimension is Mathew Kuefler, The Making and Unmaking of a Saint: Hagiography and Memory in the Cult of Gerald of Aurillac (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014). In the final two chapters (Ch. 5 and 6), Kuefler follows the vicissitudes of the cult of Gerald through the early modern period and the nineteenth century, copiously illustrating new representations of the saint. With a focus on the diachronic dimension, too, Kay Brainerd Slocum traces the historiographic reception of St. Thomas of Canterbury in The Cult of Thomas Becket: History and Historiography through Eight Centuries (London and New York: Routledge, 2019). 14 Susan Boynton, for example, uses the formulation that the liturgy is not just a product but a practice, with a range of functions that may develop new possibilities; Shaping a Monastic Identity: Liturgy and History at the Imperial Abbey of Farfa, 1000–1125 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006), 3. 15 Françoise Lionnet, Postcolonial Representations (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), 13. 16 Claire Sponsler, “In Transit: Theorizing Cultural Appropriation in Medieval Europe,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 32 (2002): 20–21. 17 Madeline Harrison Caviness, “Reception of Images by Medieval Viewers,” A Companion to Medieval Art, ed. Conrad Rudolph (Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 69–70. 18 Nicola Camerlenghi, “The Longue Durée and the Life of Buildings,” in New Approaches to Medieval Architecture, ed. Robert Bork et al. (Farnham, Surrey: Routledge, 2011), 11–20. 19 For the lack of documentation about the early cult and church, see P. Bartolomeo Bardessono, Santa Fede di Cavagnolo (Torino) (Cavagnolo: Arte Storia Presenza Marista, 1995). Also, Chiara Devoti and Monica Naretto, L’abbaziale di Santa Fede a Cavagnolo Po (Savigliano, Cuneo: L’Artistica Edit, 2015), 29, 31, 39, 60. A seventeenth-century “pancarte” cited by Gustave Desjardins, ed., Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Conques en Rouergue (Paris: Alphonse Picard, 1879, repr. 2017), cxix–cxx, names “prioratus Sanctae Fidis de Visterno seu Cavancholio” as a dependency of the Conques abbey. The post-medieval history of the Cavagnolo Foy priory has been recounted by Auguste Bouillet and Louis Servières, Sainte Foy, vierge et martyre (Rodez: E. Carrère, 1900), 367–70. 20 Desjardins, Cartulaire. 21 Ashley and Plesch, “Introduction,” 3.

1

Conques Creation of a ritual center

For the contemporary scholar, Conques – the site of Sainte Foy’s shrine from the ninth to the twenty-first century – provides an unparalleled example of the creation and maintenance of a saint’s cult center (Figs. 1.1 and 1.2). Because so many material components of Foy’s cult survive, whether in Conques or traceable to it, and because Conques has been the site of religious activity for well over a millennium, it might appear an easy subject to analyze. However, the diversity and richness of the art, architecture and textual evidence remaining have resulted in disciplinary divisions that prevent a broad overall view of how a saint’s cult center functions. The Romanesque abbey church with its well-preserved tympanum, capital carvings, rich treasury, and unique reliquary statue of Foy, as well as Conques’ still-pristine location on the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela, guarantee its interest to medieval art historians. The eleventh-century Liber miraculorum sancte fidis (Book of Sainte Foy’s Miracles) offers vivid narratives to hagiographers, while the cartulary and other eleventh- and twelfth-century documents and chronicles fascinate historians of southern French society. The unique Chanson de Sainte Foi, written in the southern langue d’oc, has been a key text for Romance linguists. Almost all this disciplinespecific scholarship to date has identified the eleventh and twelfth centuries as the apogee of Foy’s cult, either stating or implying that the cult declined thereafter. After the acquisition of the saint’s relics in the ninth century, the cult of Sainte Foy was firmly established in Conques through written texts, arts and architecture, and rituals produced during the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries. This is where most scholars end their histories, but a more expansive diachronic approach taken by this study shows that the cult survived from the thirteenth to the twenty-first century through successive lesser-known appropriations – both in Conques and elsewhere. While there were cult developments throughout history at many sites, this chapter will focus on those designed to maintain Conques’ status as Sainte Foy’s cult center. As her cult grew in Conques, Sainte Foy was primarily designated as the patron of a place; she is the “puissante patronne” of the abbey, its monks, and all who acknowledge her powers of intercession. One gains access to the saint’s power (virtus) by going to her shrine at Conques, the loca sanctorum, so pilgrimages would be of primary importance to the cult – as Bishop Bourret understood when he acted to reanimate the cult in the late nineteenth century. The “localization of the holy,” as Peter Brown puts it, goes back to late-antique Christianity, with pilgrimage as the remedy for bridging the distance to the shrine in order to be in the presence of the martyr.1 Bernard of Angers’ eleventh-century miracle stories depict Conques above all as the regional destination of a pilgrimage taken by those seeking Foy’s intervention.

Conques: creation of a ritual center

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Bernard’s personal relationship to the saint will be discussed fully in Chapter Three, but here we will focus on his portrayal of Conques as the numinous shrine connected to the saint’s miracles. When the cultural work of the saint is to locate and focus powers of intercession for suppliants and those under her protection – as it is at Conques – texts, documents, rituals, architecture and the visual arts reveal the primary goal of establishing a ritual center.

Conques pre-Foy Early ninth-century documents in the abbey’s cartulary confirm that Conques was a site of religious activity even before Sainte Foy’s relics arrived to bolster the monastery’s saintly credentials later in the century.2 An act of February 801 by a person named Leutadus describes an abbot Madraldus and his monks who live under the Benedictine rule in Conques.3 An April 8, 819 diploma written at Aix-la-Chapelle by Emperor Louis the Pious describes the stages in development of the abbey,4 and in a document of August 23, 838 the Aquitainian king Pippin I confirmed the “goods” (property, mostly manors and churches) of the Conques abbey. He also authorized it to construct a new monastery (a novas concas) in the town of Figeac because the Conques site was too isolated and difficult to access.5 The 819 description of the abbey’s development traced its origins to a vir religiosus, Dadon, who came to the site on the Dourdou to find solitude; he was, in other words, a hermit.6 The act adds that the remote site had also been used by Christians fleeing the 793 incursion of Sarrasins to the Rouergue.7 The document implies that Dadon arrived between 793 and 801 but says that the hermit decided to relocate to Grand Vabre in the valley when more religious came to Conques to live in the community and build a church. A poem composed c. 826–28 in honor of Emperor Louis by Ermold le Noir lauds the monastic community at Conques, which – under the patronage of the pious king and despite the savagery of the site – has implanted vineyards and orchards and created a road through the rocks.8 The poem gives detailed and even lurid background on Dadon’s decision to become a hermit out of guilt for his mother’s murder by Saracens that he had not acted to prevent.9

Appropriating Foy from Agen These documents and narratives from early ninth-century Conques create a picture of a religious site with important royal patronage but one that was not the cult center of one saint. The church had relics of the Holy Savior, the Virgin Mary and the Apostle Peter, as the 801 document notes. Two centuries later – when Bernard of Angers first visited ca. 1013 – the church was still formally associated with the triumvirate of the Holy Savior, the Virgin Mary and the Apostle Peter, even though by that time Sainte Foy was responsible for the abbey’s fame that had impelled Bernard’s journey south. Bernard describes the tenth-century basilica as architecturally and symbolically representing all three holy figures: From the outside, the basilica is made up of three forms by the division of the roofs, but on the inside these three forms are united across their width to shape the church into one body. And thus, this trinity that fuses into unity seems to be

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Conques: creation of a ritual center a type of the highest and holy Trinity, at least in my opinion. The right side was dedicated to Saint Peter the apostle, the left to Saint Mary, and the middle to the Holy Savior. But because the middle was in more frequent use due to the constant chanting of the Office, the precious relics of the holy martyr were moved there from the place where they had been kept.10

The appropriation of Sainte Foy’s relics by the abbey created a new identity for Conques that subsequent textual and artistic productions of the monastery were designed to reinforce. The saint appropriated a place already sacralized by a hermit and the growing monastic community. Even as Foy brought her unique personality and powers to Conques and its abbey, the heritage of the earlier religious and their royal patrons was not forgotten but integrated where useful into the later art and legends produced at the cult center. Medievalists debate the historical accuracy of many of the texts produced at the abbey in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries. Amy Remensnyder calls the creation of foundation legends about monastic origin “imaginative memory.”11 Whatever their admixture of fact and legend, all were created with the goal of establishing the predominance in the region of Foy’s cult and the abbey that was her home.12 According to the well-known story in the eleventh-century “Translatio,” the relics of Sainte Foy were brought to Conques in the ninth century as a result of a “theft.”13 In this narrative, which was the official version offered by the Conques monastery, Foy is the single heroine of the story and already a miracle worker in Agen.14 In actuality, the appropriation of Sainte Foy from Agen was a gradual process, unfolding over a century, rather than a one-time event. Consider the fact that the monks of Conques had intended to acquire the relics of Saint Vincent of Saragossa, which were taken instead by another monastery at Castres. Seeing how popular Saint Vincent was, the Conques monastery turned its attention to a second Saint Vincent – of Pompejac, near Agen, where his relics were.15 Evidently, the relics of both martyrs, Vincent and Foy, ended up at Conques in the late ninth century, and both sets of martyr relics were acknowledged in donations for the next century, beginning with a charter of July 30, 883.16 Only in the late tenth century did Sainte Foy become the unchallenged patron saint of Conques and Vincent ceased to be mentioned in donation documents. Whereas the donations in the abbey cartulary show that Foy appears in a list of dedications alongside Christ, the Virgin Mary, the Apostle Peter, and Saint Vincent for decades after her relics were translated to Conques, the narratives produced by the abbey in the eleventh century clearly foreground Foy’s patronage of the shrine and the monastery – erasing the other dedicatees from the earlier church and earlier centuries. By the mid-eleventh century, Foy had become the unquestioned patron of the cult center in its texts, architecture and art. Many of the facts in the story of relic acquisition from Agen cannot be historically verified beyond circumstantial evidence, but this account, however legendary, clearly identifies the motivation behind the acquisition of Foy’s relics – to create a shrine in the monastery church that would increase the visibility and importance of the monastery both in the region and across Europe. The cultural work at Conques was to promulgate the cult and sustain the power of a monastery centered ritually on the shrine of Sainte Foy. Legend-making played its part in achieving these goals at Conques – and elsewhere, as I will show in succeeding chapters.17

Conques: creation of a ritual center

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Foy the treasure collector Foy may have been atypical among martyr saints in being a female child, but her cult initially flourished at a moment when the cults of saints exploded across France – the end of the tenth through the eleventh century.18 Cult texts of all kinds were newly composed, and liturgical objects including magnificently embellished reliquaries were produced; churches were built or remodeled to enable the veneration of newly appropriated relics.19 Between 1013 and 1020, Bernard of Angers made three journeys from northern France to the Rouergue to investigate firsthand the unusual reports of Foy’s cult he had heard at Chartres and then decided to gather the stories of her miracles.20 Known collectively as the Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis, Bernard’s two books of miracle narratives, with the addition of two more books written by monk continuators after Bernard’s death, helped spread the fame of Sainte Foy outside the region, so that by the end of the eleventh century Conques had become famous throughout Europe for its miracle-working saint. In his first collection of miracle stories, Bernard of Angers describes the impact on the monastery of acquiring Foy’s relics: “The monastery of Conques was dedicated in honor of the Holy Savior. Long ago the holy martyr’s body was secretly carried away from the city of Agen and brought to Conques by two monks. After that Sainte Foy’s name prevailed there because of her more numerous miracles.”21 The benefit of having a miracle-working saint as one’s patron was substantial. The monastery became famous, and pilgrims drawn to Conques by the stories of Foy’s miracles made generous donations to the monastery, Bernard says: Finally, in our own time, after the renown of the great miracle worked for Guibert (called “the Illuminated”) flew across the whole of Europe, many of the faithful made over their own manors and many other pious gifts to Sainte Foy by the authority of their wills. And though the abbey had long ago been poor, by these donations it began to grow rich and to raised up in esteem.22 Material evidence of Conques’ increasing importance as Foy’s shrine may be seen in the construction of a body-shaped reliquary known as a “Majesté” (L. “maiestas”), with the saint seated on a throne.23 A first reliquary statue of Foy was presumably made in the late ninth century after the arrival of her relics from Agen. It was completely remodeled at the end of the tenth century, as the monastery had prospered with an influx of pilgrims. The reliquary statue of Sainte Foy is famed as the only remaining example of a Romanesque maiestas, and the Conques abbey treasury which contains many other reliquaries and liturgical pieces is famous as one of the few in France that escaped destruction over the centuries. The investment in reliquaries to house saints’ relics was an investment in symbolic capital (both spiritual and material) that attracted pilgrims and more gifts to the shrine.24 Cynthia Hahn emphasizes that all reliquaries over 1,000 years old are products of “making and re-making,” a process or revision that recharges the power of the relic for its audience.25 In its continual addition of precious metals and stones over many centuries, Sainte Foy’s statue is a revealing product of cultic appropriation as a diachronic process or, as Hahn puts it, a “work-in-progress.”26 It is a body-shaped statue of the saint measuring 30 centimeters or 33 ½ inches high (Fig. 1.3). The head appears to have originated as a late Roman bust of a male, which gives the reliquary

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Conques: creation of a ritual center

statue a severe and monumental appearance far removed from Bernard of Angers’ descriptions of a playful little girl saint (Fig. 1.4). Although this feature has fascinated art historians, it appears to be a pure form of “spolia” in which the pagan head is completely integrated into the figure of a Christian martyr without retaining any of those previous associations. The head was attached to a core of yew wood, which was then sheathed in gold leaf. Cranial relics of the saint were enclosed in a cavity carved out of the wooden body at the back.27 During the tenth-century remodeling of the statue, a jewel-laden circular crown of the imperial style common in the Carolingian era was added, and the saint was seated on an elaborately decorated golden throne (Fig. 1.5).28 The maiestas described by Bernard of Angers in the early eleventh century is recognizably the one we see today: It is made of the finest gold and becomingly adorned with gems delicately and carefully inserted on portions of the garments, as the judgment of the craftsman thought best. The band about the statue’s head also displays gems and gold. She wears golden bracelets on golden arms and a low golden stool supports her golden feet. Her throne is made in such a way that only precious stones and the best gold are to be seen there. Also, above the tops of the supports that project upward at the front, two doves made of gems and gold adorn the beauty of the whole throne.29 Foy’s relics in their reliquary began to draw local worshippers to the church, and over many centuries their gifts of jewels were added to the statue (Fig. 1.6).30 In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, more jewels, cameos and carved medallions were added, and the golden doves were replaced by rock crystal globes. A quadrilateral opening was made in the chest to reveal the relic of the saint’s cranium. The use of antique jewelry – for example the intaglio of Caracalla or a tourmaline with Isis – again poses the question what, if any, pre-Christian signifcance is carried over to the new setting. Many of the jewels decorating the reliquary are usually associated with royal settings and appear to have come from an earlier era when the Conques monastery was patronized by Carolingian and Aquitanian rulers.31 Most of the cult objects in the abbey treasury resemble the reliquary statue in being products of continuing appropriation. They have been put together from diverse precious materials and embellished throughout the many centuries of the ritual life of the object. As Beate Fricke argues, “bricolage should be regarded as an essential element in the composition of treasury art to a far greater extent than has been thought previously.”32 The so-called “reliquary of Pepin or of the Circumcision,” for example, brings together a striking golden relief of the crucified Christ with Mary and John and symbols of the sun and moon, gold filigree borders, two birds (eagles or doves) with cloisonné enamel wings in black, blue and red, and an ancient carnelian intaglio featuring Apollo as well as other gems. It is an assemblage that continues to fascinate and baffle art historians, who would like to pin down the exact dates of each gem or style – which have been hypothesized (without consensus) as coming from the eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and sixteenth centuries! The twelfth-century legendary history of the monastery, the Chronicle of Conques, mentions relics of the infant Christ’s umbilical cord and foreskin being given to the abbey by Charlemagne. Other accounts attribute the reliquary to an eighth-century Pépin or to Pépin the king

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of Aquitaine, who was a patron of the monastery in the ninth century. Another much puzzled-over treasure of Conques is the so-called “A of Charlemagne,” to which many legends have attached themselves.34 Stepping back from the challenge of art historical attribution to our focus on appropriation, we can again see the Conques abbey’s concern with creating beautiful expressions of its spiritual identity with Sainte Foy its patron. That cultural work of promoting Foy’s shrine by enriching her treasury was the rationale for the acquisition and repeated reconstruction of most of the liturgical objects that survive at Conques. The Pentagonal and Hexagonal reliquaries, for example, were assembled in the sixteenth century from pieces of much earlier reliquaries dating from the seventh to the thirteenth centuries (Figs. 1.7 and 1.8).35 They show that the appropriation process by which the abbey treasury was enhanced and Foy’s cult elevated continued well into the early modern period.

Foy the miracle worker The ascent of Foy into the unquestioned focus of the shrine and patron of the monastery at Conques was due to her reputation as a miracle worker. In his miracle collection, Bernard of Angers claims the monks were not in the habit of writing down the miracles performed by their saint before he arrived in Conques and decided to take up that task, although news of the miracles taking place in Conques had obviously been circulating widely since the late tenth century. The first miracle in Bernard’s collection – we might call it the “founding miracle” of the Conques shrine – concerns a Guibert whose eyes were restored after being torn out. The miracle happened approximately thirty years before Bernard of Angers arrived; its effects on the abbey’s fortunes are apparent during the last decade of the tenth century when the Conques Cartulary shows a dramatic rise in donations.36 Bernard testifies at length to the flow of precious objects to the abbey to revamp the reliquary, enrich the liturgical holdings and construct a new golden altar frontal.37 Miracle books like the Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis were one of the earliest genres of Christian writing, appearing first in the fifth century, and Robert Bartlett enumerates the features of the genre apparent from the first example – the miracles of St. Stephen, written in Uzalis, North Africa ca. 420: A prologue communicating the subject of the treatise … avowing the truthfulness of the accounts and expressing the author’s personal and literary unworthiness; then, in two books, a series of discrete tales, typically beginning with a standardized introduction of the character who benefitted from the miracle … Short narrative segments of this type were, over the course of the Middle Ages and beyond, to be one of the most common types of Christian literature; they number in the tens of thousands.38 Although at frst glance medieval miracle stories look remarkably similar and Bartlett does not emphasize differences between types of miracle collections, it’s worth pointing out that not all collections perform the same cultural work. The Liber miraculorum of Foy fits a category of “shrine miracles” whose purpose is to ensure that recipients of a miracle come to the shrine itself. The stories therefore offer detailed representations of the Conques region, vividly evoking both the built

12 Conques: creation of a ritual center and natural environments. Named local lords come from named castles, and local villages and towns are identified in relation to the monastery church and the surrounding gorge country of the Dourdou. The narratives construct an image of the monastic shrine of Sainte Foy as the numinous center of the entire region in order to draw those in need to petition the saint for a cure or thank her for their rescue – to “hurry to Sainte Foy,” as the texts put it. The typical shrine miracle collection exemplified by Foy’s book foregrounds the importance of the shrine church as an essential destination for the miracle recipient, but another liber miraculorum – the miracles of Saint James (Saint Jacques/Santiago) – represents a slightly different type I would call “pilgrimage miracles.” Although it was produced at one of the major pilgrimage sites of medieval Christendom, the tomb of James at Santiago de Compostela, this eleventh- and twelfth-century collection does not mandate a trip to the shrine for miracle recipients. Narratives in the collection take place far away from Santiago – some in Iberia but also in France, Italy, and other Mediterranean regions and some in exotic locations. Some are on land, but many are on the sea, where Saint James performs rescues from drowning and captivity. The message of this miracle book is clearly that the power of the saint ranges across the world, rather than being exclusively identified with the home shrine at Compostela. The saint is portrayed as a powerful patron of the pilgrimage, a guardian of pilgrims as they travel from the ends of the earth, and the cultural work of the collection is to sacralize all the pilgrimage routes. Just the idea that one is a pilgrim of Saint James seems to be enough to guarantee a miracle, and the arrival at Santiago is not represented as a crucial element in the narrative.39 Unlike Foy’s miracles, the James miracles conclude with testimony to the saint’s power without explicit reference to the shrine or the saint’s relics as the site of this potency. The eleventh-century miracles of Sainte Foy include the usual stories of healing and liberation of captives and, as products of what Benedicta Ward calls a “traditional shrine,” there are also many “acts of power.” These show the saint demonstrating her superiority over rival saints as well as taking vengeance on those who denigrated the saint or threatened the holdings or servants of the monastery.40 They characterize Foy as patron and protector of the Conques abbey, its possessions, and its monks. Ward comments that the stories “are set firmly in the countryside that housed the saint,” where Foy is “as great a lord as any in the countryside.”41 The hegemony of Foy’s cult in the region did not eliminate competition with rival saints’ cults, a fact of life during the central Middle Ages for many cults, as Kate Craig has shown.42 That competition between saints was on spectacular display at one synod of churches in the diocese of the bishop of Rodez. In the meadow of Saint Felix near Rodez, the various reliquary boxes and golden images were set up under tents and pavilions, as described by Bernard of Angers: “The golden majesties of Saint Marius, confessor and bishop, and Saint Amans, also a confessor and bishop, and the golden reliquary box of Saint Saturninus, and the golden image of holy Mary, mother of God, and the golden majesty of Sainte Foy especially adorned that place.”43 Needless to say, in Foy’s miracle book account of holy rivalry, Foy’s miracle-working prowess proves “preeminent.” By 1000, Foy was unquestionably dominant in her secure abbey shrine, but when taken out in procession to other locations the relic in its reliquary was subject to diverse responses including verbal abuse and physical attacks.44 The image of Foy as a powerful competitor to other saints and local lords is not the only characterization in the miracles written about her. As we will see in

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following chapters, representations of Foy in iconography and texts of other European sites differ widely, but even at Conques images of Foy vary depending on the reception context. The imposing non-gendered adult figure of the reliquary statue dominated in liturgical and ritual settings; however, in many miracle narratives of Bernard, Foy appears as “a little girl of indescribable grace” who interacts in a lively and intimate as well as assertive manner with those needing a miracle.45 She appears in dreams in the form of a “beautiful not yet adult girl” to insist that someone donate gold and precious stones for the new altar frontal that was being fashioned c. 1000.46 In dreams, the saint could also appear “in the form of a despondent woman, very thin and wan and supporting herself with a pilgrim’s staff as if she were utterly exhausted.”47 Bernard of Angers’ miracle narratives emphasize Foy’s youth and gender, while in descriptions written by the monk-continuators of Books Three and Four Foy is most often an adult “glorious virgin” in a celestial setting. These books contain many healing miracles, and Foy’s thaumaturgical persona is explicitly connected to her celestial powers. Book Four ends with a paean to the celestial virgin martyr: Thanks to divine grace, a very splendid accumulation of so many miracles has been spread over the whole world through the outstanding merits of Christ’s most glorious virgin and martyr, the wondrous Sainte Foy … . With God as her navigator she penetrates all the seas and illuminates all regions. She herself is fully equal to the merits of all the saints in the wondrous brightness of her powers. … Her brilliant rays illumine the entire earth, which blooms with miracles. … Blessed and powerful, she is virgin most precious, pearl of Paradise, joined with the chaste body of the heavenly spouse in the celestial bed-chamber, bright lamp of the world, most watchful patroness of peoples, glory of virgins, flower of martyrs, praise of angels, ornament of the heavens, salvation of the country, force of the church, plunderer of Gehenna and door of the closed heavens, strongest for the healing of diseased bodies, sweetest remedy for the weak, most invincible protection of the distressed.48 This unrestrained celebration of the monastery’s patron appropriates every possible laudatory epithet from the medieval discourse of virgin martyrs in the service of bringing devotees to the shrine at Conques, where it promises that their prayers will be answered and their needs met by the universe’s most powerful saint. As the culminating statement in the Liber miraculorum’s concluding miracle, it represents the acme of the monastery’s claims to be an important cult center.

The Romanesque cult setting As the monastery was enriched by streams of pilgrims and local donors, the original tenth-century church built under Abbot Etienne I (942–84) was replaced by a new church built gradually between c. 1050 and 1150.49 Two abbots – Odolric (1031–65) and Etienne II (1065–87) – oversaw the major building program, while Begon III (1087–1108) and Boniface (1108–1125) built the cloisters and continued enriching the treasury (Fig. 1.9). The culmination of the rebuilding was a tympanum depicting the Last Judgment that is one of the wonders of Romanesque sculpture (Fig. 1.10). Given its sheltered orientation in a narrow valley far from urban pollution, the stone

14 Conques: creation of a ritual center has escaped the erosion that has damaged so much Romanesque sculpture over the centuries. Dating the tympanum has proved difficult in the absence of direct documentation. Most scholars attribute its sculpture to the first quarter of the twelfth century, while Jean-Claude Bonne pushes the date to 1125–35, and others even later to 1140–50 or 1160–70.50 The church was constructed over many decades, during which different types of stone were used and plans had to be modified to deal with new problems.51 Over subsequent centuries, the Romanesque church had to be repaired numerous times, as Eliane Vergnolle and her collaborators recount. However, they emphasize the “remarkable authenticity” of the monument that survives; the sculpture is in its original form and, with some exceptions, few of the supporting stones have been replaced.52 The Romanesque abbey church at Conques performs a double cultural task: seen from afar, the impressive fortress-like building affirms the power of the abbey, which is both temporal and spiritual; at the same time, especially through the tympanum program, the church speaks directly to the faithful53 (Fig 1.11). In his dense analysis of the tympanum itself, Jean-Claude Bonne reminds us that the tympanum is an integral part of the entire architectural complex, which was the setting for many religious ceremonies as well as rituals of justice over the town – for which the Judgment scene would be pertinent.54 The tympanum could thus play diverse roles in the life of the abbey. The figure of Foy on the tympanum gives the clearest image of the saint’s intercessory role at her shrine in Conques. Foy is partially portrayed prone, hands together in prayer position, as Christ’s large hand reaches down to touch her head (Fig. 1.12). The image assures those who appeal to the saint that they are guaranteed her mediation with heaven. Foy “obtains pardon of the charges against us from God in heaven, and she is a faithful translator who brings the prayers of suppliants to the ears of divine mercy,” according to the final miracle in Book Four of the Liber miraculorum.55 The portrayal of Sainte Foy as effective mediator responding to the prayers of the needy gives the tympanum a humane, intimate, even uplifting aspect that might seem at odds with its stern theme of the Last Judgment. The scene of the Last Judgment at Conques elegantly combines several motifs, as Jean-Claude Bonne points out. It fuses the triumphant return of Christ, the awakening of the dead, the separation of souls, and the reunion of the elect.56 The details are based on the vision in Matthew, which describes the coming of the Son of Man “upon the clouds of heaven with great power and majesty. And he will send forth his angels with a trumpet and a great sound, and they will gather his elect from the four winds …” (Matt. 24: 30–31). At his coming with all his angels, he will separate the good from the evil: “Then the king will say to those on his right hand, ‘Come, blessed of my Father, take possession of the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’… . Then he will say to those on his left hand, ‘Depart from me, accursed ones, into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels.’” (Matt. 25: 34 and 41). Certainly, many art historians have noted the unusual accessibility of the Conques tympanum. Typically, they attribute Conques’ difference with other Romanesque Last Judgment tympana to the moral exhortation rather than purely theological messages inscribed at each of the three levels. The harshest statement is addressed directly to the viewer: “Sinners, if you do not change your ways, know that a hard judgment will be upon you.”57 It is a warning that invites a response in the form of personal behavioral

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change, thus leaving open the possibility of salvation. There are other features that subtly pull viewers into a relationship with the tympanum messages and figures. The inscriptions balance the fate of the blessed with that of the damned: perpetual joy against perpetual suffering, peace and rest against torment, gentleness and lack of fear against condemnation and defilement.58 Facing the tympanum, the grotesque vision of hell is on the right, with the ranks of the blessed on the left. The implied balance between evil and good, however, is not the actual message the sculpture sends, for figures associated with Christ’s blessing by his uplifted right hand outnumber those whom he judges with his left arm pointing down (Fig. 1.13).59 Mercy and redemption appear to outweigh the harshness of pure justice.

The vision of angels and the blessed The presence of angels – citizens of heaven who are carrying out the divine mandate – is notable in the sculpture of Conques. Jean-Claude Fau calls angels “a Conques theme par excellence,” and many scholars have noted the “omnipresence of angels,” which are carved inside the church at the tribune level and at the transept as well as on the tympanum.60 Jean-Claude Bonne in his analysis of the tympanum design dedicates a chapter to the portrayal of angels, pointing out their role as symbols of celestial harmony in contrast to the devils, who are images of disharmony. For Bonne, they also have the syntactic role of connecting and confronting different elements of the design. They are, he says, the most “dynamic” figures in the whole tympanum.61 Almost half of the middle register on the hell side of the tympanum is taken up by four angels, one holding the Book of Life (Fig. 1.14), one holding a liturgical censor (Fig. 1.15), one carrying a pennant and peering down into hell, and one with a sword and shield. Opposite them at Christ’s right hand, four angels hold scrolls advertising the virtues – FIDES SPES/ CARITAS/ CONSTANTIA/ UMILITAS. In the top register, an angel on each side blows the trumpet of the Last Judgment, while others hold the instruments of the Passion. On each side of Christ’s feet an angel holds a candle, while below them an angel leads at least five nervous people away from the hell mouth into which the unfortunate are being shoved (Fig. 1.16). Below, several angels wake the dead in their tombs. All these angels are not static figures but active ones, creating a sense of movement and welcome for the saved at the moment when ultimate justice is being enacted. On the architrave, diminutive heads some see as idiosyncratic angels peek out over the unfurled scroll they hold in their hands (Fig. 1.17).62 The angel with the trumpet at the top right of the tympanum has a Kufic (Arabic) inscription carved on the border of its robe, an unusual detail that has generated speculation about possible artisans who might have been Moorish or in contact with Moorish art (Fig. 1.18). The Kufic words on the angel’s garment are “Al Youm” (“Happiness”) and “Al Hamd” (“Day of Grace/Glory”). Calvin Kendall in his study of Romanesque church inscriptions hypothesizes “itinerant” artists and builders responding to the monastery’s desire to replace outmoded styles with “the latest fashions in art.”63 Rather than seeing these Arabic words as evidence of direct appropriation of a foreign language at Conques by sculptors, it’s more likely they represent the precious fabric of an angel’s garb, identified as silk produced in the East or in Moorish Iberia. Silk textiles were commodities of the highest value and became metaphors for spiritual value. As Martine Bagnoli points out, silk was the “material of choice” for wrapping

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relics in the Middle Ages.64 The small part of Sainte Foy’s skull was wrapped in a piece of silk “samit” inscribed with the word “Bahakat” (“Benediction”).65 Sharon Kinoshita too notes that most extant medieval silk fabric “survived as ecclesiastical garments or wrappings for the relics of saints.” The silk was typically orange-red with blue or green on an ivory ground, which corresponds to the piece of ninth- or tenth-century silk wrapping the cranial bone in Foy’s reliquary statue.66 The most commonly distributed silk textiles had “Arabic inscriptions in stylized Kufic script, repeating words like ‘prosperity’ or ‘perpetual blessing.’”67 Although the Christian users of the silk would not have understood the Kufic words, they would certainly have appreciated that this luxury fabric was the appropriate prestige wrapping for holy relics. As Janet Snyder points out, churches throughout western Europe also reproduce on sleeves of tunics worn by sculpted figures an Islamic loom-woven cloth with a line of embroidery or tapestry (“ţirāz”). These were textiles “universally recognized and names of their places of production were known in courtly and literary communities.”68 The silk relic wrapping of the treasury and the inscribed carving on the Conques tympanum angel’s robe suggest a process of appropriation for Foy’s cult that crosses geographic, temporal and religious boundaries. What is being appropriated is the significance of Moorish silk as the luxury fabric most fitting for a holy relic or a celestial angel’s garb. In an interesting contrast to the active angels, the humans who belong with the blessed in heaven are shown in calm and orderly groups. On the bottom register, under arcades, are seated biblical patriarchs and, standing, New Testament women – the Wise Virgins of the parable and the women who went to Christ’s tomb at the Resurrection (Fig. 1.19). In the middle register, walking in procession are the Virgin Mary, St. Peter with his keys, a hermit with his staff, and an abbot with his crozier followed by a king and a pilgrim (Fig. 1.20). The identities of several figures have been debated, but it is likely they represent historical people associated with the abbey of Sainte Foy. The sense of gentle humanity conveyed by the figures of the saved on the Conques tympanum illustrates the virtues written above them: they are the chaste, the peaceful, the lovers of piety, who thus can rejoice in security, fearing nothing. The gestures – in particular, the emotive hand gestures – of the saved on the Conques tympanum almost make the verbal inscriptions redundant.69 Father Abraham sits with children Isaac and Jacob on either side, his hands protectively around their shoulders and their hands on his knees (Fig. 1.21). The group of souls delivered from hell hold hands, while the abbot leads the king by the hand (Fig. 1.22 and 1.23). The serenity of the bodies and helping hands of the blessed are a contrast to the disarray of bodies in hell and the clutching hands of the devils (Fig. 1.24 and 1.25). Among the well-known stylistic features of Romanesque sculpture are large expressive hands; I’d argue the Conques tympanum artist appropriates this conventional trait, giving it unique representational and emotional depth in the Last Judgment scenes. The Conques tympanum offers an unusually humane vision of the end of history, and it is uniquely reflexive among Romanesque tympana featuring the Last Judgment. Not only is Sainte Foy, patron of the abbey, shown in the act of interceding for petitioners who come to her shrine, but behind her praying figure is the image of the church’s interior, with an altar and shackles hanging from the ceiling (Fig. 1.26). Prisoners who had been liberated by the saint brought their chains as ex votos to Conques. There, according to legend, the iron was made into grills that surrounded the altar

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in the choir area where the reliquary statue was placed. Bernard of Angers describes Foy’s most famous miracles, the freeing of prisoners who are ordered to “hurry to Conques with their heavy fetters or chains.” Because of the “immense quantity of iron fetters they call ‘bracelets’ in the language of that district,” the senior monks decided the “great mass of iron should be hammered out” and converted into doors, Bernard says.70 So many fetters had been brought to the abbey that Bernard notes a large quantity of fetters “hanging below the carved paneling of the ceiling,” not yet melted down.71 The fetters sculpted a century later on the new church tympanum thus refer to the rich and long-standing legends of Sainte Foy, liberator of prisoners.72 While there is disagreement among art historians about the identification of all the figures in the procession of the blessed on the tympanum, most have a clear connection to the history of the abbey as a religious institution. The hermit figure is no doubt Dadon, who chose the original site; the king may be Charlemagne or one of the other royal patrons; the abbot is probably one of the important church monastic leaders of the eleventh century. A devotee looking up at the tympanum could hardly escape its reference to the abbey church itself and to its patron saint, an unusual and perhaps unique role for a Romanesque tympanum.73 The tympanum places the identifiable Conques church into an eschatological frame and invites a viewer to enter into a devotional relationship both with the concrete church she/he sees and with the spiritual future it portrays.

Conques and Figeac As Conques gained in fame and influence regionally, a conflict with the monastery in the nearby town of Figeac that had simmered for over a century intensified. The 838 diploma had created a “New Conques” in Figeac, since the older abbey was so inaccessible; however, issues of precedence flared up at the end of the eleventh century, with the publication of an 855 diploma – now considered a forgery by scholars – that gave Figeac the primacy over Conques.74 The Figeac monastery wrote a chronicle bolstering its claims, and Conques responded by writing a chronicle that would secure its authenticity and primacy as cult site.75 Amy Remensnyder traces the documentary combat she calls “a dialogue” of “rich legendary texts produced by Conques and Figeac during the late eleventh century.”76 The papal authorities considered the case of the rival monasteries and, in 1096, asserted the rights of the Conques monastery over the monastery at Figeac.77 The conflict nevertheless continued until Figeac submitted to Cluny’s rule. A bull of December 24, 1099 by the new pope Pascal II extended Conques’ list of privileges. Sainte Foy’s name was to be entered into the litany of virgins and read at the mass. Her passio and miracles could be read in the church, and her feast would be celebrated throughout the Catholic world. Furthermore, the abbot of Conques should attend the election of the bishop of Rodez. Truly, as Jacques Bousquet notes, this was accession to the highest level of the Christian universe!78 Conques’ preeminence as the regional cult center was secure by 1100, but the episode shows how multifaceted and sustained the effort had been. At the end of the eleventh century, the influence of the powerful Conques monastery was also beginning to be felt over the Pyrenees in northern Spain, as will be more fully discussed in Chapter Two. In the twelfth century, Conques became a major stop in the international pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela. No longer primarily a regional pilgrimage destination, the shrine of Foy at Conques was an important

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halt on the pilgrimage route that began in Le Puy-en-Velay and crossed the Pyrenees at Somport Pass. It was incorporated into the first pilgrimage guide to the Galician shrine, the Liber Calixtinus, written after 1137.79 The guide advises “Burgundians and Teutons who go to Santiago by the route of Le Puy” to visit Foy’s shrine at Conques. The one geographical feature mentioned (other than the setting of the basilica above the valley) is the “excellent spring” by the church portal (Fig. 1.27) – which was doubtless vital information for the arriving pilgrim.80

Conques and the abbey in the later Middle Ages The centuries from the thirteenth onward are usually seen as a period of decline for the Conques monastery and the Foy cult. Nevertheless, the abbey still had substantial holdings in many parts of France that it was actively administering.81 For example, in the thirteenth century when Raimond VII, Count of Toulouse, decided to create new towns on a grid layout with an arcaded market square at the center, he negotiated an agreement (called a paréage) with the Conques abbey. The abbey owned a territory with a priory of Sainte-Foy at the farthest point of the Agenais on the Dordogne River near Pineuilh.82 The count’s agents negotiated both with the local prior and with Hugues, the Conques abbot, who ratified the paréage on August 22, 1255.83 All the land necessary to build a bastide was given without restriction (integralitur), except for the priory building, a garden, some fields, and a mill. The right of the priory to construct an oven inside the bastide was also specified, while outside the new town the prior released half of the lands, goods and rights he had to the new investors. The priory maintained its spiritual jurisdiction and the dime, and as co-seigneur of Pineuilh the prior’s other jurisdictions and rights were meticulously spelled out.84 The new bastide, called Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, was one of over 300 bastides built between 1229 and 1337 in southwest France (now Aquitaine and Midi-Pyrenees).85 The agreement signed in 1255 and the “coutumes” of June 1256 had several important outcomes. The location of the new bastide on the Dordogne River allowed lucrative control of the waterway. Also, the “coutumes” of bastide Sainte Foy served as models for many other bastides subsequently created in the thirteenth century.86 As a financial, economic, and military center, the bastide Sainte-Foy-la-Grande was a success. It’s intriguing to consider that the Sainte-Foy cult collaborated in one of the first stages in the transition from a feudal economy to agrarian capitalist production.87 Although the monastery no longer dominated the Conques region politically, the populous town that had grown up around the monastery began to pressure the abbey for municipal liberties in the thirteenth century.88 A 1341 survey documented 730 “feux” (hearths) that historians estimate as a population of at least 3,000 – large relative to the present 150 year-round town residents.89 Most of the private houses surviving to this day were built during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; many of them are architecturally distinguished, and they suggest the wealth of their owners, who were contesting the monastery’s political and cultural dominance. The fourteenth through the sixteenth century also brought violent external challenges to the abbey and its monks. A census of the monks living in the Conques monastery in 1326 and 1346 gave the numbers as 31 and 36, presumably down from earlier centuries.90 The autobiographical notes of abbot Raymond de Reilhac cover the years 1369–1389, when western Christendom had two rival popes – one in Rome and one in Avignon – each demanding ecclesiastical loyalty. We hear even more from

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the abbot of the chaos resulting from the Hundred Years War that threatened the area, “tribulations of wars, pillages, infinite dangers and depredations, intolerable evils that have almost taken away his desire to live and have totally ruined the lands of the abbey.” For protection, abbot Reilhac lived in the Lunel castle for four years and four months.91 By the sixteenth century, the abbey’s religious work had declined in its importance to the town of Conques and society at large. As pilgrimages to the shrine decreased, Conques’ commercial activity grew by hosting an annual fair and a weekly regional market.92 The monastery’s status and privileges, however, remained, including a diocesan exemption. The abbot wore the miter, the ring, the tunic, the dalmatic, and the pontifical gloves. He controlled 40 benefices in the diocese of Rodez and 45 in other dioceses of France, as well as six abroad.93 The abbey was still the owner of many priories and foundations in the Rouergue, as Louis Servières in his history of the cult points out. He suggests that the large number of parishes connected to the abbey – centers of devotion to the saint – demonstrates the continuing vitality of the cult of Foy.94 Although tensions between monks or canons and the local bishop were common at the end of the Middle Ages, the conflicts between the Conques monastery and the Rodez bishop developed into violence. They came to a head in December 1516 when bishop François d’Estaing decided to make a ceremonial visit to the Conques abbey, where he was verbally derided and even physically attacked as he knelt to pray before the altar of Sainte Foy in the choir.95 As a result of these troubles, in 1537 the new abbot Antoine de Rousselet with the agreement of the 29 monks requested of François I and pope Paul III that the monastery be secularized and a college of Augustinian canons put in place.96 It consisted of an abbot, a provost, a dean, a sacristan, a worker, a “primicier,” a precenter, an archpriest, a treasurer, twelve canons, two “hebdomadiers” (weekly workers), a master of music, and four children of the choir.97 The “climate of violence” continued, however, and the townspeople brought suit against the canons for their attacks on local citizens, including murders.98 The religious wars of the sixteenth century also resulted in raids on the monastery, with a destructive fire in the church in 1568.

Conques in the French Revolution The French Revolution of the eighteenth century brought an intense anti-clericalism that further undermined religious institutions, including the Foy cult in Conques. Since the Middle Ages, the clergy had been one of three recognized social “estates” with separate legal and financial bases; however, during the French Revolution its independence was drastically attacked. In August 1789, the economic “privileges” supporting the clergy were abolished, and in November 1789 its biens (goods) were put at the disposal of the government. 1790 laws further prohibited the taking of monastic vows and put ecclesiastics under the political control of civil authorities, to whom they were required in 1791 to pledge fidelity. The views of the radical anti-clerical faction toward saints are represented in a satirical work by the journalist Sylvain Maréchal, the Nouvelle legénde dorée, published in 1790. In it, Maréchal parodies the well-known late medieval compendium of saints’ legends, usually with sarcastic comments on the saints’ actions. The entry on Sainte Foy is exceptionally short but to the anti-clerical point: “Saint FAITH, widow

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[sic] and martyr, at Agen. We will only give the title rather than repeat commonplaces which won’t instruct and, worse, won’t amuse.”99 This may be the only example of appropriation by parody in the history of Foy’s cult! As the “Terror” progressed in 1792, 1793, and 1794, many members of the clergy emigrated, others were executed, and ecclesiastical gold, silver and precious stones were seized by government officials.100 It was in this context of increasing legal repression that Conques abbey treasury property was saved, to become the only intact French church treasure to survive the Revolution. The precise history of the episode known as the “Sauvetage du Trésor” (saving of the treasure) is not clear, since accounts of the incident written years later differ, but what seems obvious is that despite official mandates there was cooperation between the clergy and local laity to hide the abbey’s cult objects.101 There are reports that in 1792 when the government wanted to inventory the precious objects the townsfolk protested. The women of Conques gathered to prevent officials from gaining entry to the church.102 In 1793, under official threat again, the canon André Bénazech and other colleagues from local families, under cover of a midnight thunderstorm, broke into the abbey church and took the Foy reliquary and other objects that they then hid in family properties. Some clergymen who had refused to take the oath of fidelity to the king were forced to emigrate, but Bénazech was hidden in his family’s house in Conques, no doubt with the tacit complicity of the village population and authorities.103 In 1795, a new law re-established religious liberty, separating the church and state, and André Bénazech was able to come out of hiding. Eventually, the treasures of the abbey were returned to the church with a procession on January 1, 1803.104

Recreating Conques as cult site in the nineteenth century Despite the fidelity of villagers to the cult of Foy during the revolutionary years, the abbey archives were burned and the abbey church and its monastic buildings neglected during the chaotic first decades of the nineteenth century as Catholic leaders and anticlerical polemicists fought for political power in France.105 Circa 1830, the departmental architect authorized the destruction of a large portion of the Conques cloisters, whose stone had been taken by villagers for their own purposes. Arcades adjoining the chapter house and part of the cloister by the refectory were all that remained.106 The church was in a ruinous state, and the abbey archives had been burned at the Revolution. Two key interventions by two extraordinary men – Prosper Mérimée and Ernest Bourret – are responsible for the viability of the abbey church and the cult of Sainte Foy after the French Revolution. Each man used his considerable influence – one early in the nineteenth century and the other late in the century – to ensure the survival of Conques as Sainte Foy’s cult center.

Mérimée and the abbey Prosper Mérimée, the newly appointed Inspector General of Historical Monuments in Paris, came to Conques in June 1837 on his tour across France to assess the state of ancient monuments, including medieval churches. There is no doubt that his visit marked the recognition and eventual renewal of Conques as an important historical site in the early nineteenth century, a status it maintains until the present, nearly two centuries later.

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Born in 1803, Mérimée was still a young man when in 1834 he was appointed Inspector General of Historical Monuments. The post had been created in 1830 as a mechanism for government intervention into the rapidly deteriorating national heritage of early buildings, art works, and other significant monuments.107 Although best known for his literary work, Mérimée came from a family of artists, and he published articles on art throughout his life.108 He had already noted the degradation of medieval buildings not just from civil wars or the Revolution but also from wellintentioned “restorers.” As he wrote to a friend in 1834, “Protestants and terrorists are content to mutilate statues, destroy some ornaments, while repairers have completely changed the appearance of edifices that they wanted to restore.”109 He also, it seems, wanted a life of more adventure than a desk in the Paris bureaucracy offered.110 The position of Inspector General demanded extensive travel to and systematic documentation of sites throughout France to assess the monuments in every region. For the next eighteen years, Mérimée typically spent more than a month each year on the road inspecting historical buildings and sending progress reports back to Paris. In 1834, he made a tour through Burgundy and the Midi; in 1835, it was western France; in 1836, eastern France; in 1837, the Center and the Auvergne; in 1838, the west and southwest; and in 1839, the southeast and Corsica. After each trip he wrote up his observations and recommendations for government conservation support as “Notes” to be published in book form. His 1837 journey through the Aveyron began in May and ended in mid-August. Clearly, Mérimée was not prepared for what he found during his brief visit to Conques. He was struck by the inaccessibility of the site – a distance from civilization that he thought must have attracted those desiring the hermit life: The bourg of Conques, almost inaccessible for a part of the winter because of the difficult roads, is built around and even on the abbey ruins, the dependencies of which have disappeared one by one, some very recently. Only the church has been preserved as a parish church; it is situated on an extremely steep slope, with the western façade turned toward a narrow but deep valley lined with almost vertical rock walls. One could not choose a place more melancholy or more suitable to pious souls who wanted to flee the world.111 He was also impressed by the church itself, which he called a “model” of regional architecture.112 He determined that the church of Sainte Foy at Conques should be restored rather than torn down, and his descriptions of the isolated site with its church brought it to national consciousness (Figs. 1.28 and 1.29). The tympanum of the western door he considered barbare (primitive) but nevertheless composed with more art and feeling than one might expect of this early period. He identified the large figure of Christ seated at the center of the tympanum as having “all the traits of Romanesque sculpture: the long body, the exaggerated grandeur of feet and hands, the drapery folds, and above all the minute care with which the smallest details were executed.”113 He was charmed by the “naively comic” figures of the confident abbot with his crozier leading a terrified king – a visual representation of the supremacy of Church over State.114 After fully describing the zones of heaven and hell on the Last Judgment scene and the monitory leonine verses written between scenes, he concluded “if I’m not mistaken, in this immense variety of figures assembled on the bas-relief, there is more imagination than compositions of this époque normally show.”115

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Mérimée also acknowledged the rare Conques treasure, noting especially the “A of Charlemagne” reliquary, a statuette of Sainte Foy, a Romanesque enamel, a large silver cross, and the porphyry “altar of Abbot Begon” with 18 busts of holy figures and an inscription of donation by Pons, Bishop of Barbastro. His analysis ended with a reminder to the Minister in Paris that more money was needed to repair the roof and the base of the crumbling northern walls to “definitively assure conservation” of “this remarkable monument.”116 He put the Conques abbey church on the first Historical Monuments list of 1838. Mérimée was considered anti-clerical and atheist; his interest in Conques was that of an architectural historian. Nevertheless, his erudition prepared him to appreciate religious buildings, and his unqualified support for the renovation of the Sainte-Foy church was the first key element in resuscitating Conques as ritual center during the nineteenth century. The rebuilding of the abbey church – which lasted most of the century – provided a vital material basis for the rejuvenation of the town of Conques and for the cult of Foy. It also represented an appropriation of the cult, for the first time, by academic art history.117 As an example of a Romanesque pilgrimage church with the only extant body-shaped reliquary, the church of Sainte-Foy is enshrined in virtually all texts on medieval art history.

Bishop Bourret and the cult of Foy The second key in remaking Conques as ritual center was the commitment of Ernest Bourret, the Bishop of Rodez, during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. He devoted his considerable energy to reinvigorating Foy’s cult not only in the region but throughout France. Bourret was a churchman of forceful character who played an outsize role in French Catholic affairs for twenty-five years.118 Although he had received his schooling in liberal Paris, by the time he was appointed Bishop of Rodez in 1871 he was affiliated with ultramontane beliefs that he continued to support until his death in 1896. For centuries, the French church had taken a “gallican” position of independence from the Pope on the assumption that the “Holy See was able to tolerate a wide variety of national styles and customs.”119 However, between 1848 and 1853, the Roman Curia began to exert explicit control over ecclesiastical life in France, supported by an “ultramontane” faction in the French church. Ultramontanism was especially strong in southern, rural France with its popular religious traditions. Bourret’s career unfolded against this political and religious background after 1870, when the ultramontanists were at their strongest.120 In one 1878 speech, he responded to a critic who had claimed one could be Catholic without being ultramontane and going on pilgrimages. Bourret retorted: You don’t want any more ultramontanism, vaticanism, romanism. You’re not for the Syllabus, you’re not for pilgrimages, you’re not for processions, you’re not for multicolored and multiform assemblies and many other things. Eh! So, what do you want? Because it seems to me when you’ve gotten rid of all that there isn’t much left.121 Bourret’s determination to bring the cult of Foy back to life owes something to those ultramontane commitments but just as much to his indefatigable nature and participation in ecclesiastical politics of his day. P.M. Jones comments, “Bourret was

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indeed formidable. As the spiritual leader of numerous and youthful clergy, he exercised considerable power of patronage and tirelessly solicited the promotion of his most able protégés and lieutenants.”122 He was a staunch supporter of the new Catholic universities in southern France; at his death, it was noted that of 194 diplomas given by the Institut Catholique de Toulouse 52 were to students from his diocese of Rodez, who had been encouraged to pursue their education by Bishop Bourret.123 Bourret was also legendary in inspiring devotion among the laity, perhaps because he was a local boy from a humble family in St. Etienne-de-Lugdarès (Ardèche) who spoke the patois and “toured his diocese incessantly.”124 It is difficult to overstate the importance of Bishop Bourret in resuscitating the religious cult of Foy during the final quarter of the nineteenth century. In accordance with his ultramontanist beliefs, Bourret embarked on an ambitious project to give new life to the ancient cult by choreographing the traditional rituals celebrating a Catholic saint. The name of Foy lent itself to allegorization, as the Revue Religieuse de Rodez et de Mende, the newsletter of the diocese, made clear: “May the re-awakening of our devotion to Sainte Foy gain for us from this powerful Virgin the return of the innumerable favors she granted our fathers. May she above all reanimate us with an unbreakable attachment to our holy Catholic faith!”125 The Revue Religieuse provides an in-depth explanation of Bishop Bourret’s initiatives at each step of the process. It advertises coming events, provides necessary rationales and background information, and then describes each event in fulsome detail. Bourret, the master of ceremonies, was also a master communicator. The first step in Bourret’s project was to choose a new religious order to serve the cult at Conques. On June 22, 1873, Premonstratension canons – the Brothers of Saint Norbert – were installed to serve the abbey.126 The Abbot Edmond with his six canons and four priests were introduced in Rodez then went to Conques to be greeted by decorated arches and crowds from surrounding parishes. M. Bénazech, the Conques notary, introduced the Bishop on the dais beside the new abbot bearing cross and miter. The dignitaries processed to the basilica, which “shone with a new brilliance in the presence of the two prelates.” Bishop Bourret in a moving voice gave one of his “brilliant speeches,” both sublime and familiar; like a father with his children, he “captured all hearts,” the reporter wrote. He showed the moral and material aspects of the work he had just funded, he evoked past glories, and he said that he awaited the zeal and learning of the children of Saint Norbert for the restoration of the church and the good of souls. As the Bishop spoke “magnificently” on the words of holy scripture, “Locabitur deserta et invia, et exultabit solitudo,” each person wanted to say, “That will be the future of the ancient monastery of Sainte Foi.”127 A week later, on July 11, the newsletter carried Bishop Bourret’s letter to the Conques Premonstratensions that begins with a reminder of this crucial moment for the revival of the Catholic faith, “the moment when France and Europe seem to be awakening from their torpor to go kneel before the altars of our most famous pilgrimages.” He urges them to put every effort into establishing the pilgrimage and cult of the heroic martyr whose precious remains he has given them. They are to preach the “power and glory of that beautiful virgin Fides, hoping that by her intercession God will give to the church and France and our old country the Rouergue (which is still Christian and noble) a new grace of resurrection and perseverance in the good.”128 A second initiative was to establish the tradition of annual regional pilgrimage to Conques. On July 25, 1873, the newsletter announced the “very ancient pilgrimage

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that led pious people to the famous abbey of Conques.”129 The month of October was designated as the pilgrimage month, with the inaugural celebration to take place October 12, 1873. In announcing plans for the event, the newsletter noted that the only visitors to Conques for 80 years had been archeologists and tourists, who focused on the Romanesque church and its treasury.130 It was therefore time to reclaim the ancient faith. Crowds of Catholic men were asked to come for October 6 (Sainte Foy’s feast day) to prove that the faith still persisted.131 Women would be specially invited at other times. Bishop Bourret was to officiate at mass and vespers, and every day of the octave there would be full liturgical celebrations of mass, a sermon, procession and veneration of the relics of Foy. On October 12, the archbishop of Bordeaux would come to celebrate mass in Conques and on the 13th the bishop of Montauban. Pilgrims from the different towns and villages in the region were assigned different days to come, and the railroads would offer reduced fares.132 Multiple missives from the diocese, the new Conques abbot and Bourret himself (using the rhetorical trope from Isaiah) urged participation in the pilgrimages so that the name of the martyr saint could be celebrated as it was in olden days. During the octave of Foy’s feast, solemn liturgical offices daily would transform the land, yesterday still a desert, into a desired place where princes of the church, the great of the world, pious rural populations and friends of art and historical restoration would come. One could then say like the prophet “Et exultabit solitudo et florebit quasi lilium” (Isaias 35:1). The official articles published by Bourret on September 26, 1873133 laid out a detailed plan for supporting the pilgrimage of Foy to Conques. Installing the Premonstratension Order and the re-establishment of the pilgrimage had taken place. Now Conques was designated a place of papal favor, with 40 days of indulgences given to all who made the pilgrimage. The saint’s feast day in October was to be celebrated again, and charitable donations in honor of Foy would be recorded in a special register with the names of donors. A report of October 17 estimated that 10,000 people had come to Conques on pilgrimage during the octave of Foy’s feast, while on the main Sunday 7,000 pilgrims came.134 The third major initiative of Bishop Bourret – announced November 27, 1874 – was to re-establish the confraternity of Sainte Foy that had existed from the fourteenth century.135 Its seat would be the abbey of Conques, and the Premonstratensions every morning and evening were to pray on behalf of the confraternity, invoking the saint three times: “Sainte Foy, our powerful patron, pray for us” (“Sainte Foy, notre puissante patronne, priez pour nous”).136 In addition, the Bishop had required one of the canons to research archives and libraries throughout France for documents about Conques to create a full history of the abbey. As a result, the priory of Coulommiers in the Seine-et-Marne region discovered a register of 495 pages belonging to the confrerie de madame sainte Foy between 1412 and 1456.137 A fourth major initiative of Bishop Bourret concerned reliquaries, especially those with Sainte Foy’s relics in them. Fortuitously – one might even say “providentially” – two long-hidden reliquaries were discovered in the church wall as the high altar was being restored on April 21, 1875.138 This discovery dominated the diocesan news for over three years, while the relics were examined and the reliquaries restored, until the translation of the relics from Rodez to Conques in October 1878. The descriptions of each step in the process of discovery, verification, restoration and ritual consecration are of exceptional specificity – testifying to the importance of Foy’s relics to this late nineteenth-century appropriation of her cult.139

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A workman demolishing a wall that had been built between the apse columns during the sixteenth-century Wars of Religion to repair destruction from the 1568 fire found a chestnut box in a large niche behind the altar. Inside it was a second box covered with leather that was studded with small nails and decorated with enamel ovals and roundels. A chamois skin held human bone fragments. Oral traditions of the abbey repeated by successive curates had claimed that relics of Foy’s body were in the wall.140 The hiding place of the reliquary was behind the large reliquary statue of the saint on the altar, which held only Foy’s cranial bones. The decorations on the hidden box suggested an eleventh-century origin. The reliquary is now known as the Coffer of Abbot Boniface, since, as Bourret noticed, the inscription on the box had an abbreviation of the name Boniface: HOC ORNAMENTUM BONE SIT FACII MUNIMENTUM. Boniface was abbot in the early twelfth century.141 The discovery of the hidden reliquary boxes in 1875 was an unforeseen opportunity for Bourret to publicize the cult of Foy in Conques. Forensic investigations carried out after 1875 confirmed that the interior box contained bones of a young female.142 Then on February 27, 1878 the investigating commission opened the golden reliquary statue to find a piece of a cranium attached to a silver plaque. According to the report, “Doctors had no trouble stating that it was indeed the top of the head of a young girl of 15 years.”143 Foy’s reliquaries were then given to M. Poussielgue to restore, and Bourret once again cranked up the publicity machine to get donations for the restoration from his diocese.144 The restoration of reliquaries complete, on October 4, 1878 the saint’s relics were ritually replaced in the two reliquaries in the presence of innumerable ecclesiastical and civic officials, and seals were replaced on the containers. The new reliquary box had a reproduction of the old almond-shaped seal of the Conques abbey, with its motto: DUC NOS QUO RESIDES INCLYTA VIRGO FIDES (“Lead us to your dwelling, illustrious virgin Foy”) (Figs. 1.30 and 1.31). Bishop Bourret ordered all legal punishments, including excommunication, for anyone who broke the seals without a legitimate purpose. A formal description (a “procès verbal”) was made in duplicate for the Conques abbey and for the bishop’s archives.145 After a novena at the Rodez cathedral on Foy feast day, October 6, 1878, a procession carried the relics back to Conques. The ritualized translation of Foy’s relics was also marked by new miracles attributed to Sainte Foy’s intercession. They were duly investigated by the clergy and reported as news in the Revue Religieuse for October 18 and November 15, 1878. When Bishop Bourret was made a cardinal of the church in 1893, no doubt in recognition of his success in spreading the Catholic faith, his new honor was greeted with joy throughout the diocese, and the newsletter covered the colorful reception organized by Conques Abbot Bernard in Conques in October 1893.146 The reception was designed to represent the history of the abbey and to honor Bourret’s achievements. At the gates of Conques, a triumphal arch covered with greenery had a double message: “Vive sainte Foy! Vive le cardinal Bourret!” The celebrations also symbolically integrated the Conques cult of Foy into contemporary national politics as well as the longer history of France. The new cardinal watched a cortege of costumed allegorical figures including a large first group of Chinese children dressed in multicolored outfits with traditional queues escorting a little Jesus (presumably a statue). The second group represented Sainte Foy with her sister Alberte and saints Cecilia and Agnes. Dressed in white with gold fringes and a red mantle, Foy carried the instruments of her martyrdom – the sword and the grill. The saints were surrounded by a multitude of angels in white robes with golden wings.

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Two little girls of six years wore the colors of Russia and France and carried the national flags symbolizing their countries’ alliance. The third group in the procession represented Pepin Le Bref in the dress of Merovingian kings carrying the reliquary he had given to Conques. He was accompanied by four military lords with swords. They were preceded by twenty pages and twenty gaulois warriors as well as the hermit Dadon with some of his monks. The figures in procession represented the long history and the vitality of Foy’s cult as French. Then there were speeches by notables including Abbot Bernard, who looked back over the twenty years since Bourret had arrived in the region. He gave Bourret’s “powerful initiative” all the credit for resuscitating the cult of Foy and filling the roads to Conques with pilgrims.147 He suggested that the discovery of Foy’s relics was the saint’s way of thanking Bourret for all his efforts to re-establish the cult. “At your call, didn’t she emerge from her virginal tomb?” A procession to the church and a mass were followed by dinner and then a torchlit procession through the dark streets of Conques accompanied by a brass band. The culmination of the day was a magnificent fireworks display. Bourret’s successful campaign to make Conques once again the cult center of Sainte Foy is a case study in appropriation. As a Catholic traditionalist, the Bishop clearly understood the power of medieval rituals – the shrine destination with saint’s relics, the liturgical framework of the year, clerical processions, pilgrimages filling the roads with pilgrims, a confraternity that gave lay individuals a personal connection to the saint, etc. These medieval forms of devotion were still potent in the late nineteenth century. Far more than nostalgic reminders of a past era, they were weapons in the Catholic battle against secularization that had been waged for over a century in France. As Barbara Rosenwein points out with regard to the first scholars writing about Cluny in the nineteenth century, they were French patriots who believed that the institutions of the Catholic church represented civilization and virtue in the midst of corruption. “Catholicism is still the soul of France, the soul of its nationality, the ameliorator of its morality,” wrote P. Lorain.148 Bourret and his ecclesiastical supporters nevertheless acknowledged in their rhetoric a long-standing non-religious interest in Conques and its cult of Foy. The art, architecture, and history enthusiasts who came to Conques were welcomed as legitimate visitors to the ritual center. One of the speakers addressing the new cardinal at his Conques celebration in October 1893 emphasized that, due to Bourret, “this small town of the Aveyron, lost deep in the mountains, has little by little emerged from the shadows and rediscovered its old fame. The erudite come here in great numbers. All those who are curious about archeology or history come. The souls enlivened by piety, attracted by the memory of the pure and gracious virgin, the young and holy martyr who protects the region, come from all sides to pray here.”149 Mérimée’s appropriation of the Conques site for art history and Bourret’s reappropriation of the religious cult of Sainte Foy joined forces at the end of the nineteenth century, and the combination has continued to attract visitors to Conques into the twenty-first century.

Contemporary Conques Both spiritual and historical tourists are welcomed in contemporary Conques. The Premonstratensions still maintain the liturgy and the pastoral role of spiritual guidance for modern pilgrims, most en route to Santiago de Compostela.150 In present-day

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Conques, Sainte Foy’s chief cult site, brothers can be seen leading groups of visiting pilgrims around the church, pointing out salient features of the marvelously preserved tympanum. In a persuasive though highly speculative article, art historian Conrad Rudolph marshals the evidence that medieval cult sites had a “guide culture” whereby chosen ecclesiastics provided information about the works of art and architecture to pilgrims and other interested visitors.151 As Rudolph notes, the eleventh-century miracle narratives of Bernard of Angers also describe the reliquary statue of the saint as if recording an oral presentation: “If you kindly people have time to listen and will allow a true story to enter the secret places of your hearts, then I will tell you at once about the fashioning of the famous image that the inhabitants of the monastery call the Majesty of Sainte Foy.”152 The information about the golden, gem-encrusted reliquary – its materials and its craftsmanship – is given just as a tour guide might give it, Rudolph suggests. The tenth through the twelfth centuries – when the Romanesque church, the reliquary statue, and many other cult treasures of gold and silver were created – may have been the height of artistic production by the Conques abbey. However, the monastery continued to serve devotees of Sainte Foy through its liturgy and art until the French Revolution of the eighteenth century, and after a hiatus in the nineteenth century the abbey resumed its pastoral roles, which continue until the present day.153 As a site of art and history, Conques is more celebrated than ever. In the 1960s, Conques was named a National Monument of the First Class by the French government, and in 1998 the abbey was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of its listing of sites on the Routes of Santiago de Compostela. A Romanesque study and conference center (Centre Européan de Conques), funded by the French government and the European Union, was inaugurated in May 1993 to ground Conques’ claim to be a center of Romanesque studies. Civic elites – religious and secular – exert tight control over the image of Conques as a cultural site; every change to the town’s fabric and operations must be agreed on by a triumverate of the Premonstratension community, the town’s mayor, and the European Center. Despite the vicissitudes of politics and war, by reconceiving its cultural work ever more inclusively Conques has managed to maintain its dominance as a ritual center from the ninth to the twenty-first century.

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Figure 1.1 Conques, Church from above Photo by Kathleen Ashley

Figure 1.2 Conques, Town and church from below Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 1.3 Conques Treasury, Foy Majesty front view Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 1.4 Conques Treasury, Foy Majesty profile Photo by Marilyn Deegan

Figure 1.5 Conques Treasury, back of head and throne (det.) Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 1.6 Conques Treasury, top of head with gems (det.) Photo by Marilyn Deegan

Figure 1.7 Conques Treasury, Pentagonal reliquary face Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 1.8 Conques Treasury, Hexagonal reliquary box Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 1.9 Conques, Abbey church east end Photo by Marilyn Deegan

Figure 1.10 Conques, Abbey church west end Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 1.11 Conques, Abbey church tympanum Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 1.12 Conques, Tympanum (det.), Foy as intercessor Photo by Marilyn Deegan

Figure 1.13 Conques, Tympanum (det.), Christ in Judgment Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 1.14 Conques, Tympanum (det.), angel with book Photo by Marilyn Deegan

Figure 1.15 Conques, Tympanum (det.), angel with censor Photo by Marilyn Deegan

Conques: creation of a ritual center

Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 1.16 Conques, Tympanum (det.), Hell mouth and liberation from hell

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Figure 1.17 Conques, Tympanum (det.), peeker Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 1.18 Conques, Tympanum (det.), upper right angel with trumpet

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Figure 1.19 Conques, Tympanum (det.), Holy Women, Holy Men, and Bosom of Abraham Photo by Marilyn Deegan

Conques: creation of a ritual center

Figure 1.20 Conques, Tympanum (det.), Virgin Mary, St. Peter, and Hermit Dadon Photo by Marilyn Deegan

Figure 1.21 Conques, Tympanum (det.), Bosom of Abraham hands Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 1.22 Conques, Tympanum (det.), abbot leading king Photo by Marilyn Deegan

Figure 1.23 Conques, Tympanum (det.), hands Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 1.24 Conques, Tympanum (det.), Satan with torturers Photo by Marilyn Deegan

Figure 1.25 Conques, Tympanum (det.), tortures in hell Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 1.26 Conques, Tympanum (det.), Foy with church and shackles Photo by Marilyn Deegan

Conques: creation of a ritual center

Figure 1.27 Conques, Spring beside abbey church Photo by Marilyn Deegan

Figure 1.28 Conques, Early 19th c. engraving of village By permission: Coll. Centre de documentation historique de Conques

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Figure 1.29 Conques, Abbey church (ca. 1835) By permission: Coll. Centre de documentation historique de Conques

Conques: creation of a ritual center

Figure 1.30 Conques Treasury, Coffer of Boniface (det.) Photo Jean-Pierre Rousset/www.compostela-images.com ©2020

Figure 1.31 Conques Treasury, Coffer of Boniface Photo Jean-Pierre Rousset/www.compostela-images.com ©2020

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Notes 1 Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 86–87. 2 Both the date of Foy’s martyrdom in Agen and the date her relics were taken to Conques have been the subject of long, and at times heated, scholarly debate. The early fourth century is now accepted as the most likely time of her martyrdom, while current practice is to say that her relics were definitely present in Conques by 883. Some scholars had argued for an 866 date of relic acquisition, and one Agen historian argued that Foy’s relics actually never left Agen. 3 Gustave Desjardins, ed. Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Conques en Rouergue (Paris: Alphonse Picard, 1879, repr. 2017), no 1, 1–3. 4 Desjardins, Cartulaire, no. 580, 409–11. 5 Desjardins, Cartulaire, no. 581, 411–14. 6 Hervé Oudart gives a close reading of the language of these early documents in “L’ermite et le prince. Les débuts de la vie monastique à Conques (fin VIIIe–début IXe siècle),” Revue historique CCXCVII, no. 1 (1997): 3–39. 7 As John Howe comments, “Medieval authors describe alien attacks in apocalyptic terms. Abbo of Saint-Germain-des-Près (d. 923) offers a long catalog of ‘rapacious wolves … devouring the lambs of Christ’; these included Northmen, Muslims, Hungarians, eastern peoples, heretics, and ‘false Christians who destroy the Church.’” Before the Gregorian Reform: The Latin Church at the Turn of the First Millennium (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2016), 30. 8 Edmond Faral, ed. and trans., Ermold le Noir: Poème sur Louis le Pieux et épitres au roi Pépin (Paris: Champion, 1932). 9 Faral in the “Introduction” to his edition argues that Ermold’s poem is more historically informative and accurate than historians have credited it with being, xii–xvii. The late eleventh-century Chronicle written at Conques repeats the tradition of the hermit Dado. 10 Pamela Sheingorn, ed. and trans., The Book of Sainte Foy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), I.31, 102. Pamela Sheingorn’s Book of Sainte Foy contains an English translation of the miracle stories and also her translations of other texts associated with the saint’s cult, including a Translatio narrating the movement of her relics from Agen to Conques, a “Passio” retelling her martyrdom, and Robert Clark’s translation of “The Song of Sainte Foy,” a narrative about Foy. 11 Amy G. Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past: Monastic Foundation Legends in Medieval Southern France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), 1. 12 Constance Brittain Bouchard makes an argument about documentary production – including cartularies, annals, saints vitae, chronicles, histories of abbots etc. – during the period 500 to 1200: the “past was malleable, and writing itself became an act of power, an effort to use the past to make sense of the present,” Rewriting Saints and Ancestors: Memory and Forgetting in France, 500–1200 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), 1. Bouchard’s discussion of cartularies as “creative memory” is especially interesting; see 9–37. 13 Patrick J. Geary provided the first in-depth analysis of the hagiographic trope of “theft” that structured many narratives about relic acquisition (the “translationes”) during a period when saints’ relics began to circulate throughout Europe, in Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, rev. ed. 1990); Geary summarizes the scholarly debate over the historicity of the Foy translation narratives, 58–63 and 138–41. Julia M.H. Smith notes the significance of the ninth century for relic translations: “Although part of the significance of relics is that they can be moved around without destroying their sanctity or their ability to display a miracle-working virtus, not until the Carolingian centuries did it become common practice in the western church to translate saints’ corporeal remains.” “Old Saints, New Cults: Roman Relics in Carolingian Francia,” in Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West: Essays in Honour of Donald A. Bullough, ed. by J.M.H. Smith (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 318. On the history of relic acquisition in France, see also Pierre Héliot and Marie-Laure Chastang, “Quêtes et voyages de reliques au profit des églises françaises du moyen âge,” Revue d’histoire écclésiastique 59 (1964): 789–822 and 60 (1965): 5–32.

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14 Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, “Translatio: The Translation of Sainte Foy, Virgin and Martyr, to the Conques Monastery,” 263–74. This is the earliest extant text, written between 1020 and 1050. According to Alan Thacker, Gaul was the center of innovation in cults of saints from the sixth century onward: “… throughout the sixth and seventh centuries a notable body of hagiographical literature was accumulating, which laid great emphasis upon posthumous wonders of the principal saints, above all those performed at the holy tombs themselves.” “In Search of Saints: The English Church and the Cult of Roman Apostles and Martyrs in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries,” in Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West: Essays in Honour of Donald A. Bullough, ed. by J.M.H. Smith (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 256. 15 Jacques Bousquet gives details of this unsuccessful series of attempts to acquire some “vertu miraculeuse” by the abbey, which was experiencing a fall in its revenues, in Le Rouergue au premier Moyen Âge (vers 800–vers 1250): Les pouvoirs, leurs rapports et leurs domaines, t. I (Rodez: Société des lettres, sciences et arts de l’Aveyron, 1992), 276–78. 16 A full discussion of issues surrounding the translation of Foy’s relics from Agen to Conques may be found in Louis Bousquet, “Authenticité du transfert des reliques de Sainte Foy d’Agen à Conques,” Revue du Rouergue VII, no. 1 (1953): 1–30. Ninth- and tenth-century donations where Saint Vincent’s relics are acknowledged along with Foy’s are in Desjardins, Cartulaire, no. 4, p. 5; no. 6, p. 8; no. 8, p. 11; no. 10, p. 13; no. 11, p. 14; no. 12, p. 15; no. 13, p. 15; no. 21, p. 28; no. 22, p. 28; no. 24, p. 30; no. 32, p. 37; no. 36, p. 40; no. 40, p. 43; no. 48, p. 49; no. 65, p. 63; no. 80, p. 76; no. 85, p. 79; no. 89, p. 83; no. 90, p. 84; no. 91, p. 85; no. 92, p. 86; no. 107, p. 98; no. 108, p. 99; no. 109, p. 100; no. 110, p. 101; no. 116, p. 107; no. 119, p. 108–9; no. 121, p. 110; no. 126, p. 114–15; no. 132, p. 119; no. 135, p. 121; no. 138, p. 123; no. 139, p. 124; no. 140, p. 125; no. 141, p. 126; no. 145, p. 129; no. 146, p. 131; no. 147, p. 131; no. 151, p. 134; no. 154, p. 137; no. 164, p. 143; no. 166, p. 145; no. 167, p. 146; no. 172, p. 150; no. 180, p. 155; no. 198, p. 168; no. 200, p. 170; no. 202, p. 172; no. 206, p. 175; no. 210, p. 178; no. 211, p. 179; no. 214, p. 181; no. 215, p. 182; no. 218, p. 184; no. 220, p. 185; no. 222, p. 187; no. 228, p. 192; no. 227, p. 191; no. 236, p. 198; no. 241, p. 201; no. 246, p. 205; no. 243, p. 203; no. 251, p. 209; no. 255, p. 211; no. 260, p. 215; no. 257, p. 212; no. 262, p. 216; no. 269, p. 220; no. 273, p. 222; no. 276, p. 224; no. 294, p. 235; no. 297, p. 237; no. 308, p. 243; no. 324, p. 254; no. 332, p. 259; no. 335, p. 264; no. 338, p. 263; no. 312, p. 245; no. 340, p. 265; no. 341, p. 266; no. 330, p. 257; no. 343, p. 267; no. 352, p. 271; no. 353, p. 272; no. 357, p. 274; no. 365, p. 277; no. 374, p. 282; no. 391, p. 289; no. 400, p. 296; no. 409, p. 302; no. 413, p. 305; no. 419, p. 308; no. 422, p. 310; no. 423, p. 311; no. 424, p. 312; no. 427, p. 313; no. 432, p. 316; no. 434, p. 318; no. 436, pp. 319–20. 17 Establishing the symbolic value of their patron saint led to the formation of a stronger communal identity for the monks at a time when monasticism as an institution was gaining in power. Bishops wielded immense spiritual power during the early centuries of Christianity. Judith Herrin comments, “By the time Constantine I recognized Christianity as an official religion, the public image of this faith was emphatically episcopal,” but the development of monastic institutions brought monks to the forefront of religious power by the ninth century. Healing shrines and their relics, in particular, “represented not so much a doctrinal variation as an alternative source of authority that threatened the established position of the bishop.” The Formation of Christendom (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 58, 109. 18 Guy Lobrichon discusses the efflorescence of southern saints’ cults and the negative responses of some northern churchmen in “Le culte des saints, le rire des hérétiques, le triomphe des savants,” in Les reliques: objets, cultes, symboles. Actes du colloque international de l’Université du Littoral-Côte d’Opale (Boulogne-sur-Mer) 4–6 septembre 1997, ed. by Edina Bozóky and Anne-Marie Helvétius (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1999), 96–100. 19 Eric Palazzo, “Relics, Liturgical Space, and the Theology of the Church,” in Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe, ed. Martina Bagnoli et al. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010), 99–109. A useful overview of the shrine settings of what he calls “the cult of relics” is by John Crook, The Architectural Setting of the Cult of Saints in the Early Christian West, c. 300–1200 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000).

50 20 21 22 23

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Conques: creation of a ritual center The medieval region of the Rouergue corresponds to the modern département of Aveyron. Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, I.17, 82. Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, I.17, 82. Danielle Gaborit-Chopin, “Les statues reliquaires romanes. La riche tradition des Majestés,” La France romane: Exposition au Louvre. No 116 Dossier de l’Art (Dijon: Éditions Faton, 2005), 68. See also Claire Wheeler Solt, who claims the “Majestés” were primarily developed in the southwest of France in the tenth to the twelfth centuries as favored containers for the relics of local patron saints which had previously been placed in tombs; “Romanesque French Reliquaries,” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, ser. 2 vol. 9 (1987): 186–87. According to Solt, the body-shaped reliquary was often accompanied by a “châsse” – a box-shaped reliquary that might hold the relics of the saint’s body when, as in Conques, the cranial relics are in the “Majesté.” Xavier Barral y Altet, “Définition et fonction d’un trésor monastique autour de l’an mil: Sainte Foy de Conques,” in Haut Moyen-Âge: culture, éducation et société. Études offertes à Pierre Riché, eds. Claude Lepelley et al. (La Garenne-Colombes: Éditions Européennes Erasme, 1990), 401–8. Cynthia Hahn,“What Do Reliquaries Do for Relics?” Numen 57 (2010): 288, 292. According to Paulinus of Nola, who commented on reliquaries ca. 400: “All things renewed are pleasing to God” (p. 291). Hahn’s article is adapted for the Introduction to Hahn’s book, Strange Beauty: Issues in the Making and Meaning of Reliquaries, 400–circa 1204 (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012), 3–29. Hahn, Strange Beauty, 126. Ellert Dahl, “Heavenly Images: The Statue of St. Foy of Conques and the Signification of the Medieval ‘Cult-Image’ in the West,” Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia 8 (1979): 176. Dahl sees the image as one of a saint living in the glory of heaven but at the same time a vehicle of the devotee’s communication with the saint. Venerating the statue itself was an accepted means of venerating the saint in southern France, despite the official views of the Libri carolini that such adoration was idolatrous. On the Libri carolini and its broad theological and artistic context, see Jean Hubert and Marie-Clotilde Hubert, “Piété chrétienne ou Paganisme? Les statues reliquaires de l’Europe carolingienne,” in Christianizzazione et organizzazione ecclesiastica delle campagne nel’alto medioevo: espansione e resistenze. Settimane de studio del Centro italiano di studi sull-alto medioevo 28 (Spoleto, 1982), 235–75. See also Martin Büchsel, “The Status of Sculpture in the Early Middle Ages: Liturgy and Paraliturgy in the Liber miraculorum Sancte Fidis,” in Current Directions in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Sculpture Studies, ed. Robert A. Maxwell and Kirk Ambrose (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2010), 47–59. For a detailed description of the composition of the reliquary (informed by the dismantling of the statue in 1954/55 and illustrated by numerous close-up photos), see Jean Taralon and Dominique Taralon-Carlini, “La Majesté d’or du trésor de Sainte-Foy de Conques,” Bulletin monumental 155 (1997): 11–73. Also, see analysis of what we know about the making of the statue by Danielle Gaborit-Chopin and Élisabeth Taburet-Delahaye, “Majesté de sainte Foy,” in Le trésor de Conques, Exposition du 2 novembre 2001 au 11 mars 2002, Musée du Louvre (Paris: Éditions du patrimoine, 2001), 18–29. Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, I.16, 81. Bernard’s account of how the doves were (reluctantly) given to Foy’s statue by the abbot of Beaulieu follows in Book I.16. For a summary of scholarship on the reliquary statue of Foy with attention to its decorative evolution after the initial construction in the ninth and tenth centuries, as well as its restoration in the late nineteenth century by Pousielgue-Rusand, see Bernard Berthod et al., Conques, un trésor millénaire (Paris: Éditions CLD, 2019), 38–42. As Faye Taylor argues, the “waning of royal control created space for literary and cultic advances that served to bolster the monastery’s position within local power structures,” an independence from external authority that characterizes the Foy cult at Conques unlike other saints’ cults she analyzes. “Miracula, Saints’ Cults and Socio-political Landscapes: Bobbio, Conques and Post-Carolingian Society.” Ph.D. Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2012, 1. Beate Fricke, Fallen Idols, Risen Saints: Sainte Foy of Conques and the Revival of Monumental Sculpture in Medieval Art, trans. Andrew Griebeler (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2015), 249.

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33 Danielle Gaborit-Chopin, “Reliquaire de Pépin ou de la Circoncision,” in Le trésor de Conques, 32–37, with numerous illustrations. See also the thesis of Dominique Taralon, “Le Reliquaire de Pépin du Trésor de Conques,” Obstention de la Maitrise d’Histoire de l’Art (Mémoire), Université de Paris-Sorbonne- Paris IV (1988/89). 34 Walter Cahn, “Observations on the ‘A of Charlemagne’ in the Treasure of the Abbey of Conques,” Gesta 45 (2006): 95–107. 35 Berthod et al., Conques, un trésor millénaire, 54–57. 36 According to Pierre Bonnassie and Frédéric de Gournay, “Sur la Datation du Livre des Miracles de Sainte Foy de Conques,” Annales du Midi CVII (1955): 459. 37 Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, I.17, 82–83. 38 Robert Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 22–23. 39 Thomas F. Coffey et al., eds. The Miracles of Saint James (New York: Italica Press, 1996), comment that almost all the James miracles happen to pilgrims, and they conclude that “much of the importance of Saint James’ cult was derived from the process of pilgrimage rather than the actual place or relics themselves” (LII). 40 Benedicta Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987), 36. Most of the exits of the Foy reliquary from the church were to protect the monastery patrimony. 41 Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind, 42. 42 Kate M. Craig, “Fighting for Sacred Space: Relic Mobility and Conflict in Tenth-EleventhCentury France,” Viator 48 (2017): 17–37. 43 Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, I.28, 98. 44 Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn, “Sainte Foy on the Loose, Or, the Possibilities of Procession,” in Moving Subjects: Processional Performance in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. Kathleen Ashley and Wim Hüsken (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2001), 53–67. For a broader survey of medieval reliquary pilgrimages, see Pierre André Sigal, “Les voyages de reliques aux onzième et douzième siècles,” in Voyage, quête, pélerinage dans la littérature et la civilisation médiéval (Aix-en-Provence: Édition Cuer, M.A., 1976), 75–104. 45 Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, I.1, 46. 46 Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, I.17, 83; I.19, 85. 47 Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, II.5, 126. 48 Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, IV.24, 219–20. I have drastically cut this description of the saint to one-fifth of its length! 49 A lucid overview of scholarship on the Conques abbey structure is given by Éliane Vergnolle et al., “Conques, Sainte Foy. L’abbatiale romane,” in Monuments de l’Aveyron. Congrès Archéologique de France (167e session, 2009) (Paris: Société française d’archéologie, 2011), 71–160. The article focuses on stages of work by the chantier of the abbey. 50 Jean-Claude Bonne, L’art roman de face et de profil: Le tympan de Conques (Paris: Le Sycomore, 1984), 313–17. Lei Huang more recently focused his reassessment of dating on the building stones, arguing for a tympanum date close to 1100, “Le maître du tympan de l’abbatiale Sainte-Foy de Conques: état de la question et perspectives,” Études aveyronnaises. Recueil des travaux de la Société des lettres, sciences et arts de l’Aveyron (2014): 87–100. 51 See Vergnolle et al., “Conques, Sainte-Foy,” 85–97. 52 Vergnolle et al., “Conques, Sainte-Foy,” 84. 53 Vergnolle et al., “Conques, Sainte-Foy,” 132. 54 Bonne, L’art roman de face et de profil, 51. 55 Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, IV.24, 220. For the fuller implications of the term “faithful translator” (fida interpres), see Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn, “The Translations of Foy: Bodies, Texts, and Places,” in The Medieval Translator. Traduire au Moyen Âge. Proceedings of the International Conference of Conques (26–29 July, 1993), ed., Roger Ellis and René Tixier, vol. 5 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1996), 29–49. 56 Bonne, L’art roman de face et de profil, 30. 57 L. “O Peccatores transmutetis nisi mores: iudicium durum vobis scitote futurum.” See Calvin B. Kendall, The Allegory of the Church: Romanesque Portals and Their Verse Inscriptions (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 219.

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58 Kendall, Allegory of the Church, 217–19. 59 On the place of the Conques tympanum Christ within iconographic traditions of the Judgment scene, see Jacques Bousquet, “Le geste du bras droit levé du Christ de Conques et sa place dans l’iconographie: Structure ou histoire,” Les cahiers de Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa 18 (1987): 125–55. 60 See Ashley and Sheingorn, “The Performed Book: Textuality and Social Space in the Cult of Sainte Foy,” in Romard: The Ritual Life of Medieval Europe, vol. 52/53, ed. Robert L.A. Clark (London and Ontario: First Circle Publishing, 2014), 233–55; Vergnolle et al., “Conques, Saint-Foy,” 141. 61 Bonne, L’art roman de face et de profil, 27–30. 62 A few scholars see these “peekers” as the curious angels referred to in 1 Peter 1:10–12, while others just see them as “little spies.” In either case, they give a whimsical air to the tympanum. 63 Kendall, Allegory of the Church, 165. 64 Martina Bagnoli, “Dressing the Relics: Some Thoughts on the Custom of Relic Wrapping in Medieval Christianity,” in Matter of Faith: An Interdisciplinary Study of Relics and Relic Veneration in the Medieval Period, ed. by James Robinson and Lloyd de Beer with Anna Harnden (London: British Museum Press, 2014), 101. 65 Sharon Kinoshita, “Almería Silk and the French Feudal Imaginary: Toward a ‘Material’ History of the Medieval Mediterranean,” in Medieval Fabrication: Dress, Textiles, Cloth Work, and Other Cultural Imaginings, ed. E. Jane Burns (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 169. 66 For a photo of the silk fabric discovered in the Foy reliquary in 1878, see Claire Delmas, “Le trésor de Conques, du haut Moyen Âge à l’époque romane,” in Le trésor de Conques, 14. 67 Kinoshita, “Almería Silk,” 168–69. 68 Janet E. Snyder, “Vestiary Signs of Pilgrimage in Twelfth-Century Europe,” in Matter of Faith, 8. 69 The significance of gestures in medieval art and ritual is the subject of several studies, most of which focus primarily on monastic life or on feudalism. See Jean-Claude Schmitt, La raison des gestes dans l’Occident médiéval (Paris: Gallimard, 1990); Scott G. Bruce, Silence and Sign Language in Medieval Monasticism: The Cluniac Tradition, c. 900–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); J.A. Burrow, Gestures and Looks in Medieval Narrative (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). On the language of hands at Conques, see Pierre Séguret, Conques: L’Art – l’Histoire – le Sacré (Genève: Éditions du Tricorne, 1997), 46. 70 Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, I.31, 102. 71 Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, I.31, 103. 72 The votive offering of chains by miraculously liberated prisoners is featured in multiple miracles throughout all four books of the Liber miraculorum: Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, I.33, 107; II.6, 129; III.4, 149; III.15, 165; IV.5, 187; also, among miracles in other manuscripts: A.3, 239; L.2, 246; L.4, 253. 73 Louis Bousquet first noted that on the Conques tympanum Foy intercedes for sinners not from an abstract place but at Conques itself, Foy’s own basilica, as shown by the Romanesque arches from which chains hang; Le Jugement dernier au tympan de l’église de SainteFoy de Conques (Rodez: E. Carrère, 1948), 77. See also Bonne, L’art roman, 244. 74 The case for the forgery is laid out in exquisite detail by Philippe Wolff, “Note sur le faux diplôme de 755 pour le monastère de Figeac,” Figeac et le Quercy: actes du XXIIIe Congrès d’études regionales organizé à Figeac les 2–4 juin 1967 par la Société des Études du Lot (1969), 83–122. 75 On the distinction between the “chronicle” and the “gesta,” see Sébastien Fray, “Les gesta abbatum de Conques et l’historiographie monastique conquoise du début du XIIe siècle,” Études aveyronnaises. Recueil des travaux de la Société des lettres, sciences et arts de l’Aveyron (2014): 353–64. 76 Amy G. Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past, 273. See also her analysis of the complicated record of Conques/Figeac institutional antagonism that elevated the roles of various royal patrons including Charlemagne, 271–76. She argues that “… the ecclesiastical

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77 78 79 80 81 82

83 84 85 86

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communities of [the region south of the Loire] themselves created a particularly vibrant image of this Carolingian as patron of their origins. … fourteen abbeys developed legends in which he enjoyed the limelight as founder” (152). The Prologue of the Conques chronicle portrays Charlemagne as the Conques monastery’s chief founder. Remensnyder discusses the claim and related reliquaries, including the one known as the “A of Charlemagne,” in “Legendary Treasure at Conques: Reliquaries and Imaginative Memory,” Speculum 71, no. 4 (1996): 884–906. A papal bull of Pope Urban (dated 4 May 1099) gave Conques independence from Rodez; Desjardins, Cartulaire, #570, 398–400 and xxxi–xxxii. Jacques Bousquet, Le Rouergue au premier Moyen Âge, 310. Annie Shaver-Crandall and Paula Gerson, with Alison Stones, The Pilgrim’s Guide to Santiago de Compostela. A Gazeteer with 580 Illustrations (London: Harvey Miller, 1995), 56. Shaver-Crandall et al., The Pilgrim’s Guide, 78; on Conques’ architectural history as a pilgrimage site, see also 179–81. Jacques Bousquet includes a table of Conques possessions based on papal bulls and the abbey cartulary, Le Rouergue au premier Moyen Âge, 347–63. The land had originally been given to the Holy Savior and Sainte Foy of Conques by Falco de la Barde, his wife Florence and their children in 1076. Their manor of Vinairols (Venerol) with a port on the Dordogne river and a part of their rights in ships loaded with salt was donated on the condition that the Conques monks build a church on their land; see Desjardins, Cartulaire, no. 53, 53–54. Y. Dossat, “Les Débuts de la bastide de Sainte-Foy-la-Grande,” Sainte-Foy-la-Grande et ses Alentours. Fédération historique du Sud-Ouest (Actes du XIXe Congrès d’études régionales, 7 et 8 mai, 1966) (Bordeaux: Éditions Bière, 1968), 10, note 19. Ibid, 10. Adrian Randolph, “The Bastides of Southwest France,” Art Bulletin 77, no. 2 (1994): 290, gives a figure of 700 new towns built between 1200 and 1400. The bastides modeled on Sainte-Foy included Puyguilhem (1265), Lalinde (1267), SaintOsbert (1276), Castelnau-sur-Gupie (1276), Miramont (1276), Castetcrabe (1276), Sauveterre-de-Guyenne (1283), Valence-d’Agen (1283), and others. Dossat, “Les Débuts de la bastide Sainte-Foy,” 11–12, and ff. On this transition (with helpful references), see Randolph, “The Bastides,” 304–6. Jacques Bousquet cites acts between the abbot and the townspeople in 1218, 1231, 1250, and 1288–89, granting them various liberties, in Le Rouergue au premier Moyen Âge, 316. See also his article, “Les plus anciens privilèges communaux de Conques en Rouergue et les débuts de l’organisation municipale (XIIe siècle–1289),” Bulletin Philologique et Historique (Jusqu’à 1610) (1961): 1–21. Claire Delmas and Jean-Claude Fau, Conques, trans. by Rory O’Meara and Marie-Helene Labrouse (Millau: Éditions du Beffroi, 1989), 16. Frédéric de Gournay, “Les documents écrits de l’Abbaye de Conques (IXe–XIIIe s.).” U.F.R. D’Histoire, D.E.A. (Mémoire) Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail (Sept. 1992), 89–92. Jacques Bousquet, “La Vie et le mécénat de Raymond de Reilhac, abbé de Conques (1369– 1389),” Ch. III of Quatre études pour l’histoire de l’abbaye de Conques (XVI–XVIII) (Rodez: Société des lettres, sciences et arts de l’Aveyron, 1964), 427–50. My translation of the abbot’s complaint (432). Delmas and Fau, Conques, 16. Camille Belmon, Le Bienheureux François d’Estaing, évêque de Rodez 1460–1529 (Rodez: Grand Séminaire, Albi: Impr. Des orphelins-apprentis, 1924), 297. Louis Servières, Histoire de Sainte Foy (Rodez: E. Carrère, 1896; repr. Conques: Éditions Dadon, 1983), 81–82. In a Supplement, Servières lists churches possessed by the abbey throughout Europe in the sixteenth century (127–34). The Joseph Fau Museum in Conques, below the church square, contains furniture, statues and tapestries from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century whose elegance suggests the elevated standard of living maintained by the religious community until the French Revolution. Camille Belmon gives a very full description of the entire multi-day episode, based on the voluminous contemporary documents in Le Bienheureux François d’Estaing, 295–324.

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96 Pierre Lançon, “‘Le nom de la rose’ ou Les malheurs de l’abbaye de Conques au XVIe siècle,” Procès-verbaux des séances de la Société des lettres, sciences et arts de l’Aveyron 45 (1989): 332–38. 97 Revue Religieuse de Rodez et Mende, 26 September 1873, 482–83 (hereafter RR) 98 Lançon, “‘Le nom de la rose,’” 334, 336. These are 1546 documents about a 1538 episode. 99 Sheila Delany, trans. Anti-Saints: The New Golden Legend of Sylvain Maréchal (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2012), 78. 100 For a detailed history of this period, see Nigel Aston, Religion and Revolution in France, 1780–1804 (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America, 2000). 101 The historian François Bénazech, who has sorted through the multiple contradictory accounts of saving the abbey treasure, came to the conclusion that the local community acted to mitigate external orders against abbey property and personnel. See “Le chanoine André Bénazech et la sauvetage du trésor de Conques durant la Révolution française,” Revue du Rouergue 85 (2006): 65–79. 102 Bénazech, “Le chanoine André Bénazech,” 76. See Justin Dunn, “Secularizing the Sacred: The Effort to Dechristianize France During the French Revolution,” Primary Source Volume IV, no. 2 (2014): 30, for similar action by villagers in the Yonne region. For other examples of women’s and lay resistance to government appropriations of church treasures, see also Aston, Religion and Revolution, 240. 103 Bénazech, “Le chanoine André Bénazech,” 72. 104 Bénazech, “Le chanoine André Bénazech,” 78. 105 On the early history of “dechristianization,” see Frank Tallett, “Dechristianizing France: The Year II and the Revolutionary Experience,” in Religion, Society and Politics in France since 1789, eds., Frank Tallett and Nicholas Atkins (London: Hambleton Press, 1991), 1–28. 106 From 1836–1849, Joseph Boissonade, the architect for the Aveyron region, undertook the most urgent structural repairs to the abbey building. See Éliane Vergnolle et al., “Conques, Sainte-Foy. L’abbatiale romane,” 80. 107 For an informed discussion of the historical monuments mission and Mérimée’s career, see Pierre-Marie Auzas’s introduction, “Prosper Mérimée: Inspecteur General des Monuments Historiques de France” to Mérimée’s Notes de voyages (Paris: Adam Biro, 2003), 1–26. This volume brings together in four sections the accounts of trips Mérimée took. Each section had originally been published separately. 108 For a full biography, see Xavier Darcos, Mérimée (Paris: Flammarion, 1998). André Fermigier, “Mérimée et l’inspection des monuments historiques,” in Les lieux de mémoire, sous la direction de Pierre Nora, Vol. II/2: La Nation (Paris: Gallimard, 1986), 593–611, assesses the paradoxes of Mérimée’s personality and his expertise as historical monuments inspector. 109 My translation from Auzas, “Introduction”, Notes de voyages, 5. Other quotations from the Auzas edition are also my translations from the French. In describing Mérimée’s views, Auzas mines the rich collection of his letters, Prosper Mérimée, Correspondance générale, ed. and annotated by Maurice Parturier with Pierre Josserand et Jean Mallion. Paris: Le Divan, 1941–1947 (6 vol.), Toulouse: Privat, 1953–1964 (ll vol.) 110 Auzas, “Introduction”, Notes de voyages, 4–5. 111 Auzas, “Notes d’un voyage en Auvergne,” Notes de voyages, 86. 112 Auzas, “Notes d’un voyage en Auvergne,” Notes de voyages, 86–87. 113 Auzas, “Notes d’un voyage en Auvergne,” Notes de voyages, 91. Mérimée uses the term “byzantin” for “Romanesque.” 114 Auzas, “Notes d’un voyage en Auvergne,” Notes de voyages, 92. 115 Auzas, “Notes d’un voyage en Auvergne,” Notes de voyages, 93. 116 Auzas, “Notes d’un voyage en Auvergne,” Notes de voyages, 96. 117 For the continuing nineteenth-century interest in Conques and its treasures, by the erudite, see the Introduction to Berthod et al., Conques, un trésor millenaire, 17–25. 118 Jean-Claude Fau, “Le cardinal Ernest Bourret, évêque de Rodez et de Vabres, 1871–1896,” Études aveyronnaises. Recueil des travaux de la Société des lettres, sciences et arts de l’Aveyron (2017): 355–82. 119 Austin Gough, Paris and Rome: The Gallican Church and the Ultramontane Campaign, 1848–1853 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), vi.

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120 See Ralph Gibson, “Why Republicans and Catholics Couldn’t Stand Each Other in the Nineteenth Century,” in Religion, Society and Politics in France, eds. Frank Tallett and Nicholas Atkins (London: Hambleton Press, 1991), 113–116. 121 My translation from Clément Nastorg, “L’Institut catholique de Toulouse. Les années de fondation,” Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France 81, no. 206 (1995): 258, note 16. 122 P.M. Jones, Politics and Rural Society: The Southern Massif Central c. 1750–1880 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985; pbk. 2004), 286. A. Maury, however, comments of Bourret that he was “sans nuance aucune” and could act thoughtlessly when angry; “Le Cardinal Bourret (periode 1871–1896),” Revue du Rouergue XXIX (1975): 244. 123 Nastorg, “L’Institut Catholique de Toulouse,” 265–66. 124 Jones, Politics and Rural Society, 286. According to Jones, in the late 1880s in Aveyron, many rural people did not speak the national language, French, but knew only the local patois (281). 125 Revue Religieuse, 29 March 1878. I will use RR for references to the newsletter hereafter. 126 The July 4, 1873 newsletter gives a full and florid report of the event. The newsletter for August 8, 1873 provided a background history of the Premonstratension order. 127 “The land that was desolate and impassable shall be glad, and the wilderness shall rejoice, and shall flourish like the lily” (Douay, Isaias 35.1). RR, July 4, 1873, 332–33. 128 RR July 11, 1873, 344–45 129 RR July 25, 1873, 367. 130 RR September 12, 1873, 460. 131 RR September 12, 1873, 460 132 RR September 26, 1873, 486. 133 RR September 26, 1873, 478. 134 RR October 17, 1873, 113. 135 RR November 27, 1874, 574. 136 RR November 27, 1874, 575. The statutes for the reestablished Association de Sainte-Foy confraternity were printed by Louis Servières in Histoire de Sainte Foy, 136–40. 137 RR November 27, 1874, 576. 138 RR May 7, 1875, 225 contains the comment: “Barely had the famous abbey of Conques, re-animated by a powerful breath, shaken off the dust of centuries, than Providence, continuing its well-begun work, after having infused her with a new life, gifted her with an inestimable treasure.” (“A peine l’illustre abbaye de Conques, ranimée par un souffle puissant, secouait-elle la poussière des siècles, que la Providence, continuant son oeuvre si bien commencée, après lui avoir infusé une nouvelle vie, l’a dotée d’un trésor inestimable.”) 139 As Julia Smith has pointed out, “Scholastic theology, the early modern papal drive for liturgical standardization, and modern legal precision … fused to define relics much more narrowly than in the middle ages,”“Relics: An Evolving Tradition in Latin Christianity,” in Saints and Sacred Matter: The Cult of Relics in Byzantium and Beyond, ed. Cynthia Hahn and Holger A. Klein (Washington D.C.: Dunbarton Oaks, 2015), 42. 140 RR May 7, 1875, 226–27. 141 RR August 11, 1876, 504. Much of the material first reported in the newsletter on May 7, 1875 was repeated and elaborated in the newsletter of May 14, 1875, 237–39 and also in the August 11, 1876 newsletter, 502–4. On Bishop Bourret’s role in restoring the reliquaries in the diocese, especially the reliquary of Boniface, see Berthod et al., Conques, un trésor millenaire, 107–10. 142 Delmas and Fau, Conques, 59. There were 21 bones from the body of a female aged between twelve and sixteen as well as a coin dated 1590. 143 RR, March 28, 1878. 144 See the lengthy description of the new reliquary in Oct. 4, 1878 newsletter. On the restoration work for Conques treasury done by the workshop of Poussielgue-Rusard, see Berthod et al., Conques, un trésor millenaire, 112–14, 116–27. 145 See also Mgr. J.-L.E. Bourret, Procès-verbaux authentiques et autres pièces concernant la reconnaissance des reliques de sainte Foy (Rodez: E. Carrère, 1880). 146 RR, Nov. 10, 1893, 710–13. 147 Bernard himself had conceived and implemented another initiative to reanimate the faith – a Mystère de la Passion, a drama in 4 acts and 16 tableaux about the Passion that was produced in Conques at Easter between 1890 and 1914 (the outbreak of WWI).

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148 149 150 151 152 153

Conques: creation of a ritual center The performances took place inside the abbey and featured special effects such as Christ ascending to heaven. Thousands from a wide area came to watch the spectacle. I am grateful to Pierre Lançon for this information from the Conques archives. Quoted by Barbara H. Rosenwein, Rhinoceros Bound: Cluny in the Tenth Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982), 3–4. RR, November 10, 1893, 713. For a description of the roles played by the modern Premonstratension community, see Frère Joël Houque, “La communauté prémontré,” in Conques, ed. Emmanuelle Jeannin and Henri Gaud (Moisenay: Éditions Gaud, 2004), 70–73. Conrad Rudolph, “The Tour Guide in the Middle Ages: Guide Culture and the Mediation of Public Art,” Art Bulletin 100 (2018): 36–67. Quotation from Sheingorn, The Book of Sainte Foy, I.16, 81. In 2015, the Premonstratension community commissioned a contemporary reliquary which hangs in the apse, near the place where the reliquary statue of Foy once stood.

2

Sainte Foy and ecclesiastical agendas

After the acquisition of Foy’s relics in the ninth century and the development of Foy’s image as miracle worker by the beginning of the eleventh century, the cultural work of making the Conques abbey shrine a compelling center of religious devotion in the region began. Especially in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the abbey devoted its resources to creating the textual and material supports for its leading role. That is the story told in Chapter One – a story of the unexpected success of a medieval saint’s cult at her main shrine. In subsequent centuries, despite many political challenges (both internal and external), the effort to invigorate the ritual center continued. However, the power of Sainte Foy’s cult could not depend totally on the reputation of her monastic shrine at Conques. The ecclesiastical authorities at all levels – monastic, episcopal, and papal – realized the necessity of promulgating devotion to Foy beyond the cult center. This chapter will explore some of the ways Foy’s cult was disseminated throughout Europe from the eleventh century onward, whether through the iconography of martyrdom, the establishment of institutions where the saint’s liturgy could be celebrated as well as the production of liturgical and devotional texts, the support of churchmen with special dedication to Sainte Foy, and the eventual reanimation of cult sites by supplying new relics. Foy’s cult was known outside of Aquitaine more than a century before receiving the papal imprimatur in 1108 that made Foy a universal saint of the Catholic church, but the exact means by which the cult initially spread are difficult to trace. Bernard of Angers, the scholar who traveled south to Conques in the early eleventh century and became Foy’s first hagiographer, attributes his curiosity about Foy’s cult to a small chapel dedicated to her outside the walls of Chartres, where he was studying. The chapel must have been built during the tenth century, and it was certainly associated with Sainte Foy by the end of that century, although we know nothing of its history before Bernard mentions it. For most eleventh- and twelfth-century patrons of the cult, the salient aspect of Foy’s sanctity was her miracle-working power. When Bernard visited the Chartres chapel dedicated to Sainte Foy, he was struck by stories of her unusual miracles and vowed to visit her shrine in Conques.1 In the letter that concludes Book One of the Liber miraculorum, Bernard also mentions other places in northern France where Foy’s cult was celebrated very early in the eleventh century. Those include a new church dedicated to the saint in Noyon, a Foy altar in the cathedral of Angers with a secondary altar in honor of Foy – both founded by Hubert, bishop of Angers – and an oratory dedicated to Foy in the church of the Holy Mother by Guy, a priest of that church. Bernard claims that these “respected people have heard of Sainte Foy for

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the first time through my writing.”2 Except for Bernard’s claim to be the source of knowledge of the saint in northern France, little information about these very early foundations exists. This chapter will focus on the second kind of cultural work performed by Sainte Foy: to support broad ecclesiastical agendas. The work began in Agen and Conques but extended beyond the primary cult sites to all subsequent locations where she was revered in France, throughout Europe, and eventually on other continents. While the early cult of Foy has received the most attention from historians of art and religion, the more comprehensive history attempted here will include the cult’s survival with increased vitality into the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as churches dedicated to the saint were rebuilt and refurbished in high style. Although medieval scholarship tends to overemphasize the power of the institutional Church to enforce its ideology, the religious establishment was not monolithic or possessed of one coherent ideology or set of cultural goals – as the history of Foy’s cult clearly shows. The saint was appropriated in diverse ways by a variety of ecclesiastical agents to do cultural work that differed depending on priorities in the given context.

Foy the martyr The main religious paradigm expressed through the figure of Sainte Foy is that of martyrdom, and it remains present in the iconography of the saint throughout the long history of her cult. From the beginning of Christian history, martyrs for the faith held the highest rank among believers, and the story of their sacrifice (their passio) was the earliest form of hagiography to be written.3 The word “martyr” from a Greek word for “witness” was first used for those who died publicly for their faith under Roman rule.4 The discourse of martyrdom developed by early Christianity5 dominated ecclesiastical ideas of holiness, not just throughout the Middle Ages but well beyond. As Elizabeth Castelli puts it, “Willing and self-sacrificing death on behalf of one’s religion, one’s political ideals, or one’s community – martyrdom – … is one of the central legacies of the Christian tradition.”6 We should therefore expect that representations of Foy as a martyr will be ubiquitous in ecclesiastical art and ritual. However, as close study of Foy’s cults reveals, the trope of her martyrdom does not always predominate in a given setting or type of representation, even one controlled by the church. In Conques, as we have seen in Chapter One, her dominant image was that of the miracle-working patron of the abbey, the ritual center of the cult of Foy after the ninth century. Here we will begin with Sainte Foy’s primary identity as a martyr saint, bearing in mind the “malleability” of even such a fundamental representation when “collective memory” seeks a “usable past.”7 Awareness of Foy’s act of martyrdom never goes away, but it may recede into a “taken for granted” background fact when a different saintly role is foregrounded, as it was on the Conques tympanum where Foy is an intercessor figure, or in Bernard of Angers’ narratives where Foy is a miracle worker extraordinaire. Dominique Barthélemy, writing about the rapprochement between the feudal nobility and saints’ cults in Aquitaine – so unlike the northern French insistence on separation between monasticism and the warrior life – calls Sainte Foy a “martyre performante.”8 He means to emphasize the Aquitanian willingness to innovate by “bricolage” in constructing saints’ images, but we might also see that the Foy cult at Conques – while fundamentally based on the saint’s status as martyr – highlighted instead her miracle-working performances as the basis of

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their famous cult. The “performance” of miracles for devotees and her monks tended to overshadow the martyrdom at Conques. Elsewhere, as we will see in this chapter, even in the texts or visual arts where Sainte Foy appears as martyr her identity may be subtly reshaped to serve a variety of purposes. The original story of Foy’s martyrdom places the event not in Conques, the eventual base of her cult, but in Agen, a town approximately 130 miles to the west of Conques. There in the late third or early fourth century an adolescent girl was killed by Roman rulers persecuting Christians who defied the authority of the Roman state. The earliest, very brief, notice of Foy occurs in a sixth-century list of martyrs – the Martyrologium Hieronymianum – that gives October 6 as her official date for church celebration.9 Other than this date, historical facts about the saint are subjects of scholarly debate. The first texts of Foy’s martyrdom story that survive are dated to the tenth century;10 some scholars speculate they are based on an earlier original that fused two separate Agen martyr stories, one of the young girl Foy and one of Caprais, a local Christian leader.11 In Agen tradition, the two martyrs were both celebrated; their deaths were connected, as were the later “translations” of their relics into churches dedicated to them in the fifth century. The tenth century passio praises Agen as “a worthy and joyous place, for it merited to be the birthplace of martyrs, the site of their glorious struggle and burial.”12 This passio also describes the fifth-century Bishop Dulcidius of Agen, who moved the relics from their original burial site outside the city walls. According to Frances Wands, “on the site known still today as le Martrou, probably stood a martyrium where their bodies were thrown, and according to an oral tradition, whence Dulcidius translated their relics.”13 The passio text reads as a product of the Agen cult, which it foregrounds.14 Like so many other aspects of the Foy cult, the passio continued to be revised after the tenth century – subordinating Agen’s role in Foy’s martyrdom and elevating first Conques and then other sites. In addition to the many prose versions of her martyrdom story, a version in verse was written in the mid-eleventh century. The official Conques passio that was sent with the libellus of Foy liturgical materials to a new foundation in Sélestat in the late eleventh century saw further changes, as the brother martyrs Prime and Felician were returned to the martyrdom narrative.15 The priory at Sélestat had a connection with the Conques abbey for centuries after it was founded by the noble van Buren family, but once in Sélestat the libellus was also revised to incorporate the family’s personal connection to the Foy cult as will be discussed in Chapter Four.16

Chanson de sainte Foi Undoubtedly the most idiosyncratic and ambitious early rewriting of Sainte Foy’s martyrdom story is the eleventh-century poem in the provençal language (langue d’oc) – the Chanson de sainte Foi.17 As a vernacular text of ambiguous provenance, it has fascinated philologists, and its literary transmutation of the passio into the style of a feudal epic (chanson de geste) has riveted the attention of cultural historians since its rediscovery in 1902.18 Other scholars have emphasized the liturgical sources of this hybrid text, sources that include both the earliest prose passio and the version in verse.19 In the tenth-century prose passio that was one of the sources of the Chanson, Foy is the young daughter (of unspecified age) of a noble family in Agen – “She was beautiful

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in appearance, but her mind was more beautiful” – who had been Christian since early childhood.20 Her brave defense of her faith and denunciation of the pagan gods trigger Dacian’s determination to torture and kill her. The adult Caprais, hiding in a cave above the town, has a vision of a dove descending from heaven to put a crown of gems and pearls on Foy’s head. In his vision, the martyr is clad in a radiant “snowwhite garment,” signifying that she had “attained the palm of triumph and the prize of victory, which was eternal salvation.”21 Inspired by her Christian witness, Caprais too goes before Dacian to profess his faith and choose martyrdom. As we noted above, this tenth-century narrative clearly foregrounds Agen as the site of the glorious martyrdoms and focuses exclusively on the two local martyrs, Foy and Caprais, who go without hesitation to their deaths. The account ends with the description of Bishop Dulcidius’s fifth-century decision to move Foy’s relics to a more permanent shrine. The final passage again celebrates Agen’s role as the glorious place of martyrdom, ignoring the ninth-century “theft” of Foy’s relics by Conques. Written a century later, the vernacular Chanson de sainte Foi combines both clerical and popular sources into its distinctive account of Foy’s martyrdom that has stronger links to Conques. The 55-laisse poem opens with the narrator’s claim that he “heard a Latin book about the old times read under a pine” – a favored symbolic locale in medieval narrative.22 In fact, the poem combines details from multiple Latin works, not just the prose passio and perhaps the verse passio23 but also the translatio of Foy’s relics from Agen to Conques, miracles from Bernard of Angers’ part of the Liber miraculorum, and Lactantius, De mortibus persecutorum. The Lactantius text adds substantial information about the death of Roman persecutors Diocletian and Maximian, setting the martyrdom of Foy within the context of late antique political history. The Chanson foregrounds Conques as Foy’s home and draws interesting connections between Conques and the geographical areas on both sides of the Pyrenees (the Basque lands, Gascony, and Aragon, vv. 23–24). The action is cast in feudal language. Frédéric de Gournay terms the poem a “feudal drama” in which God is lord (“senior,” not “dominus”) and Foy – praised as the child of a knight (“cavaller” v. 341) – does not want to change lords (v. 245) to accept the “fief” offered by Dacian (v. 239).24 Like the Chanson de Roland, the Chanson de sainte Foi acknowledges external excellence but insists it is invalidated by internal spiritual orientation: “The people [of Agen] would have been beautiful if only they had been healthy in spirit. Their hearts were infirm because they were pagans. … Ah, why were they not Christians!”25 Referring to its thoroughgoing adoption of feudal terminology, Gournay says, “It would be difficult to find a more profoundly feudal text.”26 At the same time that it anticipates the many popular narratives in the genre of chanson de geste to be written in the twelfth century, the Chanson de sainte Foi explicitly allegorizes good Christians and evil pagans in relation to heaven and hell, as one would expect in a pedagogical clerical text.27 It also points out similarities between figures in Foy’s martyrdom story and Biblical or saintly figures – King Solomon (v. 54), King Herod (v. 467), Moses (v. 315), Saint Adrian (v. 112 ), Saint Felix (v. 171), Saint John (v. 390), Saint Lawrence (v. 290), Saint Nicholas (v. 461), Saint Denis (v. 401) – all found in liturgical sources, Alfaric suggests.28 In the Chanson, Caprais is demoted to a passing mention (laisses 35–36) so that Foy becomes the unquestioned heroine of the story. The description of Sainte Foy gives her age as twelve (v. 80), which is more specific than the “young girl” of other texts, and

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the poem accentuates her status as the daughter of a feudal lord in Agen who “had great domains in abundance” but “loved God greatly in secret” (laisse 7).29 In the Chanson, Foy directs her wealth to charity – not a detail mentioned in other eleventhcentury accounts of her passion but important in later hagiography of the saint. She has “great country estates and strong castles and furs of wild animals and buttons and precious rings on her fingers and well-made vessels of gold and silver,” as well as “gowns with bordered sleeves,” all of which she uses to “nourish the poor and lepers. She made herself poor, like a beggar” (laisses 10 and 11).30 Like her father, who is a rich nobleman and (albeit secret) Christian, Foy is marked as a feudal noblewoman by the elaboration of wealth in this description. The mutation of an aristocratic ideology of largesse into Christian charity models an openhanded generosity that might inspire potential patrons of her cult. Foy’s role as exemplary aristocrat is at least as important as her act of martyrdom in the Chanson. On paleographical, lexical and codicological grounds, and despite much debate, some scholars have plausibly concluded that the Chanson was written in the Rouergue region, probably at Conques abbey.31 Robert Clark has made the strongest argument for the Chanson as part of a compendium of texts for the cults of Foy and Mary Magdalene.32 Sainte Foy is the primary focus, with Mary Magdalene the lesser subject of the collection. Both cults were celebrated at Conques by the mid-eleventh century, and Robert Lafont suggests that since Conques and Vezelay were on routes to Santiago de Compostela, the eleventh-century manuscript was connected to pilgrimage.33 Clark draws on the codicological description by Denis Grémont of the original manuscript (of which the Chanson was only one part).34 Before the dismembering of the manuscript in the sixteenth century, it contained an original eleventh-century core with twelfth-century additions. This first phase of the manuscript was an assemblage of texts for the cults of the two female saints, all accompanied by neumes in the Aquitanian style: a troped antiphonary for the October 6 vigil of the feast of Sainte Foy (ff. 1–10), the office for the Translation of Sainte Foy (ff. 11–19), followed by the office for the July 22 feast of Mary Magdalene (ff. 19–26), a processional repons for Sainte Foy (ff. 26–27), a hymn in honor of Mary Magdalene, and the beginning of the Passio of Sainte Foy.35 To this original eleventh-century section, in a second phase, lessons of the Life and Translation of Mary Magdalene were added. Another fragment of the manuscript, now in the Vatican, began with Foy’s Passio, the Translatio, and part of the Liber miraculorum. The now-separated Occitan Chanson de sainte Foi in Leiden was part of the oldest section, written in the same hand as the first Latin liturgical pieces, a juxtaposition of languages and genres that has baffled scholars. Based on the codicological evidence, Clark argues that the dismembered libellus and another eleventh-century compendium of Sainte Foy pieces36 were made for use on the saint’s feast day, and he calls attention to the strikingly analogous Liber sancte Jacobi (known as the “Codex Calixtinus”) from the shrine of Saint James at Compostela.37 Like the Foy libelli, the Codex Calixtinus assembles heterogeneous texts concerning the cult of its patron saint – including offices, masses, hymns, and 17 sermons for the feasts of Saint James in Book One; 22 miracle narratives of the saint in Book Two; alternative versions of the translation of Saint James’ martyred body from Jerusalem to Galicia in Book Three; the epic Charlemagne history of PseudoTurpin in Book Four; and the earliest pilgrim’s guide to the Santiago de Compostela shrine in Book Five. The Codex Calixtinus also indicates that the sermons, miracles and passion texts are to be read during the office of matins but could be continued

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for reading in the refectory. The parallels between the Saint James compendium and Sainte Foy libellus lead Clark to his conclusion that – despite our inclination to sever the vernacular Chanson from its source compilation – we should accept the idea of a monastic setting and auditors who might not all be strong Latin users, for whom the Chanson version of Foy’s passion in the vernacular would enhance their participation in Foy’s feast day.38 Although composed at Conques, the manuscript was likely made for a nearby dependent monastery, where its various texts could be read or sung at the feasts of Sainte Foy. Gournay notes the verses written from a perspective admiring of – but somewhat distant from – the Conques abbey (vv. 435–39), and he argues for the priory of Foy at Morlàas in the Béarn near the Pyrenees.39 The Morlàas church was built in the eleventh century as a dependency of the Conques abbey. Gournay speculates that the liturgical compilation including the Chanson de sainte Foi was written ca. 1070 and given by the Conques abbey to the Morlàas priory. However, in 1079 Viscount Centulle V gave the church dedicated to Sainte Foy and the money, ovens, and fields of Sainte-Foy to Cluny.40 Gournay suggests that after 1079, when Cluny took over, the manuscript moved north out of the aegis and consciousness of Conques, ending up at the Fleury monastery in Saint-Benoît-sur Loire.41 To analyze the make-up and the provenance of the Chanson manuscript, as we have done here, does not answer the further questions of who composed the work and what the specific impetus was for the generic experimentation. But it does give a vivid example of appropriation where the framing liturgical purpose for recounting Foy’s martyrdom was unchanged, but within that frame a radical transformation of the account by translation from Latin into the vernacular could take place – presumably to meet the needs of auditors. Appropriation must always be understood as an act chosen from many possibilities and tailored to a local reception context, even when the ecclesiastical framework has not been substantially changed.

Romanesque iconography of Foy Since being a witness for the Christian faith against pagan tyranny is at the core of Sainte Foy’s original passion narrative, it is not surprising that the earliest visual representations of the saint within churches are images of Foy facing the Roman ruler Dacian, who will interrogate her, supervise her torture when she refuses to deny her Christianity, then condemn her to death by the sword. These are images not of a vulnerable child but of a defiant woman announcing and defending her spiritual commitment. Conques has not one but two capital carvings of the confrontation scene among the 250 Romanesque capitals in the abbey church. The most accessible is on the fourth pillar facing east of the lower floor on the north side of the nave. Marcel Durliat argues that the placement is significant: the scene is at a very visible level and next to the altar in the nave, with clear symbolic intentions – “the representation of a scene of the martyr Sainte Foy, source of the spiritual and material gifts that the patroness of the abbey made to her devotees.”42 A veiled adult Foy is carved at the angle of a corbel with a guard pulling her into the presence of Dacian by her right hand, while her left hand is open in an acceptance gesture (Fig. 2.1). Dacian – with beard, moustache, and large jeweled crown topped by a fleur-de-lys – sits on his throne at the other angle of the corbel; he hands a large sword to the executioner standing before him.

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Foy is followed by her guardian angel, who rests his right hand supportively on Foy’s shoulder and carries a cross in his left hand (Fig. 2.2). Behind Dacian, parallel to Foy’s counselor angel, a devil holding a snake whispers to the tyrant (Figs. 2.3 and 2.4). Jean-Claude Fau points out details of the Foy and Dacian scene carved on the lower capital that resemble features attributed to the anonymous sculptor of the final stage of abbey decoration, including the tympanum. He notes that the prominent hand positions of each figure accentuate the narrative flow of the scene;43 the language of hands also marks the tympanum figures at Conques, as discussed in Chapter One. The “desiccated” devil with two wrinkles on his nose resembles the devils on the tympanum,44 and Marcel Durliat comments that we see in this capital carving devil the brother of demons on the great tympanum.45 Given these resemblances, Fau, Durliat, and other art historians want to date the carving of the lower capital to between 1107 and 1130, after the nave was finished and the tympanum work was underway (or even completed).46 The second capital carving of Foy before Dacian is on the fourth pillar of the nave’s south side but higher up at the tribune level.47 The scene fuses two moments in the Foy narrative showing two figures of Sainte Foy, one before Dacian and one pulled toward him.48 There are several damaged capitals (now in the collection of survivals from the destruction of the cloisters) that Fau speculates may represent further scenes of Foy’s torture. These include the scene of an executioner holding in one hand a sword and in the other the long hair of a woman standing before him with clasped hands; behind her, another executioner pursues another victim, perhaps Caprais. A second carving may show Foy on her burning grill, whose flames were providentially extinguished by rain and necessitated her death by decapitation.49 Whereas the ecclesiastical focus of the Conques Romanesque abbey was clearly on Sainte Foy as their patron martyr, capital carvings of the scene of Foy’s condemnation by Dacian outside of Conques tend to include the figures of Foy’s fellow martyr Caprais as well as the brothers Prime and Felician. In those churches or chapels, even when they are dedicated to her, Foy is often shown with other Agen martyrs rather than being the exclusive focus of veneration – a minor but meaningful shift in focus. In Agen, the church dedicated to Caprais (now a cathedral) – the only building surviving of Agen’s multiple martyr cults – gives primacy to its patron martyr but includes Foy. Two Romanesque historiated capital carvings on the northeast crossing pier of the transept side refer to the martyrdoms. The first shows four scenes from the martyrdom of Caprais; each scene is identified by a carved subject text: Dacianus precipit (Dacian orders); miles occidit (the soldier kills); sanctus Caprasius moritur (Saint Caprais dies); celestia scandit (he rises to heaven). The first three scenes are fused into one composition; the soldier who brandishes an enormous sword that has just decapitated Caprais presents the head of the saint to Dacian, who sits richly dressed. The fourth scene shows an angel holding the hand of a small naked figure representing the saint’s soul that will be taken to paradise. On the adjoining capital facing the entrance to the apse, Caprais and Foy are reunited in heavenly triumph as they are crowned by Christ.50 The early passio that features Caprais describes his vision of a dove descending from heaven to crown Foy the martyr, so Foy’s iconography often includes a crown carried by a dove, as in the thirteenth-century Chartres window.51 The Agen church capital carvings celebrate their town’s martyrs – Foy among them – while revealing the malleability of even the foundational concept of martyrdom in the most ritualized setting.

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Conques and Santiago de Compostela The cathedral at Santiago de Compostela, Spain – in construction at approximately the same time as the Conques abbey church in the later eleventh and early twelfth century – has a chapel dedicated to Santa Fe in 1105 (capilla de Santa Fe) that modeled its capital carvings of martyrdom on those of Conques.52 Two historiated capitals depict Foy’s martyrdom story – one on each side of the entrance to her chapel in the deambulatory. As we might expect outside of Conques, however, the scenes include Foy’s fellow martyrs. The left pillar’s capital carving shows five figures; the three facing the aisle are a female flanked by two males holding books. They represent Sainte Foy with her fellow Agen martyrs Prime and Felician (Fig. 2.5). On the left side of that pillar is a figure who may be Caprais (Fig. 2.6). The narrative carved on the pillar to the right of the chapel entry closely resembles the condemnation of Foy at Conques in having Foy pulled by a soldier toward Dacian seated on the left (Fig. 2.7). Another puzzling capital carving on the east wall of the south transept capital has been interpreted as depicting Saint Caprais’s vision of Foy’s crowning in heaven, described in her passio.53 The appropriation of the Conques Foy martyr legend at Compostela is thus both direct and subtly divergent. The Foy chapel at Santiago de Compostela has become a crux for art historians trying to clarify the building history of the cathedral and to understand its connections to other Romanesque churches in France and northern Spain. Art historians have long acknowledged that the Santa Fe chapel iconography was modeled on the Conques abbey capital of Foy’s martyrdom, but only recently have they claimed that the abbey church at Conques was an important architectural and sculptural “prototype” for other aspects of the Compostela cathedral, which was itself a creative workshop that in turn sent artistic solutions to other churches.54 Rather than a one-way influence, the process of building and decorating the Romanesque church was interactive across national borders – as was the spread of Foy’s cult. Henrik Karge argues that the architectural design of the Compostela cathedral is of Aquitanian origin. However, he debunks the well-known idea that there was an architectural plan governing all “pilgrimage churches,” a belief based on the similar layouts of the Conques, Toulouse, Tours, Compostela and Limoge buildings.55 Serafín Moralejo acknowledges that few Romanesque churches possess such a vast documentation about their construction as the Santiago cathedral.56 Nevertheless, the abundant records have led to confusion on onomastic grounds, he points out.57 The extant major texts associated with the cathedral (Liber Sancti Jacobi and the Historia Compostelana) both give 1078 as the beginning of construction, but it likely began a few years earlier in connection with Pope Gregory VII’s reforms and the “Great Council” that King Alfonso VI held in Santiago in 1075.58 The Santa Fe chapel iconography suggests that construction did not stop – as earlier scholars thought – during the troubled interim (1088–98) between the two prelates, Diego Peláez and Diego Gelmírez.59 Although the Foy martyrdom iconography was indebted to Conques, Moralejo and Castiñeiras claim the style of the capital figures resembles those of Jaca cathedral in Aragon, and the polygonal plan of the chapel is like that of the biggest chapel in the Pamplona church.60 The later traits of the Santa Fe chapel in the cathedral (1094–1101) have been attributed to a Master Esteban (Etienne) who – a document of 1101 tells us – was at the time also master sculptor of the Pamplona church and had a long career working on churches along the

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pilgrimage route in northern Spain from Pamplona to Compostela, including Jaca and Léon.61 Even the architecture and sculpture of these Romanesque churches in southern Europe testify to the kind of bricolage and malleability that I would argue we see throughout the history of Foy’s cult.

Foy’s cross-Pyrenean cult The Romanesque construction of the Santiago cathedral and the building of a new church of Foy in Conques, with their similar capital carvings representing the martyrdom of Sainte Foy, mark the historical moment when the kingdoms and the churches of northern Spain and those across the Pyrenees in southwestern France developed close ties, enabling the spread of Foy’s cult. By the mid-eleventh century, Iberian rulers began to seek brides across the Pyrenees, internationalizing their dynasties.62 With the defeat of Moorish control in the region, the towns of northern Spain (including Jaca, Pamplona, Estella, Puente la Reina, León, and Burgos) experienced an influx of merchants and artisans from various European countries, above all France, creating a new urban society along the pilgrimage route to Santiago (the camino frances).63 Ecclesiastical institutions also extended their reach across the Pyrenees, and this is the era par excellence of bishops and abbots as “voyageurs infatigables” (in Gaillard’s phrase).64 The confluence of political support from Christian kings, economic growth, and religious purpose from the mid-eleventh to the mid-twelfth century on both sides of the Pyrenees was key to the southern expansion of Sainte Foy’s cult and thus to its wider influence on ecclesiastical culture. The intertwined dynastic, economic, and ecclesiastical communications between France and Spain are illustrated by the career of one churchman connected with the monastery at Conques, Pierre d’Andouque (also known as Pierre or Pedro de Rodez or Roda). The documented details we have about his life provide a rare personal window into the process of appropriation of Foy’s cult outside Conques and on transpyrenean ecclesiastical agendas more generally.65 The only son of a noble and pious family of the Rouergue, vassals of the Counts of Toulouse, Pierre was given as a child to the Conques abbey, where he was educated and became a monk.66 As a young monk, he was sent to the monastery at Saint-Pons de Thomières, Languedoc, whose abbot Frotard (1060– 1096) was a leader in the Gregorian reform.67 Frotard chose Pierre d’Andouque to be the bishop of Pamplona (ca. 1082), where the new bishop pursued reformist goals not just within his diocese but through his tireless international networking with rulers and fellow churchmen. Most significantly for our topic, d’Andouque was a lifelong devotee of the cult of Sainte Foy and the interests of the Conques monastery.68 As an intimate of King Sancho Ramirez of Aragon (1063–1094) and his successors, the bishop accompanied rulers on their military expeditions against the Moors in Saragossa (1091), Huesca (1094–96), and Barbastro (1101). With the success of these missions, d’Andouque reconsecrated mosques as Christian churches. During the siege of Barbastro, the Aragonese king Pierre I made a vow “to give to Saint Savior, to the glorious virgin of Conques, and to abbot Begon, as well as the present and future monks of this monastery, the biggest, most beautiful mosque of the town” (apart from the one to become the cathedral).69 At his victory, the king honored his vow and went on to put his entire realm under the protection of Sainte Foy. He made the same vow at the siege of Saragossa.70

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Pierre d’Andouque also accompanied Pope Urban II on his campaigns through France to preach the Crusades in 1095 at the council of Clermont, where Pierre took a vow to go on crusade to the Holy Land that he fulfilled later. Still very attached to the monastery at Conques, en route to Jerusalem Pierre stopped at Conques to leave funds in the care of Abbot Boniface, as described in a charter.71 On the June 24, 1096, at the Saint-Pons de Thomière monastery, Pope Urban II composed a bull dedicated to his “beloved Pierre d’Andouque,” releasing his church of Pamplona from all temporal control.72 Pierre maintained close ties with Conques throughout his career as bishop, augmenting his Pamplona cathedral staff with numerous clerics from the monastery at Conques, and through his influence directing a stream of donations from churches in Navarre to Conques in the late eleventh century (Garitoain, 1086; Caparroso, Murillo el Cuende, and Baratiages, 1092).73 He also supported the donation to Conques by Sancho, count of Erro, of the church and hospice at Roncevaux. Situated on a major pass over the Pyrenees, the hospice became vital to pilgrims following that route to Santiago de Compostela.74 The culmination of Pierre d’Andouque’s cross-Pyrenees patronage of Foy’s cult was his role in consecrating the Santa Fe chapel at Compostela in 1105. Ten years later, he was killed by a stone when caught in the middle of a battle for Toulouse that he was attempting to mediate.75 Leonine verses in honor of Pierre d’Andouque, probably written by the Conques monastery at his death, survive in the Doat collection at the Bibliothèque nationale.76

Post-Romanesque iconography of Foy The highlight of the Romanesque Foy martyrdom narratives is the dramatic scene before Dacian where Foy declares herself a Christian; it is the image of Christian witness adopted for church capitals at Conques, Agen, and Santiago. After Foy’s pivotal confrontation with Dacian, the passio says she was tortured on a hot grill – which became the most distinctive symbol of her martyrdom in later ecclesiastical iconography, especially in France.77 In sculptures and paintings, Foy is easily identified by the grill she holds; for example, in the churches of Bar-le-Régulier (Burgundy) (Fig. 2.8)78 or Grand Vabre (Aveyron), where a Passion scene (the deposition from the cross by John and the Virgin Mary) shows Saints Katherine and Foy with their attributes, Foy holding her grill (Figs. 2.9 and 2.10). In English scholarship, the grill is also called a “gridiron” or a “brass bed,”79 and later medieval descriptions and illustrations of Foy’s passion show her naked on a metal bed. Post-medieval representations of Foy, however, often omit the grill to show Foy with a palm – the Roman symbol of victory that early Christian iconography adopted for the martyr.80 The nineteenth-century representations of Foy in her church at Morlàas show the palm alone (Figs. 2.11 and 2.12). In late medieval and baroque representations, a sword – symbol of her decapitation – may also be carried by the saint. The graceful fifteenth-century silver statue-reliquary of Foy in the treasury of Conques gives her all the attributes: the grill, the sword, the crown, and the palm.81 Foy in her role as martyr dominates the visual space in the parish church of SainteFoy-Tarentaise (Savoie), a post-medieval building that is richly decorated in baroque style.82 A large and dynamic altar painting represents Foy’s martyrdom on the burning grill; it is by Nicolas Oudéard, a regional painter at the end of the seventeenth century (Fig. 2.13). In the church, there are also multiple figures of Foy with a palm branch

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and a grill, including on the majestic gilded altar reredo of limewood, where in addition to the palm and the grill Foy carries a sword (1674) (Fig. 2.14). A silk antependium embroidered with silver and gold thread has a figure of Sainte Foy with a book as well as the palm and grill, and she wears a crown (1662) (Fig. 2.15). A ceremonial cope in red velvet embroidered with silver and gold thread also shows the martyr Foy carrying her grill and palm. Below, the ribbon has the date 1644 and the motto St. F. O. P. N. (Sancta Fides ora pro nobis) (Fig. 2.16). The combination of attributes and motto makes explicit the power of intercession Foy possesses because of her sacrifice. The absence of a known Foy relic in the medieval church tends to support André Vauchez’s claim that by the later Middle Ages images of saints came to substitute for their relics in churches.83 However, the church received two relics during the late nineteenth-century Catholic revival, one in 1880 from Rodez Bishop Bourret and the other in 1881 from the curé of Conques.84 The art and relics clearly show that the saint’s cult was vibrant in Saint-Foy-Tarentaise during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with support from local historians continuing into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, a pattern also found elsewhere in Europe.85 In late medieval East Anglia, Foy (Saint Faith) usually holds a book and a palm, but some churches show her with a saw. At Cley, she is one of a group of virgin martyrs; she holds a book in her right hand and a yellow-handled saw in her left, as she also does in the Gazeby church. In the Horsham St Faith parish church, one of the panel paintings on the pulpit (from 1480) shows a crowned Saint Faith with a book in her right hand and a two-handled saw in her left. At Masham church, a screen panel (c. 1503–9) depicts a crowned saint with a double-handled green saw in her right hand – identified as a cross-cut saw. At Outwell, too, she also holds a saw.86 At St. Peter Mancroft church in Norwich, she is the only virgin martyr remaining from a set of virgin martyrs in the tracery lights; dressed in a blue mantle with white lining and a chaplet of roses, she holds a palm in her left hand and a saw in her right. C. Woodforde describes two images of the saint with different attributes in Winchester Cathedral. In one clerestory window of the choir, she holds a saw, while in the north aisle of the choir, she holds a brazen bed.87 No explanation connected to one of her known legends or miracles has been found for the saw as an attribute of Saint Faith, and it’s tempting to imagine a lost English legend as the source of this localized iconography. The brazen bed was the English interpretation of the continental grill as Foy’s chief attribute. The image circulated in fifteenth-century additions to manuscripts of the Gilte Legende, a fourteenth-century English translation of Jean de Vignay’s Légende Dorée (itself a translation of Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda Aurea). The supplementary saints’ Lives added to the Gilte Legende were mostly those of English saints, and Catherine Sanok has noted that the legend of Saint Faith that appears in fifteenthcentury manuscripts lacks precise references to Agen or France. Foy has been “Englished.”88 Not only does Foy appear less as a French saint in this English version but the description of her torture is cited for exploitative eroticism in the analyses of English scholars: And then he commaundid to fecche fourth a bed of bras and made the maide to do of hir clothis, and then she stode there al nakid, and there she was lede in that brasyn bed, and the tormentours strecchid hir oute alonge upon the herde bed and made a gret fire undir hir and cast therin grese ful gret plente to make the fire brenne the faster.89

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The vividness of the description – a naked female body on a searing brass bed – was a key element in early feminist interpretations of the virgin martyr fgure to be discussed later in this chapter. Foy/Faith as a clothed virgin martyr is usually shown nimbed, with flowing hair that signifies virginity. She carries her individual attribute and, like other virgin martyrs, may carry a closed book “symbolizing not only their refusal to deny the Word of God but also their skill in defending the Gospel,” according to Ann E. Nichols.90

Foy in the Church liturgy The entry of Sainte Foy into the universal church calendar in 1108 marked the validation of her cult by the Catholic Church and its head, the pope. The cult had received papal attention in the late eleventh century during the rivalry over precedence between the Conques monastery and “New Conques” in Figeac. After the official decision to put her into the liturgy, Foy appears in lists of saints whose feast days are to be celebrated – with Foy’s feast on October 6th. The moment of liturgical appropriation is perhaps clearest in English liturgical books after the Norman Conquest of England, a period that coincided with the building of the new Conques abbey church, the papal recognition of Foy’s cult, and the cult’s growing international scope. At St. Augustine’s monastery in Canterbury, between 1100 and 1125, a passionary (London, BL Arundel 911) was redacted to supply Foy’s Passio and a selection of her miracles to be read during the Office on October 6. T.A. Heslop focuses on one post-Conquest manuscript from Canterbury Cathedral (Bodleian Library Ms. Add. C 260); revisions to its Calendar simplified it by removing many English saints, and Foy’s name was then added in for the October 6th feast.91 R.W. Pfaff notes that Foy was added to only three English calendars in the eleventh century: Oxford, Bodl. Lib. Ms. Bodley 579; Cambridge, UL, Ms. Kk.V 3Z; and London, BL, Ms. Cotton Vitellius A XVIII.92 However, Francis Wormald’s edition of English Kalendars Before A.D. 1100 shows that Sainte Foy’s name was added to numerous calendars after 1100.93 From the early twelfth century, therefore, Sainte Foy was structured into the official liturgical year celebrations of the Catholic Church across Europe.

St. Albans Psalter The process of adding a saint to the church liturgy is illustrated by the St. Albans Psalter, produced in four stages by different scribes, which adds Saint Faith during the early twelfth century. In the calendar, Faith appears in a group of eight female saints of particular interest to Christina of Markyate, an anchoress and prioress who owned the psalter in the second quarter of the twelfth century.94 As Jane Geddes points out, the selection of saints in calendars and litanies could be tailored to the interests of a monastery, a donor, or an owner. She argues that both the calendar and the litany of the St. Albans Psalter appear shaped to suit Christina and her family, since these additions indicate an origin at Ramsay abbey, later adapted to suit a female recluse connected with St. Albans.95 In addition to the liturgical calendar, Foy’s name was added to the litany of saints – usually a long list of saints’ names, followed by the entreaty “Pray for us!” The litany “represents the essence of the cult of the saints – the invocation of a name” – according

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to Robert Bartlett. There is an interesting discrepancy between the mention of Fides/ Foy in the calendar and the litany of the St. Albans Psalter. In the calendar, Fides appears alone on October 6th as a virgin martyr of Agen. However, in the litany Fides appears with Spes and Caritas as a different martyr saint in the legend of three sisters martyred in second-century Rome.97 The legends of the two saints Fides/Foy/ Faith were occasionally conflated, most significantly in stained-glass windows at Conches, Normandy – as will be discussed in Chapter Five.

Foy and the religious orders Foy did specific cultural work for the Benedictine order other than at the Conques Benedictine monastery, and we can expect to find her image and her liturgical celebration in Benedictine establishments and texts of the high Middle Ages even though Foy does not fit the type of saint the order introduced to hagiography, the “saintly abbot.” Benedictine monasticism predominated from 600–1200.98 In Anglo-Norman England, where Foy’s cult was well-established, in some places her role as a patron saint of monks is explicit. Simon of Walsingham’s Life of Seinte Feye, for example, depicts Foy with monastic virtues, and the monk-poet Simon claims a personal relationship with the saint, as will be discussed in Chapter Three. Kristine Haney’s analysis of the St. Albans Psalter argues for its shaping to fit a Benedictine religious context as of paramount importance over any personal revisions for Christina. Haney concludes, The beautiful copy was produced for someone at St. Albans. Whether that person was Christina, or whether the Hildesheim manuscript was later adapted for her use cannot be determined … . What matters is that a book designed for men at Canterbury was deemed suitable for a woman who sought ardently to follow a Benedictine life of prayer and meditation … . Christina was treated as a member of the Benedictine community and that was all she ever really wanted.99 In the Faith chapel of Westminster Abbey, too, a wall painting above the altar represents the tall and elegant saint being petitioned by a small, kneeling black-robed monk. Rather than a specific donor, the kneeling figure is more likely to be a representative of the Benedictine order. His prayer in Latin rises at an angle toward the crowned saint on her painted pedestal, who holds a book and the grill on which she was tortured100 (Fig. 2.17). David Park notes the “naturalism” of the portrait of Foy, as well as the “pronounced mannerism” of the painting.101 Lesley Milner has argued persuasively based on the chapel’s location and fittings (as well as documentation and iconography) that this space functioned as both sacristy and vestry for the Benedictine abbey church. Although Henry III had funded and personally supervised the new church of St. Peter at Westminster Abbey between 1245 and 1272, the abbey church itself “belonged, not to the Crown but to the Benedictine abbey,” which jealously guarded its rights over the space.102 Milner notes that earlier dating of the Saint Faith wall painting to the mid-thirteenth century has been challenged by Paul Binski and Emily Howe, who date the painting to the early fourteenth century – in which case it must have been “a monastic rather than a royal commission, because all royal financial input into the abbey church ceased after the death of Henry III.”103 In these monastic texts and architectural settings, Foy’s connections to the

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Benedictine order are foregrounded. She does cultural work promoting Benedictine values and authority, as well as taking on a role as personal intercessor for individual Benedictines. Among the fifteen Benedictine abbeys in England celebrating Foy’s feast and churches dedicated to her was the St. Faith’s parish church in Farringdon Ward, London. It was destroyed in the thirteenth century when St Paul’s Cathedral expanded its choir, but St. Paul’s compensated by dedicating one of its chapels to Saint Faith. Early modern drama set in London has many references to Faith’s church “under Paul’s” – for example Thomas Dekker’s The Shoemaker’s Holiday, Act I, scenes xiii and xiv (1607) and Beaumont and Fletcher’s The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Act V, scene i (1613).104 In later centuries, Foy ceased to be an exclusively Benedictine saint and was appropriated by other religious orders, including the Cistercian foundation at Val de Huerva in the fourteenth century or Dominican nuns attached to the saint’s chapel in the sixteenth century – both foundations in or near Saragossa, Spain. In the late medieval Spanish context, Santa Fe had cultural work to do in reclaiming Moorish sites that had been retaken by the Reconquista, and in the sixteenth century the Franciscans took Sainte Foy to Quebec.

Foy as virgin martyr Foy was assimilated to the liturgy of the church in the special category of virgin martyr – a category reserved for female saints despite the importance of non-gendered ideas of asceticism in early Christianity.105 Karen Winstead has analyzed the conventional association of virginity with female saints in a manuscript of the fifteenth century, Gilte Legende, the Middle English legendary: Following common practice, this manuscript’s table of contents often inserts an identifying epithet beside the name of a saint. Beside the names of male saints, we find such designations as apostle, evangelist, bishop, knight, abbot, doctor, martyr, monk, and king. Beside the women’s names, we find only “virgyne.” Though many occupations, such as bishop, pope, and evangelist, were of course unavailable to women, the legendary does include the lives of nuns, abbesses, and a queen, as well as numerous martyrs, all of whom are reduced to their sexual status. And although the legendary contains the lives of far more male than female virgins, “virgyne” is never used to designate a man.106 Relic lists, too, tended to categorize saints’ relics by gender, with female saints as “virgins.” In Glastonbury Abbey’s fourteenth-century relic list, Faith appears with other female virgin martyrs.107 The expansion of Foy’s cult to many countries across the continent is most evident in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but she remained one of the offcial virgin martyr saints in the Benedictine litany of saints until the end of the Middle Ages.108 Simon Gaunt claims that it is “impossible to over-emphasize the symbolic value of female virginity in Christian discourses and consequently in medieval hagiography,”109 and he further points out that in vernacular hagiography sexuality “emerges as a central problem.”110 An attentive reading of the many versions of Foy’s legend, however, suggests that Foy’s virginity is never a central preoccupation – let alone a “problem” in her story. Her status as a virgin may be mentioned in passing, especially

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when her persecutor Dacian invites her to associate with the pagan virgin Diana, but usually it’s Foy’s age that receives emphasis, and the narrator admires her courage despite her youth. Gaunt does admit that Foy’s virginity is not a major issue in the Chanson de sainte Foi, which he discusses briefly,111 and he concludes that: Hagiography in many ways treats gender metaphorically. Tales of virgin martyrs derive much of their impact from the spectacle of a powerless woman ultimately getting the better of a powerful man by going to heaven. The opposition between the weak virgin and the strong man figures a host of other oppositions: humility/ pride, faith/lack of faith, the spiritual/the material, the sacred/the profane, and so on.112 While I agree with Gaunt’s ultimate semiotic formulation of virginity, it’s worth briefly examining the recent discussions of the category of virgin martyr. The gendering of virginity and its salience in passion stories of female martyrs attracted intense scholarly attention from the 1980s, when both hagiography and women’s studies flourished and converged. Early feminist readings of female virgin martyr stories saw them as forms of voyeurism, pornography, and even rape.113 At the very least, feminist analyses described virgin martyrs in terms of victimhood. Brigitte Cazelles’ translation of thirteenth-century French hagiographic romances, published in 1991, is typical in claiming that the saintly heroine is “both highly visible and deprived of any verbal or active power.”114 She illustrates these claims that the heroines are “victims of their tormentors’ admiring gaze” by analyzing the “silencing” of Sainte Foy in Simon of Walsingham’s thirteenth-century legend of her life (to be more fully discussed next in Chapter Three). Cazelles argues that unlike Sainte Foy, “whose sanctification entails that she be seen,” the three male Agen martyrs who die inspired by her (Caprais, Prime, and Felician) “achieve the status of holiness to the extent that they are heard.”115 Pointing to the assertiveness and prominence of Caprais in the text, she concludes that martyrdom is confronted by the male but endured by the female. Foy, Cazelles writes, “disappears into the shadow of her emulators (ll. 633–836).”116 Cazelles’ unequivocal claims about Foy’s silencing, however, are contradicted by her own translation of the Simon of Walsingham text, which shows Foy speaking confidently, wisely, and repeatedly in a prayer to Jesus and responses to Dacian – five recorded direct speeches in all: ll. 248–60; 273–80; 287–300; 331–48; 363–78. Caprais, in contrast, speaks directly only three times to Dacian: ll. 643–54; 675–88; 696–706, although the narrative reports his prayer and preaching without quoting his words directly.117 Prime and Felician are given no words at all during the description of their martyrdom. Cazelles’ interpretation would appear to be a case of seeing what you expect to see, not what is written on the page. The actions of Foy in this text do not fit the paradigm of silenced female saint. Furthermore, the assumption that all legends about virgin martyrs adhere to one paradigm of sainthood, an assumption prevalent in early feminist criticism, has been replaced by an acknowledgment that, as Karen Winstead puts it, “the virgin martyr legend underwent remarkable transformations that signal a struggle over the meaning of these powerful cultural symbols.”118 She notes that a new focus on lay piety in the thirteenth century led to several alternate paradigms for the virgin martyr – as a powerful and rebellious figure or as a “refined gentlewoman.”119 Perhaps the most

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applicable generalization about the cultural work of virgin martyrs has been made by Eamon Duffy, looking back at the long history of virginity as a “symbol of sacred power,” a paradigm articulated as early as the second century in the Acts of Paul and Thecla: “What it gave to the ordinary Christian man and woman was not so much a model to imitate, something most of them never dreamt of doing, but rather a source of power to be tapped.”120

Dispersal of the relics of Sainte Foy For the first few centuries after the Roman martyrdom of Christians, there was a taboo against moving holy bodies – which were traditionally venerated at a tomb in the place of the martyr’s death. By mid-eighth century, “the ancient Western tradition that the remains of martyrs were not to be moved about or divided came to an end,” as Patrick Geary points out, and “[s]acred places could now be created by the transfer of holy men of the past to new sites with which they had never before been associated, in life or in death.”121 Ensuring the safety, authenticity, and appropriate presentation of the saint’s relics was of paramount importance at Foy’s Conques shrine over the centuries, as shown in Chapter One. With the spread of the cult across Europe, other sites requested and received her relics as well. Although the best-known new foundations of Foy’s cult took place during the late eleventh and twelfth centuries, the early modern period also saw a reappropriation of her cult in many of these earlier sites – for which a relic of the saint was desirable. The post-medieval life of Foy’s cult in France has not been included in most scholarly histories, but there is evidence from across Europe that the cult was alive and thriving in many places from the sixteenth century onward. In 1523, the priory church of Sainte-Foy in Coulommiers (Seine-et-Marne) requested a relic that the Conques abbot, Charles de Nogent, himself brought to Coulommiers. It was a piece of arm bone, wrapped in silk and authenticated by sealed letters.122 The relic was subsequently put into a silver arm reliquary.123 In the seventeenth century, the parish of Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon also requested a relic of its patron saint, to be placed in the church that was originally a castle chapel dedicated to Foy in the twelfth century.124 The process of translating the relic from Conques to Lyon is described in contemporary letters of September and October 1646 that have been preserved in Rodez and in Lyon.125 On September 22 after Vespers, the dean of the Conques chapter, Jean Raouls, and colleagues went to the large altar in the choir “in which reposes the golden reliquary of our glorious holy martyr and patron saint Foy.” From the reliquary a small bone was removed, believed to be a part of the head. It was wrapped in cotton and placed in a small round silver box that a trusted young cleric, Pierre Julian, was then given to transport to the curate of SaintFoy-lès-Lyon himself. The letter of transmission asked that the receipt of the relic be kept secret, especially from people in the Conques region, since relics were not being distributed anymore! The relic was preserved in a silver reliquary that disappeared during the French Revolution. Another relic of Sainte Foy – sent to Lyon by Bishop Bourret in 1888 as part of his effort to re-establish the cult more widely – was put into a bust reliquary in 1890 that survives. The history of Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon’s cult and relics from the twelfth to the nineteenth century demonstrates that even at one site there are multiple appropriations, as

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the cult dwindled and was then revitalized by a new relic. The ecclesiastical authorities were the main agents of these repeated appropriations, although in the Lyon case an intermediary role of contacting the Conques abbey seems to have been played by a Lyon banker, Michel de La Coste, who had commercial connections in the Aveyron and had even made a loan to the Conques canon Jean de Madrières.126 Also, at Conques and throughout France, new liturgical compositions to celebrate Sainte Foy’s feast continued to appear throughout the Middle Ages and well into the eighteenth century, as Bouillet and Servières demonstrate in their compilation of such pieces.127 Outside of France, too, medieval Foy cults flourished into later centuries. Many places that had a church dedicated to Foy during the eleventh and twelfth centuries preserved little documentation from the founding era. The abbey of St. Gall, Switzerland, had a founding legend featuring Ulrich III of Epperstein, St. Gall’s abbot between 1077 and 1121, according to which he obtained a Foy relic in 1085.128 In the story, Ulrich was not only an abbot but a warrior lord. Around 1081, his feudal enemies had taken his fortune and land and deprived his abbey of income – forcing Ulrich to sell church treasures and flee to a mountain fortress.129 As Ulrich was mourning his losses, a pilgrim appeared to him and said: “If you want to be freed from your many worries, then go on pilgrimage to Agen and bring back relics of Foy. Build a shrine in her honor and you will have her help.” The legend writer obviously assumed the saint’s relic would come from her place of martyrdom, but any relics that came back were no doubt from Conques, and they provided the impetus to build the first church.130 The early modern records of the St. Gall abbey reveal a flourishing cult with a “Fides fest” on October 6 in the whole region during the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.131 A sequence in Foy’s honor composed by Joachim Cunz (d. 1515) retells the passio of the young saint as a joyous example of faith.132 In the mid-sixteenth century, the church was rebuilt, with the main altar dedicated to Sainte Foy. The church was outfitted with bells engraved with dedications to Foy and the Virgin Mary. The bells were recast over the next 350 years, with one bell each time dedicated to Foy. In 1879, she is shown with grill and palm.133 As discussed in Chapter One, the rejuvenation of Foy’s religious cult at Conques owes almost everything to a late nineteenth-century ecclesiastical revival that is one of the more successful appropriations in the cult’s long history. The agent of this appropriation was the dynamic Bishop Bourret of Rodez, who evidently arrived at his seat in 1871 with the idea of reviving devotion to the most celebrated saint of the region. One of his first acts was to bring brothers of the Premonstratension Order to live at the abbey in Conques; 150 years later, the Premonstratensions are still in service at the shrine. With their support, pilgrimages to Conques during the octave of Foy’s feast were again organized. Also, with the aim of rebuilding the Catholic faith throughout France, Bourret reestablished a confraternity, the Association of Sainte Foy, that had been founded in the thirteenth century. A small history of the cult written by Louis Servières in 1896 acknowledges the initiative and reiterates in a list of statutes the goals of the Bishop two decades before.134 The second statute describes the broadest purpose of the Foy confraternity in hostile post-Revolutionary France: “The aim of the work is the reaffirmation, the conservation, the extension, and the practice of the Catholic faith, so violently attacked in all parts, by impiety, indifference, human respect, the press, the bad books, the secret societies, and all the human passions.”135

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After the saint’s reliquaries were opened and her relics authenticated in Rodez, and then processed to the Conques shrine in 1878, Bishop Bourret began a program of sending Foy relics to churches across France. Bouillet’s book L’Église et Le Trésor de Conques, published in 1892,136 was dedicated to Monseigneur Bourret the Bishop of Rodez, who had been so crucial in re-establishing the cult of Sainte Foy in the Rouergue after 1870. The churches now selected elsewhere in France had had Foy foundations in the Middle Ages and beyond but their cults had died out. As part of this effort by Bishop Bourret to reanimate Foy cults in France in the 1870s, he sent some relics to Rosureux, a village in the Alsace that had been called Sainte Foy until the fourteenth century. Rosureux was a pilgrimage site in the region, renowned for miracles of healing people and livestock. There had been a Foy confraternity; however, ritual activities had ceased with the Revolution. The arrival of the relic had its intended effect, and Rosureux again attracted pilgrims on Foy’s feast day, October 6.137 In the 1870s, other former cult sites also sought Foy relics. Sainte-Foy-de-Longas in the Dordogne had a twelfth-century church dedicated to the saint that obtained a new relic from Conques in 1872. After its arrival, it was placed in a spectacular gem-encrusted reliquary, which was carried in procession on November 20, 1872 into the church, where a special celebration took place. The sermon emphasized Foy as a martyr “so full of a supernatural courage” (“si plein d’un courage surnaturel”).138 The culminating work by the Catholic Church to support its religious agenda of publicizing the cult of Sainte Foy was no doubt the massive compendium on the history of her cult by clerics Auguste Bouillet and Louis Servières published in 1900.139 Reflecting the latest scholarly methods and the involvement of the clerical establishment throughout France, Sainte Foy, vierge et martyre continued the work of promulgating the cult of the saint.140

Conclusion Sainte Foy’s martyrdom recounted in her passio provided the strong template for ecclesiastical appropriation of her cult, whether in narrative and iconography or in the liturgy and decoration of churches. No matter how well known the authorized story might have been, however, Foy’s role as martyr could be represented in a wide variety of ways within ecclesiastical settings. Her attributes and her companions varied, and different aspects of her life and her powers were emphasized depending upon the context. She could model ideal Christian courage or exemplary feudal largesse. She could take her place among the virgin martyrs, where being a female was a salient characteristic. In northern Spain, the Frenchness of her cult was significant within the religiopolitical structures of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, while in England she was often “Englished.” Foy’s connection to the martyrdom site of Agen mattered in some texts, while in others she represented the prestige of the Conques abbey. The fame of Foy as miracle worker gave the Conques shrine a dominant role when pilgrimages were a focus of religion, but other cult sites gave miracles a lesser role in their cultural work. As we will see in the next two chapters, both within ecclesiastical institutions and in lay society Sainte Foy could do very personal cultural work for individuals and families.

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Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 2.1 Conques, Nave capital, Foy led to Dacian

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Figure 2.2 Conques, Nave capital (det.), angel behind Foy Photo by Marilyn Deegan

Figure 2.3 Conques, Nave capital, Dacian with devil behind Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 2.4 Conques, Nave capital (det.), devil Photo by Marilyn Deegan

Figure 2.5 Santiago cathedral, Santa Fe chapel left pillar capital Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 2.6 Santiago cathedral, Santa Fe chapel left pillar capital, Caprais pointing Photo by Marilyn Deegan

Figure 2.7 Santiago cathedral, Santa Fe chapel right pillar capital, saint taken before Dacian Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 2.8 Bar-le-Régulier, Church, Foy statue with grill Photo by Kathleen Ashley

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Figure 2.9 Grand Vabre, Church plaque, Virgin with body of Christ and saints Katherine and Foy Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 2.10 Grand Vabre, Church plaque (det.), Foy with grill and crown Photo by Marilyn Deegan

Figure 2.11 Morlàas, Foy church, painting on ceiling Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 2.12 Morlàas, Foy church, statue of Foy with palm Photo by Marilyn Deegan

Figure 2.13 Ste.-Foy-Tarentaise, Church, altar painting of Foy martyrdom Photo by J.L. Bradel

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Figure 2.14 Ste.-Foy-Tarentaise, Church, reredo (det.) Photo by J.L. Bradel

Figure 2.15 Ste.-Foy-Tarentaise, Church, silk antependium Photo by J.L. Bradel

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Figure 2.16 Ste.-Foy-Tarentaise, Church, red velvet cope Photo by J.L. Bradel

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Figure 2.17 London, Westminster Abbey, Saint Faith chapel, altar painting with praying monk By kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster

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Notes 1 Pamela Sheingorn, trans. “Letter to Bishop Fulbert,” in The Book of Sainte Foy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 39. 2 See Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, I.34, 110–11. 3 Robert Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2013), 504–5. 4 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 3. 5 Daniel Boyarin, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999) makes the interesting argument that both religions participated in the development of the idea of martyrdom. “Martyrdom as a discourse was shared and fought over between rabbinic Judaism and Christianity as these two complexly intertwined religions and social formations were approaching their definitive schism in Eusebius’ fourth century” (114). 6 Elizabeth A. Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 33. 7 These are the terms used by Castelli in her analysis of Thecla, the fifth-century protomartyr, “Layers of Verbal and Visual Memory,” Ch. 5 in Martyrdom and Memory, 134–71. 8 Dominique Barthélemy, Chevaliers et miracles: La violence et le sacré dans la société féodale (Paris: Armand Colin, 2004), 46. 9 Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, 21. 10 Passio mss. P: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, Lat. 5301( f.328r–329v) and M: Bibliothèque de l’École de médicine de Montpellier, H 152 (f. 231v–237r). 11 Louis Saltet, Étude critique sur la passion de Sainte Foy et de Saint Caprais (Paris: Librairie Victor Lecoffre, 1899), 14, dates the presumed passio that joins the stories of Caprais and Foy to c. 600, while the individual source texts, he argues, were written in the early fifth century (16). The original legends of the two Agen saints differ in several details; for example, according to the Agen story, Caprais was the first bishop of the Agen church. He was not martyred at the same time as Foy but was tried and tortured and later martyred with the brothers Prime and Felician as well as Foy’s sister Alberte. See Päivi Pahta, “The Middle English legend of St. Faith in Ms. Southwell Minster 7,” Neuphilologische Mittelungen 94, no. 2 (1993): 161, note 10. See also the Acta Sanctorum, ed. by Joseph Ghesquieu de Raemsdonk et al. Vol. 3 for October 6, a seventeenth century compendium of legends “De S. Fide V. et Maryre, ac sociis m.m., Aginni in Aquitania,” 263–329 [Google Books, retrieved 2017–07–04]. 12 Sheingorn, “Passio,” Book of Sainte Foy, 37. 13 Frances Terpak Wands, “The Romanesque Architecture and Sculpture of Saint Caprais in Agen,” Vol I, Ph. D. Dissertation Yale University, 1982, 34. Wands notes that the tenth century passio erroneously implies the relics of both saints were translated to one church, a claim repeated by hagiographers from the seventeenth century onward (52, note 6). The eleventh-century Translatio about Conques’ theft of Foy’s relics accurately describes Dulcidius’s move of Foy’s relics to a church dedicated to her outside the walls in the northern suburbs, while the relics of Caprais were moved to a church built just inside the walls, which corresponds to the present location of both churches (52–54). The Gothic church of Foy was mostly destroyed in 1892 to build a boulevard in front of the train station (54, note 9). 14 Foy’s were not the only martyr’s relics lost by Agen. By the early eleventh century, the relics of Dulcidius had gone to Chambaret in the Limousin, and those of Prime and Felician to Beaulieu; see Wands, “Romanesque Architecture and Sculpture,” 42, note 116. 15 Bibliothèque Humaniste, Sélestat Ms. lat. 22 f. 6. See facsimile edition of the manuscript by the Société des Amis de la Bibliothèque Humaniste de Sélestat, 1994; the passio is ff. 5v–12. 16 The Sélestat manuscript contains liturgical texts for Foy celebration and the most complete extant collection of Foy’s miracles; it includes additional miracle narratives tailored to the aristocratic patronage of the Foy priory there. 17 The poem has no title in the manuscript. The Chanson manuscript in the University of Leiden (Bibl. Univ. Ms Voss.lat. Oct. 60) is part of a larger assemblage of hagiographic

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work that belonged to the Fleury monastery at Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire until it was pillaged by the Huguenots in the sixteenth century. The original collection was then disassembled. For the history of the manuscript and analysis of the poem and its language, see Antoine Thomas, ed. and trans., La chanson de sainte Foi d’Agen: poème provençal du XIe siècle (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2012; repr. of 1925 edition). Thomas dates the Chanson to the second third of the eleventh century (xviii). Other scholars, including Frédéric de Gournay, place the poem slightly later – ca. 1060–70. See also the modern edition and translation by Robert Lafont, La chanson de sainte Foi: texte occitan du XIe siècle. Textes littéraires français (Genève: Droz, 1998). The most scholarly edition is by Ernest Hoepffner and Prosper Alfaric, La Chanson de sainte Foy, Tome I: Fac-similé du manuscript et texte critique, introduction et commentaire philologique par Ernest Hoepffner. Tome II: Traduction française et Sources latines, Introduction et Commentaire historiques par Prosper Alfaric (Paris: Société d’Édition: Les Belles Lettres; Oxford University Press, 1926). The portion of the larger manuscript containing the Chanson was identified in Leiden by the Portuguese scholar J. Leite de Vasconcellos; see “Canção de sancta Fides de Agen, texto provençal,” Romania t. XXXI (1902): 177–200. Alfaric, La Chanson de sainte Foy, t. II, 189–97, reprints the Passio metrica sanctorum Fides et Capraii. Sheingorn, “Passio,” Book of Sainte Foy, 34. “Pulchra erat facie, sed pulchrior mente.” Sheingorn, “Passio,” Book of Sainte Foy, 35. Translation of “The Song of Sainte Foy,” by Robert L.A. Clark in Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, 275. The genre of vernacular epic that the Chanson de sainte Foi resembles uses stanzas called “laisses” of varying numbers of lines. For an interpretation of the pine tree setting that emphasizes its Christian meaning as a symbol of faith (rather than analogues in the epic), see Michel Burger, “Remarques sur les deux premières laisses de la Chanson de sainte Foy et le sens de razon espanesca (v. 15),” Vox romanica 48 (1989): 45–46. Gerold Hilty, “La chanson de Sainte Foy,” in Homenaje a Álvaro Galmés de Fuentes II, Razon espanesca…a lei francesca (Oviedo: University of Oviedo and Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1985), 361–74. Hilty reviews the intense scholarly debate over ambiguous terms in the prologue to the Chanson and argues that the reference to a “canczon” (vv. 14 and 25) refers to the Latin passio in leonine hexameter verse (370) that, the poet says, legitimizes a translation of the passion story into Occitan verse (374). Hilty adds we should not forget that the Chanson de Sainte Foy is probably the first Occitan adaptation of a life of a saint. See also Alfaric, La Chanson de sainte Foy, 32. Frédéric de Gournay, “Relire la Chanson de sainte Foy,” Annales du Midi, 212 (1995): 391–93. See also his discussion of the Chanson’s chivalric perspective in Le Rouergue au tournant de l’An Mil: De l’ordre carolingien à l’ordre féodal (IXe–XIIe siècle) (Toulouse: Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail, 2004), 26–27, 257–63. Clark trans. in Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, 276. See Song of Roland, laisse 228, where the Emir Balignant (enemy of Charlemagne) is accompanied by Lord Marcule of Outremer, who is admiringly described as a splendid physical specimen of great valor; the poet exclaims: “God, what a lord, if he were but a Christian!” Translation by Robert Harrison, The Song of Roland (New York: New American Library, 1970), 148. Gournay, “Relire la Chanson de sainte Foy,” 393. Burger, “Remarques sur les deux premières laisses,” 50–53, interprets the Chanson through the lens of a battle of good and evil that, he claims, the poet associates with the Christian/ Moslem war of the Reconquista in Spain. Alfaric, La Chanson de sainte Foy, t. II, 48–49. Clark trans. in Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, 276. Clark trans. in Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, 276–77. André Soutou, “Localisation géographique de la Chanson de sainte Foy,” Annales du Midi 82 no. 97 (1970): 109–22, offers a rigorous localization of the Chanson’s vocabulary based on a comparison with language in contemporary documents. Soutou reviews the locales alternatively assigned to the poem and concludes that it must have been written by a monk or cleric of the Conques abbey, a native of the Rouergue (111). Gournay prefers to see the poet as an aristocratic layman, who was educated at the Conques abbey and is familiar with monks and the liturgy but positions himself somewhat apart from them, “Relire la Chanson de sainte Foy,” 389–90.

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32 Robert L.A. Clark, “Translating Saint Faith: Cult and Culture in the Chanson de sainte Foy,” a paper given at the July 1993 conference on translation in Conques. He has generously shared his research and ideas as well as the unpublished text of his talk with me for this project. 33 Lafont, La Chanson de sainte Foi, 12. 34 Denis Grémont, O.S.B., “Le culte de Ste-Foi et de Ste-Marie-Madeleine à Conques au XIe siècle d’après le manuscript de la Chanson de Ste-Foi,” Revue du Rouergue 23 (1969): 165–75. 35 This section of the whole manuscript is now in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris (nouv. Acq. Lat. 443). 36 Now in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris as Ms. Lat. 1240. On this Foy manuscript and BN nouv. Acq. Lat. 443, with discussion of the complex history of the term “libellus,” see Michel Huglo, “Les ‘Libelli’ de Tropes et les Premiers Tropaires-Prosaires,” in Embellishing the Liturgy: Tropes and Polyphony, ed. Alejandro Enrique Planchart (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2009), 85–94. 37 Manuel C. Diaz y Diaz et al., El Códice Calixtino de la Catedral de Santiago. Estudio Codicológico y de contenido. Monografías de Compostellanum 2 (Santiago de Compostela: Centro de Estudios Jacobeos, 1988). For a translation, see A. Moralejo, et al., trans. Liber Sancti Jacobi. Codex Calixtinus (Santiago: C.S.I.C, Instituto Padre Sarmiento de Estudios Gallegos, 1951; rpt. and ed. C. Carro Otero, Compostela: Xunta de Galicia, 1992). 38 Alfaric also argues strongly that the Chanson and other liturgical texts in the manuscript were intended for use on Foy’s feast in October, La Chanson de sainte Foy, 70–71. Clark suggests the need for more investigation of the many manuscripts from the pays d’oc that contain texts in Latin, Occitan, and French. He points to Clovis Brunel’s Bibliographie des manuscrits littéraires en ancien provençal (Paris: E. Droz, 1935) as a useful source. 39 Gournay, “Relire la Chanson de sainte Foy,” 396–98. 40 In 1074, Cluny had also taken over the Foy foundation in Figeac. 41 Gournay, “Relire la Chanson de sainte Foy,” 398, n. 84. 42 Marcel Durliat, La sculpture romane de la route de saint-Jacques. De Conques à Compostelle (Mont-de-Marsan: CEHAC, 1990), 78. My translation from the French. 43 J-C Fau, cited in Conques, texts by Emmanuelle Jeannin and photographs by Henri Gaud (Paris: Éditions Gaud, n.d.), 61. 44 Jean-Claude Fau, Les chapiteaux de Conques (Toulouse: Éditions Privat, 1956), 35–36. 45 Durliat, La sculpture romane, 78. 46 Fau also notes that the sword Dacian hands to the executioner was a new type of weapon introduced at the beginning of the twelfth century (Les chapiteaux de Conques, 58). 47 Despite his admiration for the originality of the 66 tribune capitals (the most richly decorated part of the church), Fau considers the historiated capital depicting Foy’s condemnation at the tribune level inferior in workmanship to the carving of the same scene on the lower level (Les chapiteaux de Conques, 40, 76–77). 48 For a photo of this capital, see Durliat, La sculpture romane, Fig. 461, 438. 49 Fau, Les chapiteaux de Conques, 97–98. For two other remaining capitals that Jacques Bousquet argues are from the legends of Foy, see Durliat, La sculpture romane, 425. 50 Durliat, La sculpture romane, 461–62; see Figs. 471 and 472, 462. Wands, “Romanesque Architecture and Sculpture,” Figs. 143–45, 150–52, and 221. The names Raguel and Tobias are carved above the figures being crowned, but Durliat and other researchers believe that the names were added in error during nineteenth-century renovations (Durliat, 462–63). Wands discusses a theory that the scene represents the Marriage of Tobias and Sarah, but she thinks it is more likely to be a royal donor couple (Wands, 223–40). 51 Louis Réau, “Foy d’Agen ou de Conques (6 octobre),” in Iconographie de l’art chrétien. Vol. 3: Iconographie des Saints (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1958), 515. 52 The chapel was later dedicated to Saint Bartholomew. 53 Manuel Castiñeiras, “The Topography of Images in Santiago Cathedral: Monks, Pilgrims, Bishops, and the Road to Paradise,” in Culture and Society in Medieval Galicia: A Cultural Crossroads at the Edge of Europe, ed. and trans. James D’Emilio (Leiden: Brill, 2015), Fig. 16.3, 634, 640–41. 54 James D’Emilio, “Compostela, Galicia and Europe: Galician Culture in the Age of the Pilgrimage,” in Culture and Society in Medieval Galicia: A Cultural Crossroads at the Edge

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of Europe, ed. and trans. James D’Emilio (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 467–68. See also Térence Le Deschault de Monredon, “Les modèles transpyrénéens de la sculpture du premier chantier de Compostelle: imitation, présence réelle et usage de l’imaginaire,” Ad limina 6 (2015): 33–65. Henrik Karge, “The European Architecture of Church Reform in Galicia: The Romanesque Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela,” in D’Emilio, Culture and Society in Medieval Galicia, 585, 610–17. The classic plans of these “pilgrimage churches” may be found in Kenneth John Conant, Carolingian and Romanesque Architecture, 800–1200 (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1974, rpt. 1987), Fig. 113, 159. Karge points out the many churches on the routes through France and Spain that do not conform to this model. Serafín Moralejo, “Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle. Les origines d’un chantier roman,” in Chantiers médiévaux, ed. Francesco Aceto et al. (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1996), 127–43. Two prelates named Diego sponsored the building program – Diego Peláez (1070–1088) and Diego Gelmírez (1098?–1140) – to which we must add two monarchs named Alfonso – Alfonso VI (1072–1109) and Alfonso VII (1124–1157) – not to mention Alfonsos II and III, who had built the preceding basilicas. Then there are two Bernards who are said to direct the construction. It’s not always clear which Diego, Alfonso or Bernard is referred to in the records, Moralejo jokes; see “Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle,” 127. Moralejo, “Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle,” 128, 137; also Castiñeiras, “Topography of Images,” 638–39. See also Castiñeiras on the likelihood that the first bishop-planner, Diego Peláez, remained involved after he was deposed in 1088, “Topography of Images,” 637. Moralejo, “Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle,” 135, 140, 141; Castiñeiras, “Topography of Images,” 638. Moralejo, “Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle,” 140, 141; Castiñeiras, “Topography of Images,” 638–39. Bernard F. Reilly, The Contest of Christian and Muslim Spain, 1031–1157 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), 70–71, 75. Reilly emphasizes that kingship was conceived as “consisting of the possessions of a dynasty in their then-present extent, rather than of a fixed territorial content. The dynasty was the nexus about which the kingdom took shape” (51). See Jose Lacarra, “La Repoblación de las ciudades en el camino de Santiago: su trascendencia social, cultural y economica,” in Las Peregrinaciones à Santiago de Compostela, t.1 (Madrid: C.S.I.C., 1948), 465–97. Lacarra points out that “franca” had a double meaning at the time, referring both to foreigners and to those who had freedom/franchise (479). Bernard Reilly cautions, however, that northern Spain remained rural and the towns small compared to those of the Muslim south of Spain. “Medievalists speak of the rise of medieval cities, but in Christian Iberia at this time it is more accurate to regard them as episcopal centers,” The Contest of Christian and Muslim Spain, 53. Georges Gaillard, Les débuts de la sculpture romane espagnole: Leon – Jaca – Compostelle (Paris: Paul Hartmann, 1938), 221. Frédéric de Gournay, “Les documents écrits de l’Abbaye de Conques (IXe–XIIIe s.),” U.F.R. D’Histoire, D.E.A. (Mémoire) Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail (1992), 98, recounts the career of another Conques monk who became bishop in Spain: Pons de Barbastro. Gustave Desjardins, ed., Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Conques en Rouergue (Paris: Alphonse Picard, 1879; repr. 2017), XV, No. 482, 350. Mme. Gilles d’Andoque de Sériège, “Pierre d’Andouque, Moine de Conques, Évêque de Pampelune (XIe–XIIe siècles)” in Hommage à Jacques Fabre de Morlhon (1913–1976) (Sériège-Albi: Ateliers professionnels de l’O.S.J., 1978), 59–61. Marcelin Defourneaux notes d’Andouque’s dedication to strengthening the ties between Navarre and Conques, Les Français en Espagne aux XIe et XIIe siècles (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1949), 24, notes 1 and 2. On the cross-Pyrenean marriages, colonization by “Francos,” and their impact on northern Spanish culture more generally, see Defourneaux, Chapter IV “Les ‘Français d’Espagne’ au XIIe Siècle,” 194–257. Durliat, La sculpture romane, 46; my translation. The appropriation of Moorish sites for Christian religious purposes took place throughout the Reconquista. In 1085, King Alfonso VI of Leon took Toledo from the Moors and, according to Ramón Rieu y Cabanas writing about the 1266 foundation of the monastery of Santa Fe of Toledo, the king was inspired by his wife’s devotion to Sainte Foy/Santa Fe:

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Sainte Foy and ecclesiastical agendas Algunos dicen que ya al conquistador de Toledo, Alfonso VI, movido de la devocion que su esposa Dona Constanza tenia a Santa Fe, levanto en este lugar la primera capilla dedicada a esta Santa, muy venerada entre los franceses y cuyo nombre ha venido siendo el titular de este monasterio. En 1202 Alfonso VIII dio esta capilla de Santa Fe con parte de los palacios contiguos a la orden militar de Calatrava para la fondacion de un Priorado (54). “El monasterio de Santa Fe de Toledo,” Boletin de la Real Academia de la Historia 16 (1890): 54. Desjardins, Cartulaire, no. 453, 328–29. In 1120, after Pierre d’Andouque’s death, Abbot Boniface of Conques was enmeshed in various lawsuits regarding the funds; Jacques Bousquet, La Rouergue au premier Moyen Âge (vers 800–vers 1250): Les pouvoirs, leurs rapports et leurs domaines, t. 1 (Rodez: Société des lettres, sciences et arts de l’Aveyron, 1992), 303; on the career of Pierre d’Andouque, see 299–303. Andoque de Sériège, “Pierre d’Andouque,” 63. Desjardins, Cartulaire, No. 72, 68; No. 577, 407. J. Bousquet, Le Rouergue au premier Moyen Âge, 300. For a Conques monastic colleague whose career also invigorated the ecclesiastical connections between southern France and Navarre, see Pierre Gerard, “Un artisan des relations entre Toulouse et la Navarre: Uc de Conques, Chanoine, Doyen et Prévôt de Saint-Sernin vers 1088–vers 1125,” Études sur le Rouergue: actes du XLVIIe Congrès d’Études de la Fédération Historique du Languedoc Méditerranéen et du Roussillon et du XXIXe Congrès d’études de la Fédération des Sociétés Académiques de Savantes, Languedoc-Pyrénées-Gascogne (Rodez: Société des lettres, sciences et arts de l’Aveyron, 1974): 9–16. Andoque de Sériège, “Pierre d’Andouque,” 65; Myriam Soria, “‘Tolosae Moritur, Pamphilone sepelitur’: Pierre d’Andouque, un évêque malmené,” in La imagen del obispo hispano en la Edad Media, ed. M. Aurell and Garcia de la Borbolla (Pamplona: Editiones Universidade de Navarra, 2004), 176–77; Desjardins, Cartulaire, No. 472, 342–43. For the Conques connection to Roncevaux and Pierre d’Andouque’s roles, see also Bousquet, Le Rouergue au Premier Moyen Âge, 301–2. On his violent death, which was not uncommon among the high clergy, see Myriam Soria, “Tolosae Moritur,” 167–83. The date of his death is debated; Andoque de Sériège says it took place in 1115, while Soria and Bousquet put it in 1114. For the ecclesiastical politics during 1114–1115 at the time of d’Andouque’s death, see Gérard Pradalié, “Une assemblée de paix à Toulouse en 1114,” Annales du Midi: revue archéologique, historique et philologique de la France méridionale 122 (2010): 76–77. BN, Fons Doat, vol. 143, f. 1778, noticed by Frédéric de Gournay, Les documents écrits, 49. Jean-Claude Fau, “Essai sur l’iconographie de Sainte Foy,” Revue de l’Agenais 132, no. 1 (2005): 57–66 surveys the various attributes and representations of the saint in medieval and early modern art. Saints Vincent of Saragossa and Lawrence share the iconography of torture on a grill, according to Fau. Victor Leroquais, Les bréviaires manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France, 5 vols. (Macon: Protet frères, 1934) includes a number of late medieval breviaries with images of Sainte Foy, all showing her torture on the grill; see T. I, 212 and 330, T. III, 341. The sixteenth-century statue of Foy probably came from another local church. Bar-leRégulier church belonged to a priory of Augustinian canons (founded c. 1100) and also functioned as a parish church. It is reknown for its fourteenth-century stall carvings with both religious and fanciful subjects; L’église de Bar-le-Régulier (Côte-d’Or) et ses stalles du XIV siècle (Autun: Comité d’Art Sacré de Côte d’Or, 1997). Edward G. Tasker, Encyclopedia of Medieval Church Art (London: B.T. Batsford, 1993) assigns Sainte Foy the attributes of a gridiron and a saw (130). Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? As Bartlett notes, the biblical Book of Revelations (7:9) describes the saints “standing before the Lamb, clothed in white and with palms in their hands” (174). The statue was ordered by abbot Louis de Crevaut in 1493 from the goldsmiths Hugues Lenfan and Pierre Frechrieu in Villefranche-de-Rouergue. For a photo and description of the statue, see Bernard Berthod et al., Conques, un trésor millénaire (Paris: Éditions CLD, 2019), 44.

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82 Documents reference a Foy church there in the twelfth century (1170 and 1184), but little is known about the origins of the cult. The instability of the ground has required rebuilding of the church several times, most recently in the 1970s. Foy is co-patron saint with Mary Magdalene, a liturgical connection also found in the Chanson de sainte Foi manuscript. On the town and the known history of the church and its art, see Rémy Bozonnet and Yves Bravard, Sainte-Foy-Tarentaise: une montagne pour des hommes (1984); also personal communications from J.L. Bradel. 83 André Vauchez, Saints, prophètes et visionnaires: Le pouvoir surnaturel au Moyen Âge (Paris: Alban Michel, 1999), 81–82. 84 According to Joseph-Marie Emprin, who gives a history of the cult of Foy and parish in Histoire de Sainte-Foy-Tarentaise (Savoie) (Montpellier: Imprimerie de la Manufacture de la Charité, 1933), 65. He notes several other chapels in the region dedicated to the saint. 85 Twelfth-century foundations that gave rise to new baroque church buildings in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are also found in Germany and Belgium. The Saint Getreukirche, Bamberg, was founded as a priory by Bishop Otto in the twelfth century. (“Getreu” is the German translation of “Faith.”) The new church of 1652 was embellished by a fabulous 1725 altar painting of the Martyrdom of Foy. In Liège, Belgium, the SainteFoy parish church founded in 1109–10 was rebuilt in 1624 and then expanded in 1866; see Jules Pirlet, “Sceau de la paroisse Sainte-Foy de Liège,” Chronique Archéologique du Pays de Liège 21 (1930), 54–56. 86 Ann Eljenholm Nichols, The Early Art of Norfolk: A Subject List of Extant and Lost Art Including items relevant to Early Drama, EDAM Reference Series 7 (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2002), 194. 87 C. Woodforde, The Norwich School of Glass-Painting in the Fifteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950), 36. Plate VIII in Woodforde shows the St. Peter Mancroft stained-glass figure of St. Faith with her saw. He also describes an English alabaster carving where Faith holds the brazen bed in one hand and a saw in the other, 36, note 2. 88 On the legends added to the Gilte Legende in the fifteenth century, see Richard Hamer and Vida Russell, eds., Supplementary Lives in Some Manuscripts of the Gilte Legende (Oxford: EETS, 2000), xiii–xxvi. Catherine Sanok, New Legends of England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018), 137, 153. 89 Quoted from Hamer and Russell, Supplementary Lives, 225. From the “lyfe of Seynt ffeyth” in British Library Add. 35298, fols. 80r–80v. Jean-Claude Fau’s article on the iconography of Foy, “Essai sur l’iconographie de Sainte Foy,” notes and reproduces the image of a naked Foy on a burning grill in a miniature of a breviary made for Pierre de Caraman, the abbot of Moissac in the fifteenth century (Fig. 4, 62). 90 Nichols, Early Art of Norfolk, 315. 91 T.A. Heslop, “The Canterbury Calendars and the Norman Conquest,” in Canterbury and the Norman Conquest: Churches, Saints, and Scholars 1066–1109, ed. Richard Eales and Richard Sharpe (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 1995), 53–86. Heslop notes that by 1160 the three Roman martyr sisters, Fides, Spes and Caritas were added to the manuscript’s litany (83); the two legends featuring a saint named Fides (one from Agen and one from Rome) were sometimes confused; see the brief discussion of St. Albans Psalter ahead and fuller discussion of the melding of the two legends in Chapter Five. 92 Richard W. Pfaff, “The Calendar,” in The Eadwine Psalter: Text, Image, and Monastic Culture in Twelfth-Century Canterbury, ed. Margaret Gibson, T.A. Heslop and Richard W. Pfaff (London: University Park, 1992), 72. 93 Francis Wormald, ed. English Kalendars Before A.D. 1100 (London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1934; republ. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1988), 53, 81, 109, 165, 179, 221, 263. “Sancte Fidis virginis et martiris” has been added to calendars of Bodl. Ms. 579 f. 43 vo; Cambridge U.L. Ms. Kk. V. 32, f. 54 b; London B.M. Cotton Ms. Vit. A xviii, f. 7b; London B.M. Cotton Ms. Vit. Vit. E xviii, f. 6b; London B.M. Arundel Ms. 155, f. 6b; Cambridge C.C.C. Ms. 391, p.12; Oxford Bodl. Douce Ms. 296, f. 5 vo. 94 In addition to Faith, the saints added were Etheldreda, Juliana, Amalberga, Frideswide, Felicitas, and Hilda. See Jane Geddes, The St. Albans Psalter: A Book for Christina of Markyate (London: The British Library, 2005), 92.

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95 Geddes, St. Albans Psalter, 93. Another thorough analysis is by Morgan Powell, “Making the Psalter of Christina of Markyate (The St. Albans Psalter),” Viator 36 (2005): 293–335. Although most scholars have seen Christina of Markyate as one owner of the St. Albans Psalter, there are some skeptics, for example, Kristine Haney, The St. Albans Psalter: An Anglo-Norman Song of Faith (New York: Peter Lang, 2002), 49–50, 334–40, and 345–46. Haney prefers to emphasize the Benedictine focus of the psalter’s contents. A contemporary biography of Christina written at St. Albans has been edited and translated by C.H. Talbot, The Life of Christina of Markyate: A Twelfth Century Recluse (Toronto: Medieval Academy, 1998; 1st printing 1959); see 24–26 for manuscript changes. 96 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? 126. 97 Haney, St. Albans Psalter, 26. Her analysis of the litany is 24–28. 98 On the Benedictine centuries, see Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 47–62. 99 Kristine Haney, The St. Albans Psalter, 355. 100 Latin inscription: ME: QUEM: CVLPA: GRAVIS: PREMIT: ERIGE: VIRGO: SVAVIS: FAC: MIHI: PLACATVM: CHRISTVM: DELEASQVE: REATUM. “Sweet virgin, raise me from the sins that weigh me down, reconcile me to Christ, and wipe away my sin.” 101 David Park, “Wall Painting” in Age of Chivalry, ed. Jonathan Alexander and Paul Binski (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987), 125–30. 102 Lesley Milner, “St. Faith’s Chapel at Westminster Abbey. The Significance of its Design, Decoration and Location,” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 169 (2016): 71–72. On the delicate balance the Benedictines of Westminster Abbey had to maintain between their government ties and their religious rule, see also Barbara Harvey, Living and Dying in England, 1100–1540: The Monastic Experience (Oxford: Clarendon Press and New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). 103 Milner, “St. Faith’s Chapel at Westminster Abbey,” 85. See also Paul Binski, Westminster Abbey and the Plantagenets. Kingship and the Representation of Power 1200–1400 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), 70–71, and Emily Howe, “Painting and Patronage at Westminster Abbey. The Murals in the South Transept and St. Faith’s Chapel,” The Burlington Magazine 148 (2006): 12. 104 Both plays may be found in Drama of the English Renaissance, ed. M.L. Wine (New York: Modern Library, 1969), 132, 138, 139, 145, 371. A fuller account of the complex history behind the description “Saint Faith’s under Paul’s” is given in Auguste Bouillet and Louis Servières, Sainte Foy, vierge et martyre (Rodez: E. Carrère, 1900), 348–49. 105 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? 202. On chastity as autonomy, see Virginia Burrus, Begotten, Not Made: Conceiving Manhood in Late Antiquity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000); also, Elizabeth Clark, “Ascetic Renunciation and Feminine Advancement: A Paradox of Late Ancient Christianity,” in Ascetic Piety and Women’s Faith: Essays in Late Ancient Christianity (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1986), 175–208. 106 British Library Ms. Add. 35298 (1438); Karen A. Winstead, John Capgrave’s Fifteenth Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 192, note 35. 107 James P. Carley and Martin Howley, “Relics at Glastonbury in the Fourteenth Century: An Annotated Edition of British Library Cotton Titus D vii, fols. 2r–13v,” in Glastonbury Abbey and the Arthurian Tradition, ed. James P. Carley (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2001), 576, 587, 598. Carley calls relic-lists “an expression of the devotional identity of the monastery” – a documentary surrogate for the well-guarded relics themselves (575). 108 See Bartlett’s discussion of virgin martyrs in such texts as the Golden Legend in Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? 535–41. Eamon Duffy in The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400–1580 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992) identifies the group of saints commonly found on English Rood screens in the fifteenth and sixteenth century as virgin martyrs (171–78). Duffy surveys 118 Rood screens in East Anglia and 42 in Devon, noting that saints commonly depicted on the screens are early Roman virgin martyrs, “Holy Maydens, Holy Wyfes: The Cult of Women Saints in Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century England,” in Women in the Church, ed. by W.J. Shiels and Diana Wood, Studies in Church History 27 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), 180. 109 Simon Gaunt, Gender and Genre in Medieval French Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 185.

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Gaunt, Gender and Genre, 184. Gaunt, Gender and Genre, 187–90. Gaunt, Gender and Genre, 232. For example, Kathryn Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens: Writing Rape in Medieval French Literature and Law (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991), 21–41. However, Jocelyn Wogan-Browne comments that seeing the passio as “rape script” is an “essentialist” reading, Saints’ Lives and Women’s Literary Culture ca. 1150–1300: Virginity and its Authorizations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 67. Wogan-Browne’s key concept of virginity is that it is a “gift” in an exchange structure in which the virgin’s “dotality” implies “her capacity to be given and to give” (57). The hagiographic concept of the gift is extensively explored by Emma Campbell, Medieval French Saints’ Lives: The Gift, Kinship and Community in Old French Hagiography (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2008). Karen Winstead lists monographs and essay collections published since 1997 that deal with virginity or virgin saints in John Capgrave’s Fifteenth Century, 191, n. 30. See also the useful introduction and bibliography in Sherry L. Reames, ed. Middle English Legends of Women Saints, TEAMS (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2003). Brigitte Cazelles, ed. and trans. The Lady as Saint: A Collection of French Hagiographic Romances of the Thirteenth Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991), 54. Cazelles, The Lady as Saint, 57. Cazelles, The Lady as Saint, 57. Cazelles’ claims are disputed by Evelyn Birge Vitz, “Gender and Martyrdom,” Medievalia et Humanistica n.s. 26 (1999): 86, who sees female martyrs as “at least as outspoken and witty as their male counterparts.” Cazelles’ translation of “The Life of Saint Faith” in The Lady as Saint is 182–203. Karen A. Winstead, Virgin Martyrs: Legends of Sainthood in Late Medieval England (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), 4. Winstead, Virgin Martyrs, 64–111; 112–46. Eamon Duffy, “Holy Maydens, Holy Wyfes,” 189. On the vexed issue of whether saints functioned as examples to be imitated, Richard Marks cites the Golden Legend, for which saints are figures to be followed in preferring celestial over earthly things; Marks, however, agrees with Duffy that the role of saints was “not so much exemplary as that of helpers and intercessors in daily life,” Image and Devotion in Late Medieval England (Phoenix Mill: Sutton, 2004), 91. Patrick J. Geary, Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 167. Arnold Angenendt, “Relics and their Veneration in the Middle Ages,” in The Invention of Saintliness, ed. Anneke B. Mulder (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), 27–37, provides a succinct overview of developments in the cult of relics from the second century onward. This and other dispersals of Foy’s relics have been discussed by Pierre Lançon, “La translation des reliques de sainte Foy de Conques à l’époque moderne (XVI–XVIII siècle),” Études aveyronnaises (2000): 21–32. Lançon, “La translation,” 22. For a photo of the reliquary, see Bouillet and Servières, Sainte Foy, vierge et martyre, 299–302. The church of Sainte-Foy-Coulommiers was founded in 1080 by Thibaut of Champagne, lord of the town, and survived until 1793, when it was desanctified. Lançon, “La translation,” 23. An 1170 charter is the first written mention of the Foy dedication at Ste-Foy-lès-Lyon, and the bell tower that remains was part of the twelfthcentury church building; see Ste-Foy-lès-Lyon et ses Environs: Notes historiques. Guide pittoresque (1923, repr. 1982), 12–14, 18–21. Full details of the documents, their current locations, and transcriptions are discussed in Lançon, “La translation,” 23–26 and 29–32. Bishop Bourret in his nineteenth-century initiative to reconstruct the Foy cult copied some of the documentation in this case. Lançon, “La translation,” 26. Bouillet and Servières, Sainte Foy, vierge et martyre, 635–704. Bouillet and Servières, Sainte Foy, vierge et martyre, note a tenth-century calendar from the abbey of St. Gall that includes Foy’s name – which would be the earliest calendar inclusion of the saint they identified (632).

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129 Die hl. Fides, Jungfrau und Martyrin (St. Gall: Jos Behnder, 1931), 21. 130 Die hl. Fides, 22–24. Codex 915 and 394 of St. Gall Stiftsbibliothek are given as sources of the information. 131 St Gall Stiftsbibliothek Codex 615, 64–68. “Casus Sancti Celli” is a chronicle of the monastery from the eighth to the fourteenth century. 132 St. Gall Stiftsbibliothek Ms. 546 f. 184 ff. 133 Die hl. Fides, 31. 134 Louis Servières, Histoire de Sainte Foy (Rodez: E. Carrère, 1896; repr. Conques: Éditions Dadon, 1983). 135 (my translation) Servières, Histoire de Sainte Foy, 136–37. Le but de l’Oeuvre est le raffermissement, la conservation, l’extension et la pratique de la Foi catholique, si violemment attaquée de toutes parts, par l’impiété, l’indifférence, le respect humain, la presse, les mauvais livres, les sociétés secrètes, et toutes les passions humaines. 136 Auguste Bouillet, L’Église et Le Trésor de Conques (Macon: Protet frères, 1892). 137 Gerard Seltemann, “Sur les traces de Sainte Foy,” Annuaire: Sélestat Bibliothèque Humaniste XLIII (1993): 37–39. The Revue Religieuse de Rodez et Mende for 29 March 1878 notes that in 1365 Pope Urban V had given some Foy relics to the monks of Cucufat, Catalonia and that Glastonbury Abbey in England had an arm relic of Foy (2). 138 Semaine Religieuse (parish of Ste.-Foy-de-Longas) November 23, 1872, no. 47, 936. The reliquary featured dragons with dogs’ heads with an angel whose outspread wings seemed to be protecting the relic inside, according to the clerical commentator. 139 Bouillet and Servières, Sainte Foy, vierge et martyre. Pierre Lançon offers a brief biographical appreciation of the two scholars, “Les Chanoines Auguste Bouillet et Louis Servières,” Annuaire: Sélestat Bibliothèque Humaniste XLIV (1994): 2. 140 Across England, many Anglican churches chose Saint Faith the martyr of Agen as their patron in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, although the impetus for the modern popularity of the saint in English-speaking countries (including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Nigeria) is not clear. In the Anglican calendar, Saint Faith’s Day is celebrated on October 6 as in the Catholic calendar.

3

The saint as patron of individuals

In the typical description of saints’ cults, emphasis falls on the collective response to sanctity; many saints are, as we say, “culturally-constructed.”1 The person who venerates the saint participates in their society’s understanding of the holy figure’s traits and powers, including their specialization in kinds of help they offer. In the high Middle Ages, Sainte Foy as represented in the Liber miraculorum had a reputation as a healer of eyes and a liberator of prisoners. This chapter will instead emphasize the individuality of petitioners who were trying to establish a link with the intercessor saint in order to get a specific personal need met. Much of the charm of narratives in Foy’s miracle collection comes from the vivid personalization of the petitioner’s situation. Just enough characterizing detail is given in each description to bring to life the dilemma of the needy person. Beyond restoring eyesight or liberating prisoners, Foy responds to the desperate pleas of individuals for release from severe pain, a cure for rheumatism in old age, repair of a birth defect of clenched hands, healing of grotesque facial wounds inflicted by a sword, retrieving of a lost falcon, or resurrecting a beloved mule (to name a few miracles in just Books One and Two of the Liber miraculorum). This chapter therefore focuses on the most obvious – but at the same time the least examined – kind of cultural work done by saints in creating a special relationship with an individual (either cleric or lay) who venerates the saint and wishes to access some of the saint’s power. Writing of late medieval perceptions of saints as “friends and helpers,” Eamon Duffy attributes the “affectionate dependence” on a chosen saint to the personal devotion of clients, who selected specific saints “in the hope that he or she would be adopted and protected in turn.”2 Beyond requests for miraculous intercession, the personal relationship between devotee and saint has a wide variety of bases, including sharing a name with the “name saint” or being born on the saint’s feast day. We begin with Bernard of Angers, the first collector of Foy miracle stories in the early eleventh century, who claims the saint as his “special patron” because of her role in his spiritual transformation from skeptic to believer. Other medieval hagiographers also declared a privileged relationship with Sainte Foy, including Simon of Walsingham in the thirteenth century and Osbern of Bokenham in the fifteenth century.

Bernard of Angers’ spiritual autobiography The collection of Sainte Foy’s miracles that form the first two books of her Liber miraculorum are attributed to the cleric known as Bernard of Angers.3 The evidence for his authorship of these delightful stories is purely internal to the text but has been

96 The saint as patron of individuals universally accepted as authentic, and his narratives are widely cited in scholarly studies on diverse topics – including monastic culture, eleventh-century society and politics, popular religion (pilgrimages and saints’ cults), the construction, function and theory of reliquary images, and so on. Bernard’s personality emerges as he comments memorably on the process of collecting and writing unusual miracle stories that he must often explain to his sophisticated clerical readership back in northern France. A rare and vivid primary source for the reception of saints in the period, Bernard’s writing has been invaluable even if its rhetorical shaping has been underestimated by most scholars.4 Those who have mined his texts to support their arguments have for the most part overlooked the deeply personal story Bernard is telling about himself and Sainte Foy, whom he “calls upon among all the saints as [his] special patron.”5 This chapter where the focus is on a saint’s relationship with individuals will delineate the trajectory of Bernard’s spiritual journey from skepticism to belief in Sainte Foy’s powers.6 I want to argue that his miracle collection was written in part as a spiritual autobiography,7 and we miss an essential element in the power saints held when we overlook the unique relationship an individual could forge with a special saint. Spiritual autobiographies begin with the narrator in a state of confusion and error, which for Bernard of Angers is a state of disbelief. In the introduction to his book of Foy’s miracles – a letter to Fulbert of Chartres – Bernard “others” the cult, drawing a distinction between himself with his peers at Chartres and the culturally alien believers of the Conques region. He says that he visited the “little church of the martyr,” which was “located outside the walls” of Chartres (Figs. 3.1 and 3.2).8 In Bernard’s time (c. 1000), the Sainte-Foy chapel was a priory church; it became a parish church in 1150. Although outside the walls, as Bernard notes, it was enclosed within the town walls in 1275. Bernard says that he and his intellectual friends put no faith in the Foy miracle stories they heard and “rejected them as so much worthless fiction.” This was partly because, as he tells us, “it seemed to be the common people who promulgated these miracles and partly because they were regarded as new and unusual.”9 Despite his skepticism, Bernard was intrigued enough by Foy’s miracle stories to make a vow to go to Conques by a date he marked in a little notebook. However, three years intervened while he taught “stupid good-for-nothings” in Angers until he was able to fulfill his vow and visit Conques.10 There he inquired about Foy’s miracles and was overwhelmed by the great number that “poured forth from various narrators.”11 Most compelling to Bernard, he met Guibert himself – the recipient of the notorious eyeball miracle that took place in the late tenth century. Bernard tells us that he will put a full retelling of the violent plucking out of Guibert’s eyes and subsequent restoration by the saint – “word for word as I hear it from his lips” – as the lead story in his collection.12 Bernard presents himself as a kind of medieval ethnographer who finds native informants and transcribes their oral miracle narratives. Bernard’s ethnographic text constructs a distinct southern culture for which he is a self-assigned translator for his northern readers. We might see the saint herself as the first “other” Bernard creates. He describes her as a trickster, almost a reflection of the folk personality he finds in the rural, lower class and popular culture, while he and his peers in northern France are represented as urban, socially elite and intellectually sophisticated. His literary shaping of the first book of 34 miracles – from its prefatory

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letter to Fulbert back in Chartres to its concluding letter of presentation addressed to the monks of Conques – strikingly maintains the author’s cultural difference; the monks are unlearned, while he – despite elaborate humility topoi – affiliates himself with Fulbert’s center of learning and power.13 Bernard begins in a patronizing tone by correcting the monks’ Latin, calling upon the authority of Fulbert for the proper inflection of the saint’s name and suggesting that the Conques monastery reform its grammatical practices: A controversy has been produced by certain people that greatly confuses a clear reading of the word “Fides,” for they want it to be inflected in the fifth declension. But I have paid attention to the long tradition of the ancient writings and I say that it ought to be “Fides, Fidis,” as, for example, “nubes, nubis” and “soboles, sobolis.” Unless I am mistaken, Master Fulbert, bishop of Chartres, most learned of almost all mortals in this our age, will agree with this assertion. At Fulbert’s altar of the martyr Sainte Foy, on the day of the birth of that same virgin, I myself have seen and I have read that “Fidis” not “Fidei” was expressed as the genitive two or three times. For, if we change this rule, it will seem that we mean the virtue named Faith, or the Faith who was martyred with her two sisters, Hope and Charity, at Rome under the emperor Hadrian. And so I admonish you amiably that you abandon the practice you have followed up till now and make the name of our Faith a word of the third declension.14 Following this act of grammatical superiority, Bernard justifies his book of miracles in two ways. First, he has accurately taken down the reports of those present as eyewitnesses to the miracles, that is “inhabitants of this village” of Conques. Second, although he was not able to show his book to Fulbert of Chartres (always the supreme arbiter in Bernard’s eyes), he did get reactions from a long list of friends in the north whose judgment Bernard respects because they are learned, wealthy, upper-class, cultured, and so on. The list of these authorizing responses takes up the bulk of the letter to the Conques monks. For example, Bernard says that he “showed this little book to my highly revered teacher, Reynold, master of the school of Tours, a man who is highly educated in the liberal arts.”15 He also showed it before completion to “two brothers, my friends Wantelme and Leowulf, canons of Saint-Quentin in the Vermandois, men distinguished as much by the reputation of their ancestral stock as by their own refined wisdom. Their diligence, along with the very renowned accouterments of their wealth, has spread their precious fame far and wide through the broad spaces of the earth.”16 Another patron, John Scotus, “displayed such favor toward me,” says Bernard, “that he asserted I was not inferior to the genius of the writers of antiquity.”17 Bernard further claims that due to his writing of the miracle book many eminent ecclesiastics from northern France have heard of Sainte Foy for the first time and then founded altars to the saint in their churches.18 Thus framed by a dominant rhetoric based in northern elite values, Bernard’s miracle collection proceeds to draw a portrait of the regional Other as the setting for the popular cult of Foy. He notes that Aquitanian clerics were often bearded, whereas those in the north were clean-shaven.19 Likewise, he finds the southern landscape of high mountains, rocky cliffs, fertile valleys and weather extremes remarkable.20

98 The saint as patron of individuals As art historians are aware, Bernard is critical of the southern practice of housing saints’ relics in body-shaped reliquaries, which, he points out, learned people find superstitious. He even tells readers about his first reactions to this established usage, an ancient custom in the whole country of Auvergne, the Rouergue and the Toulousain, as well as in the surrounding areas, that people erect a statue for their own saint, of gold or silver or some other metal, in which the head of the saint or rather an important piece of the body is reverently preserved.21 The language Bernard uses to describe the Southern French culture – “established usage,” “ancient customs” – emphasizes its antiquity and resistance to change. En route to Conques from Angers, Bernard and his companion Bernarius had seen the statue of Saint Gerald above the altar of the church at Aurillac in the Auvergne. “It was an image made with such precision to the face of the human form that it seemed to see with its attentive, observant gaze the great many peasants seeing it and to gently grant with its refecting eyes the prayers of those praying before it.”22 Despite the evident devotional efficacy of the reliquary, the two northerners mock the statue as idolatry, a practice of southern popular culture: “For we allow the statues of saints for no reason than the very old, incorrect practice and the ineradicable and innate custom of simple people.”23 Bernard and Bernarius also mock the reliquary image of Foy when they arrive in Conques, though the narrative eventually offers a rationalization of this type of reliquary and saints’ worship even Bernard the sophisticate can live with – that is, that the statue is worthy of veneration as a memory image and artistic container for the saint’s relics.24 In Bernard’s opening description, however, the mass of southern worshippers remain illiterate peasants, given to absurd and idolatrous practices. The Conques monks are presented as semi-literate, not only in their ignorance of Latin grammar but in their failure to keep written records of the miraculous events taking place in their community before Bernard arrived. He notes with exasperation the absence of recorded names of people to whom the miracles had occurred, as well as the monks’ slowness to appreciate what we might call the PR potential for the monastery of miracles performed by their patron saint.25 Bernard the educated outsider sees himself as the literate interpreter of significances not just for the literati up north but even for the ignorant monks at Conques. All these strategies of “othering” Conques, both the region and its cult, correspond to techniques described by Johannes Fabian in Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object. Fabian posits a “denial of coevalness” in ethnographic writing, which he defines as “a persistent and systematic tendency to place the referent(s) of anthropology in a Time other than the present of the producer of anthropological discourse.”26 In Mary Louise Pratt’s amplification of Fabian, she describes the people to be othered as homogenized into a collective “they” … This abstracted “he/they” is the subject of verbs in a timeless present tense, which characterizes anything “he” is or does not to a particular historical event but as an instance of a pregiven custom or trait. According to Pratt, the “portrait of manners and customs is a normalizing discourse whose work is to codify difference, to fx the Other in a timeless present where all ‘his’ actions and reactions are repetitions of ‘his’ normal habits.”27 We can see these techniques

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clearly in Bernard’s miracle collection, where the southerners are peasants, monks, and other “simple people” operating according to “ineradicable and innate” custom that Bernard superciliously describes in a high proportion of his early miracle stories. In his formulation, their “deeply rooted” practices and “frmly established customs” belong to a world detached from the historical present of Bernard and his elite friends.28 Not only are ritual objects like the reliquary in need of Bernard’s philosophical justification, or the “simple folk” of Conques in need of his philological and literary talents, but the miracles themselves are frequently presented as lacking in religious decorum. Foy performs such indecorous, absurd, or trivial miracles as making the hair grow on the head of a bald man, resurrecting a donkey, or locating worthless objects. Bernard classifies many of these stories as “Foy’s jokes” (or joca), an epithet he attributes to local peasant speech.29 Thus, even the saint herself is constructed by Bernard as Other to his religious expectations and aesthetic norms. His considerable rhetorical skills are exercised justifying philosophically for his elite northern readership the unexpected, “previously unheard of” (inaudita) content of so many of Foy’s miracle stories. Bernard’s two books of Foy miracles construct his self-identity as promising intellectual by discursively marking out what Bernard is not and situating those traits in Foy’s cult at Conques. How do we know that this difference is a discursive act and not the way it really was at Conques circa 1010? We have considerable evidence from both outside and inside the text of the miracle book showing Conques was a wealthy and powerful monastery with many regional dependencies and donations,30 precious metal workshops,31 and a high level of literary culture as well. The two books of miracle stories that continue Bernard’s project after his departure and death begin with a new prologue by a Conques monk who is aware both of Bernard’s literary achievements and of himself as an author. The monk-continuator is concerned to explain why a second prologue to Foy’s miracles is necessary, since, after all, Bernard had written such an elaborate first prologue. The monk discusses issues of literary composition and of reader response, articulating his own methodology and philosophy. He is not just collecting Foy’s miracles but creating a Panaretos, a “book of all her powers” that includes a polished revision of Foy’s passio in “a more highly rhetorical style.”32 Numerous passages in Books three and four by the monk-continuators are written in elaborate metered verse with classical allusions, revealing a monastic textual community formed around classical poetic texts.33 Even within the two first books by Bernard of Angers, Bernard the narrator mentions the fact of learning at the Conques monastery – perhaps without realizing its implications for the portrait he is presenting of monastic ignorance. In a section where he justifies his choice of prose for most of his miracle narratives, he had deviated from his usual practice by composing a passage in hexameter verse.34 He then tries to justify this anomaly by telling the reader that a “monk named Arseus (from the monastery) persuaded me to write (the hexameter verses) with his insistent pleas.” Bernard says that he gave in reluctantly, but still chose to set those verses on the page like prose “lest the second half should seem to be out of harmony with the first … . I feared that the meaning would be lost if the rhythmical measure of the scansion confused the reader’s expectations.”35 Bernard is so busy proving his own refined literary sensibilities that he overlooks the implication that the monastery was not the unlettered and ignorant place he has elsewhere insisted. Clearly, there was literary culture at Conques monastery that Bernard mostly chose to ignore in order to fashion his self-image as literatus.

100 The saint as patron of individuals One can, therefore, read Bernard of Angers’ collection of Foy stories as a particularly effective appropriation of monastic miracle culture to construct an “other” that is designed to consolidate Bernard’s own identity and efficacy as erudite outsider. But I would argue that a complete reading of Bernard’s eleventh-century hagiographic text cannot stop there, for the cult of Foy – represented by Bernard as “other” – is shown eventually to transform the narrator himself. Bernard’s two books of the Liber miraculorum are also designed as a conversion narrative or spiritual autobiography in which the unbeliever, an intellectual skeptic, is gradually convinced of Foy’s powers and of the reality of miracles which are at first so alienating. It is here that cultural theorist Johannes Fabian’s analysis of “time and the other” breaks down for medieval texts. While Fabian argues that an object is “othered” by homogenizing its idiosyncrasies into a collective whole that can be described by enumeration of timeless traits, he also suggests that the interpreting Self (the anthropologist) is in a separate temporal category – i.e. history, which is subject to time and open to change. In Fabian’s model, the historical narrator is not “coeval” with the ahistorical “native.” Read as Bernard’s spiritual autobiography, the Liber miraculorum, however, traces the humbling of the learned by the illiterate and the dethroning of the rational intellect by faith and experience. The Self and the Other are, finally, coevals, since in Bernard’s narrative trajectory the “natives” win! The arc of tension between initial skepticism and final belief in Foy’s powers is set up from the beginning of Bernard’s collection. In his prefatory letter to Fulbert of Chartres his master, Bernard asks future readers to bring faith wholeheartedly to my narration so that later you will not regret that you disparaged a holy martyr. Better yet, if the unusual novelty of the miracles content disturbs you, I prostrate myself on the ground to beg this of your brotherhood; that after my return you come here, not so much to pray as to gain knowledge through experience. For through lack of experience you might prematurely judge something false whose truth, once you have seen it for yourselves, you will proclaim hereafter.36 Bernard’s miracle narratives thus function as a journey into “experience” through faith. They are laced with passages in which Bernard justifies his methodologies and conclusions, particularly his belief in the unusual miracles of Foy, which he acknowledges are often difficult to believe. The text is a kind of philosophical meditation upon the nature of proof that could be related to high-powered theological debates of his day, but one that finally goes beyond academic logic. After one impassioned digression aimed at a “peasant” who attacked Bernard’s writings as lacking the support of authority, Bernard concludes by reiterating “I” – rhetorically placing his own experience as authoritative: However, whoever does not believe the stories that I, a Christian, have told about people whose eyes were torn out by the roots and that I saw restored in the same faces, let them go and see. After the beneficiaries of such miracles have described the events and the whole province has corroborated them, let such people put aside all their unbelieving arguments then and there. I  saw those men who were healed myself, I invited them to meals, I gave them money, and there will never be a day when I am dissuaded from the truth of this opinion.37

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Bernard is even able to witness a miracle himself, that of a blind girl who had come as a pilgrim with her mother to the shrine at Conques. As the mother and daughter were keeping the night vigil, the girl’s eyesight was totally restored: The monks who watched over the relics and some of the monks who were taking their turn officiating at night, according to the custom there, saw what had happened. At once they all began to run swiftly to my lodgings. And because they knew that I longed to witness a new miracle, they exhausted one another in their eagerness to report it to me. “Look! For you, fortunate Bernard, a miracle, a miracle from Sainte Foy,” they said. “This is what you have been praying for, what you wished would be shown to you before your departure. You thought it wasn’t fair that, when you came so far intending to write miracles, you weren’t seeing any yourself.” For I had explained the reason for my pilgrimage to the monks when I arrived.38 Bernard begins by collecting from local informants miracles that happened in the past, but, as this story shows, when he witnesses a miracle himself, he begins to enter into the miraculous present of Foy’s patronage and power – to become, in other words, coeval with the Conques community of monks and local recipients. In the letter to the abbot and monks of Conques with which Bernard ends his first book of Foy’s miracle stories, Bernard explains why he claims authorship unlike famous hagiographers like Sulpicius Severus, who wrote the life of Saint Martin but wanted to escape the accusation of being a conceited person: But I, on the other hand, have given my name at the beginning and in the middle and at the end, lest material so unknown should produce doubt and through this doubt the very great works of Sainte Foy should be held in contempt.39 Bernard then takes credit for spreading Foy’s fame outside of the Rouergue, specifcally in the north, where his churchmen friends plan to dedicate altars to the saint. Hubert, Bishop of Angers, will dedicate an altar in the cathedral he had built; Lord Gautier, the Bishop of Rennes, promised Bernard he would put a secondary altar in the basilica dedicated to Saint Thomas the Apostle that he was building in the city; while Guy, a priest in the church of the Holy Mother in Angers, arranged for an oratory to be made to Foy. Bernard sees his hagiographic production as service to Sainte Foy, his “special patron,” work that deserves a reward from her: As a recompense for my work, I ask above all things for a reward like this: that when my wretched and sin-filled soul passes from this life I may deserve to have Sainte Foy, whom I call upon among all the saints as my special patron, to be my invincible champion against the servants of iniquity, so that … I may be a partaker in Christian redemption with you, oh, Sainte Foy.40 He also calls on the saint to miraculously meet his more mundane needs. One of the most dramatic miracles concerns his own brother, whose limbs were spasming horribly from illness and who was nearly irrational from the pain: Disturbed to the heart by my brother’s pain, I began to implore those gathered there to plead for Sainte Foy’s help. They thought that it was completely useless,

102 The saint as patron of individuals but I burst out with these words: “Sainte Foy, how does it help me to praise your powers everywhere, if when I am myself engulfed by sorrow I am left a stranger to your beneficent aid? Restore my brother, I beg.”41 Needless to say, Bernard’s brother is healed later that day. Likewise, Bernard’s personal secretary, Sigebald, a scholar and priest, who had gone on pilgrimage with Bernard that year, had a swelling of the brain and loss of breath that his vow to make a pilgrimage to Conques had cured.42 And two of Bernard’s pupils lost a book near Angers that was returned through the miraculous machinations of Foy.43 These episodes demonstrate that the miracles of Foy did not just take place in the past for others but continued in the present for Bernard, his relatives, and his friends. A final example from Bernard’s Liber miraculorum is a fully intersubjective experience that functions to disrupt the careful boundary initially created between Bernard the sophisticated cleric and the Conques cult world – between north and south, between observer and observed. The text thus finally posits an experience of coevalness that brings the writer and the earlier recipients of miracles into the same temporal space, erasing the distinction between Subject and Object. Bernard’s second book opens with a miracle involving Gerbert, whose eyes were restored after being torn out – a miracle that typologically repeats the founding miracle at Conques of Guibert “the Illuminated” in the late tenth century. In Gerbert’s case, his eye was damaged a second time and then healed by Foy, but Gerbert died before Bernard returned to Conques on his second journey, to Bernard’s deep regret. He adds that, But I saw Guibert, whose healing miracle was older than Gerbert’s. He was called “the Illuminated” because of the miracle and was still living at the time by the grace of God, though I saw that he was very old. He wept profusely over my return and said, “Now you are returned lord father, who helped me with both material and spiritual things. My time is nearly over and I am worn out by old age. I know that I don’t have enough time left in this life to see you again. May God and Sainte Foy reward you, for you alone undertook the task of coming here from far away to hear and record her miracles.” In honor of the outstanding miracles, I kissed his eyes warmly three and even four times and, saying farewell to him, I left. I was no less struck by compassionate emotions than a person who travels across the sea, leaving behind sweet children or a dear spouse, uncertain as to whether he will ever see his own once again. If only God would ever, through His mercy, let me come back to Conques and Guibert should still be living then!44 This elaborate outpouring on Bernard’s part, rhetorically enforced by an elaborate simile of a traveler, bridges the two separate worlds his text had originally constructed, allowing for a dialogue about their shared experiences and a mutual awareness of the passage of time. Guibert, who seems like the Other at the beginning of Book One where his eyeball restoration forms the first miracle story, is here fully Bernard’s spiritual peer. In the first story, Guibert had been represented as “an ignorant and unlettered person” who wanted to become a monk after the healing of his eyeballs. At that time, however, Guibert was unable to control his lechery and ended

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up on the monastic dole, old and impoverished and held in contempt by all, Bernard tells us.45 Yet, in the second book, as we see from the passage above, Guibert’s grotesque inappropriateness to be the recipient of Foy’s founding miracle is no longer mentioned. Rather, Guibert has shifted from the timeless status of caricatured Other to an old man who senses his mortality and is able to elicit responsive empathy from Bernard. Bernard’s prayer to Foy that he might find Guibert alive on his next visit to Conques marks a moment of intense and explicit coevalness and a mutual recognition of time’s passage. Bernard’s second book of miracles is a text in which the distinction between Subject and Object/Other dissolves as Guibert describes Bernard to himself, reflecting back an image of the outsider who has now become a valued member of the community. It is a similar moment to that when Bernard is summoned by the monks to see his first miracle at the shrine, and they describe his project as they understand it. Both incidents are examples of what anthropologist Michael Taussig, writing in Mimesis and Alterity, calls “second contact.”46 That is, where the reflection or mimicry by the previously Other – the object of study – makes the scientist part of the study, corroding the alterity on which anthropological discourse was founded. The miracle collection produced by Bernard of Angers also suggests that the text cannot be read as just a useful fiction to call the attention of Bernard’s sophisticated readers to their own limitations. Hayden White writes in “Forms of Wildness” that “Tacitus, Montaigne, and Levi Strauss are linked by the fictive uses they make of the concepts of barbarism, wildness, and savagery”47 – a function that does not seem far at times from Bernard’s ironies. Yet in those writers the barbarian, the wild man, or the cannibal remain static figures, a literary device for the reader’s semiotic benefit. Bernard, by contrast, invites his readers not just to understand but to share the personal spiritual transformation he underwent during the experience of Foy’s miracles. The history of the Liber miraculorum also subverts any notion that the cult of Sainte Foy, represented initially by Bernard as puzzlingly alien, remains alien. Not only does Bernard himself “convert” – erase any distinction between Self and Other through his transformation – but it is worth noting that the personal journey recorded in the first two books of miracles is replaced by a more conventional institutional appropriation at his death after 1020, when the task of recording Foy’s miracles is assumed by monkcontinuators in books three and four of the Liber miraculorum. While paying homage to Bernard’s achievement, the continuators use a corporate voice to reframe Foy’s miracle stories into unambiguous celebrations of their saint and monastery at Conques. The monks’ thoroughgoing appropriation of Bernard’s literary materials produces a corollary transformation in the representations of the saint herself. She is no longer the tricky little girl, a form of the saintly Other Bernard finds fascinating. Foy is now represented unambiguously as an adult figure of celestial and universal glory who protects Conques abbey and its monks. The relationship between the saint and her monk-continuators is not individualized but that of a corporate body and its saintly patron. The monk continuators write with an exuberant display of poetic flourishes in the high style Bernard himself had shunned, preferring prose. Their books displace Bernard’s discursive formations with their own and strikingly provide a reading – from the site he had initially “othered” – of Bernard and his work. Bernard’s textual mastery is subtly subverted as his two books of miracle stories are incorporated into the frame designed now by the monks of Conques for their own ecclesiastical

104 The saint as patron of individuals purposes. And their corporate agenda, effortlessly incorporating his unique individual agenda, ultimately prevails as the cult of Foy moved in the later eleventh century out of its local scene in the south of France to become an international phenomenon.

Foy as patron of literary hagiographers Bernard of Angers is not the only writer of his century to claim a special relationship with Sainte Foy. As Thomas Head points out, hagiography could be a “private work of piety” for medieval hagiographers themselves.48 The poet of the later eleventh century vernacular Chanson de sainte Foi discussed in Chapter Two calls on the saint for aid in writing after reminding his readers of Foy’s miracle-working in Conques. In Laisse 43, which describes Bernard’s Conques miracle narratives, the Chanson poet writes: This place is truly blessed where God brings such a powerful saint, for He makes great miracles through her and most pleasant dispositions and little jests. Gerald, a badly tonsured priest, tore out the eyes of his intimate, Guibert; then, a year after he had lost them, God gave the light back to him through her. If a blind or mute person comes to her, or someone greatly stricken with illness, or if someone is held in prison or in misery because of war, when that person turns to her, be he young or gray-haired, if he has repented of his sins, joy and salvation will always come to him. Now I pray to you, my Lady, that you help me.49 For the Chanson poet, Sainte Foy is an intercessor who can provide inspiration in his hagiographic endeavors – the kind of miracle a writer needs!

Simon of Walsingham’s monastic Foy In succeeding centuries, there were other literary hagiographers who claimed a personal relationship with the saint as they wrote their vernacular lives of Foy. One of the most intriguing is Simon of Walsingham, a monk at Bury St Edmunds Abbey, Suffolk, who wrote an Anglo-Norman life of the saint in 1,242 lines of octosyllabic couplets. The Vie de seinte Fey, written ca. 1200–1215, draws on multiple Latin texts about Foy.50 Simon apologizes for his inexperience with translation into the vernacular, and scholars are divided on whether this is the requisite humility topos offered by most hagiographers or whether it in fact reflects Simon’s cultural background. Whichever is the case, Simon’s poem is a carefully crafted work that represents the saint according to the values and metaphors of monasticism – in other words mirroring Simon’s chosen profession. The cult of Sainte Foy had spread to England by the beginning of the twelfth century, with one of the earliest priories dedicated to Foy in 1105 at Horsham St Faith near Norwich. Few definitive documents connect Simon’s monastery of Bury St Edmunds with the Horsham St Faith priory, but Simon as a native of nearby Walsingham would have been familiar with all the monastic institutions in his region of England. The founders of the Horsham priory were an aristocratic couple, Sybil de Cayneto/Cheyney and Robert Fitzwalter, who had experienced a miraculous liberation by Sainte Foy after imprisonment by bandits near Conques. Their patron roles will be fully discussed in Chapter Four as an example of noble family appropriation of Foy’s cult.

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Bury St Edmunds, Simon of Walsingham’s home monastery, had its own apsidal chapel dedicated to Sainte Foy in the western transept of the abbey church and thus, presumably, owned the relevant texts for the saint’s liturgical celebrations.51 Simon says he was urged to write a vernacular version of Foy’s life by an unnamed compatriot in the monastery – probably Abbot Samson, also from Norfolk, whom he jokes is great in learning and reason but small in stature (Grant en science e en resun/Ke est de stature petiz, vv. 80–81).52 In accepting the commission, Simon acknowledges the love he has for his monastic “compainie” that he hopes will not forget his name in their prayers to Sainte Foy. He mentions especially “those who have not learned Latin” and therefore need his vernacular version53 – presumably fellow monks. His comment might remind us of the Chanson de sainte Foi, also put into the vernacular for a non-Latinate readership in a monastery. Simon’s first “motive” for writing is thus his devotion to his brother monks at Bury, for whom he crafts a saintly portrait they could relate to.54 Beyond his obligation to his Benedictine brothers, Simon of Walsingham has a connection with Sainte Foy herself that is intensely personal. It begins most significantly with the coincidence of his birth on her feast day. In his prologue to the Sainte Foy narrative, Simon writes, I will tell you my motive, and explain why I cherish, honour, and especially wish to venerate Faith: on the feast night of her passion (6 October) – which is a solemn veneration of the moment of her liberation from her earthly suffering – I myself was born into my earthly tribulations. On the day her torments ended, my own travails began; on the day she received joy and honour, I was born into a life of pain and suffering; she now lives in rejoicing and gladness, while I live in lamentation and sadness, and the painful struggle of this translation.55 On the basis of his fortuitous birth date, Simon prays that Sainte Foy will powerfully intercede both in his spiritual struggle and in writing the story of her life, For this reason, I hope that you, God will permit her to come to my aid both in this earthly struggle and in this narration which I offer as an act of penance … Through her intercession may she usher me into the eternal joy which she herself received on the very day that I was born into the toil of this earthly life. For these reasons I began writing this work – may God grant that I profit from it.56 Simon’s prayer reveals his rationale for choosing to write about Sainte Foy; his special devotion to the saint results from the coincidence of his birth and her death date, and he hopes he is thus in a privileged position to call on her intercessory powers in response to his textual “act of penance.” What Simon offers in the Vie de seinte Fey is an elaborately wrought narrative of Foy’s martyrdom in Agen and subsequent translation of her relics to Conques, the whole structured by a recurrent multivalent pun on the saint’s name. She is Faith, who allegorically represents the faith needed for salvation of the faithful community who believe in the story being told: My lords, you who believe in God and are confirmed in the faith, unless I lie you have heard and know it to be true that no living being, either young or old, of high

106 The saint as patron of individuals or low estate, shall be saved without a steadfast faith. This is a truth that I fully believe – righteous Faith will save us and bring us to celestial joy.57 In Simon’s long prologue to her martyrdom story (vv. 1–110), he adapts the central descriptive trope for Foy in the Latin passio, substituting “faith” for “mind”: “fair of face, and even more beautiful in her faith” (“Bele de vis, de fei plus bele”).58 In the martyrdom narrative itself, Simon does repeat the conventional trope “She was very fair of face, and even more beautiful in her heart” (“Mut esteit bele de visage/E mut plus bone de corage”).59 But he then adds to the conventional narrative his overdetermined theme of faith: This lovely girl was named Faith, and faith was her strength. Jesus Christ gave her this name when he placed faith in her heart, for by the example of faith he converted several souls to himself, for St. Faith was the first to carry the banner of martyrdom in the city of Agen, of which she is both patron and jewel.60 As Emma Campbell comments, “Faith is thus the kernel of the saint’s identity; it is not only her name, but also, conversely, a principle she embodies and exemplifes as part of her relationship to Christ.”61 The metaphor of precious gems is a second recurrent motif in Simon’s version of Foy’s life and death. He links the metaphor of gems to the “faith” puns at the opening of the poem. He will tell of “how her saintly life and holy name were in perfect harmony, completing each other better than a jewel enhances a ring” (“Cum son seint nun e seinte vie/Ne se descordereient mie;/Mes se acorderunt plus bel/ Ke ne fet la gemme en anel”).62 Faith is “this brightly-polished jewel, this pure gold now well refined by the purging fire,” and as a martyr she is a “treasure.”63 When Dacian begins to persecute Christians in Agen, he hears about Foy: “This jewel shone so clearly that he heard others speak of the brilliance that surrounded glorious St. Faith, of the clarity of this precious gem, for her radiant renown shone throughout the country.”64 The pattern of references to gems and treasure also frames and elevates the scene from the early passio where Caprais has a vision of Foy being crowned in heaven by a dove: “It carried a crown of gold, of such riches as he had never before seen. It was ornamented with magnificent precious stones and splendid gems.”65 Simon of Walsingham develops the scene at much greater length than any of his fellow hagiographers, setting it into the patterned gemology of his narrative. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne links Simon’s gem-studded portrayal of Sainte Foy with the “conventional association of virginity and precious gold and gems,” and she makes a further connection between Simon’s description of the saint and Foy’s reliquary statue at Conques, embellished with gold and precious gems.66 A third literary pattern Simon adds to his life of Foy is referring to her as the “friend” of God – “la Deu amye.” This is another multivalent epithet that forms a refrain throughout the poem,67 signifying Sainte Foy’s closeness to God and therefore her privileged access to divine power that will benefit those who call upon her. It is also a term that Simon uses for Christians, who are referred to as “les Deu amis,” whereas Dacian the persecutor of Christians is “un Deu enemi.”68 As Jocelyn Wogan-Browne suggests, Simon’s translation reveals his “investment in Faith’s cult for an inscribed male audience.”69 My reading of the early thirteenthcentury Vie emphasizes profession over gender: that is, the males are monks, and the

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poem was shaped by monastic language and values, with a resulting explicit portrayal of Sainte Foy’ monastic virtues. The conventional passio description of Foy emphasizes her rejection of material riches in favor of spiritual goals. Simon’s version of this description more fully develops Foy’s rejection of the world: “She sought to acquire knowledge rather than worldly goods. She loved chaste virtue more than the finest gold; she valued humility more than riches.”70 Simon adds even more details about Foy’s rejection of “earthly pleasures”: She greatly despised all sin and wantonness and dishonourable and shameful acts. The grace of God was upon her, shielding her from all evil, leading her to flee this world in order to love and serve God, inspiring her hatred of earthly pleasures and her disdain for worldly delights.71 His fnal characterization of the saint makes her monastic virtues explicit: “St. Faith, beloved of God, led a holy life through vigils and self-denial, along with fasting, acts of charity, and prayer.”72 As depicted by Simon of Walsingham, Sainte Foy is a ftting friend and colleague not just of the deity but of Simon the monk of Bury St Edmunds. As versions of the same saint that draw on many of the same source texts, the narratives of Bernard of Angers, the unnamed poet of the Chanson de sainte Foi, and Simon of Walsingham nevertheless produce strikingly divergent portraits. Each writer appropriates the saint for his own situation and, in each case, the saint’s “cultural work” of personal relevance to the writer produces a different Sainte Foy: the feisty young trickster of Bernard, the feudal noblewoman of the Chanson, and the idealized monastic of Simon.73

Reframing seinte Fey: the Campsey manuscript Simon of Walsingham’s early thirteenth-century Vie de seinte Fey translates, reshapes, and embellishes the key Latin narratives of Foy’s life and death for use in his own monastery, as I have argued above. His work was, in turn, appropriated by inclusion in a late thirteenth-century collection of Anglo-Norman verse on saints’ lives known as the Campsey manuscript. Since we do not have Simon’s original text, we know of Simon’s version of the Foy legend solely from its survival nearly a century later in the Campsey collection. Whereas his original work was generated out of personal attachment to the saint in a male monastery, when we look at that text in the new context of reception, we can see that it must have had significantly new meanings for its female readers. According to an inscription on the manuscript, it was owned by the female canonesses of the Augustinian convent at Campsey Ash, Suffolk.74 This was a wealthy institution whose sisters came from the upper classes.75 Nevertheless, there are many unanswered questions about the manuscript, beginning with the fourteenth-century annotation “ce livre deveiseie a la priorie de kamp/seie de lire a mangier”; the statement remains “slightly ambiguous,” as Delbert Russell points out, since “deveiseie” has a range of possible meanings from “plan” or “arrange” to “bequeath.”76 It is unclear if the collection was put together at Campsey priory itself or was simply given to it – perhaps by a female lay patron? As Russell points out, although the assembled works (except for the first three by Bozon) were part of a planned compilation by the same hand with consistent decoration, the textual contents have not been modified; the length and style of each text remains that of the original work chosen for

108 The saint as patron of individuals inclusion – and they differ widely. The incorporation of Simon’s Vie into the Campsey collection for Augustinian canonesses thus reframes the poem for a new fourteenthcentury context of female rather than male reception. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne says she “tries to read it as a text heard in a female community of seigneurial rank,” subordinating the text’s “self-proclaimed genesis in male-male relations in favour of attention to its claimed origins in female saintly patronage.”77 The reframing of the Vie de seinte Fey within the diverse contents of the Campsey manuscript therefore introduces a new focus for discussion of the cultural work it may be doing, shifting our focus from the saint as individual patron of a male monastic devotee to the broader aristocratic and female patronage of saints’ cults that will be taken up in Chapter Four.

Osbern of Bokenham’s Legends of Holy Women The most striking and well-developed example of the personal connection between saints and devotees in fifteenth-century Middle English may be Osbern of Bokenham’s collection of thirteen lives of women saints known as the Legendys of Hooly Wummen.78 As in the case of other hagiographers, we learn something of the author/ translator’s identity and circumstances of writing primarily from internal comments in the prologues and epilogues of the lives. Karen Winstead calls Bokenham “one of late medieval England’s most colorful ‘prologuers.’”79 With this collection, however, the personal relationships are multiple; in addition to Osbern of Bokenham’s unique interest in his “valentine” saints, most of the saints have an individual connection with a woman patron who commissioned the writing of the saint’s life. In addition, there is a colophon giving the even more specific information that the lives were put into English by a doctor of divinity named Osbern Bokenham, an Austin friar of the convent of Stoke-Clare; and that it was then copied in Cambridge by (or for) his “son” Friar Thomas Burgh in 1447– to be given to a female convent in order that they “remember him and his sister Dame Beatrice Burgh.”80 The biographical and autobiographical comments are mechanisms of appropriation creating a web of personal links between individual saints and their human devotees that characterize Bokenham’s work. In the epilogue to his Life of Saint Faith, Osbern of Bokenham, like his hagiographer predecessor Simon of Walsingham, claims special favor as a translator because of his “pure devotion” to the saint; and he asks her intercession in his penitential journey because he, like Walsingham, had been born on her feast day: And, especially, lady because of your passion, show the grace of special favor to him who, from pure devotion, was translator of your legend into English. Grant him, lady, in his last hour of living to be cleansed from sin, for he on your day to live did first begin.81 Bokenham also tells his reader in the epilogue to the Life of Saint Cecelia that he “long ago” took “three valentines” among the women saints he is celebrating: Cecelia, Faith, and Barbara.82 However, his devotion to Faith has unique status because of his birth on her feast day. In addition to his unique birth link to Sainte Foy and affection for his three “valentines,” Bokenham has other personal connections to saints. He justifies his interest in

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St. Margaret to the fact that, near his birthplace, an old priory of black canons owns one of her feet “both flesh and bone.”83 He goes into some detail about what parts of the foot are visible in the crystal reliquary and what miracles it works – including for him. The decision to translate the life of St. Margaret in 1443 arose from the “importunate request” of Thomas Burgh, his dear friend at Cambridge, who had “a particular devotion to this pure-minded virgin.”84 Osbern Bokenham’s individual connections to the saints whose lives he chooses to translate are mirrored in the special devotion that the women patrons have for their name saint.85 The Life of Saint Anne, mother of Mary, is translated for Katherine Denston, wife of merchant John Denston, the epilogue tells us, expressing the hope that they will have a son, “as they already have a beautiful small daughter called Anne in honor of you.”86 The lengthiest narrative about the request for a translated life occurs in the prologue to Mary Magdalen’s life. Bokenham sets the scene on Epiphany Eve when he was partying with Isabel, Lady Bourchier, the sister of the duke of York.87 While admiring her four sons dancing in a colorfully dressed crowd that the writer compares to a May meadow “mottled with flowers white, blue and green,” Bokenham is asked about the legends of holy women he has been translating from Latin. He says he has completed the lives of Saint Anne, Margaret, Dorothy, Faith, Christine, Agnes, and the 11,000 virgins, and he is working on the life of Saint Elizabeth at the request of Elizabeth Vere, countess of Oxford. In response, Lady Bourchier says she has a “special devotion of pure affection to that holy woman who is called ‘apostle to the apostles’, I mean blessed Mary Magdalen,” and she asks Bokenham to translate the saint’s life into English for her sake. He tells his readers he can’t resist the request of nobility but asks for a delay until he can take a penitential pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, since it’s a Holy Year when he can have a full remission of sins.88 As Gail Gibson suggests, what seems an amusing competition between Lady Isabel and Elizabeth de Vere for Bokenham’s hagiographical attention has a darker undertone of dynastic politics. The women belonged to rival Yorkist and Lancastrian families, and “Elizabeth de Vere’s husband and son would be arrested and beheaded at the Tower of London in 1462” on a charge of conspiracy.89 The passion of Saint Katherine is narrated for “the spiritual consolation of Katherine Howard and also to the comfort of Katherine Denston.”90 Bokenham repeats the claim in the epilogue with a request that the saint pray for her two Katherines, for whom he wrote the life in five days.91 The prologue to the life of Agatha mentions Agnes Flegge as recipient of the saint’s intercession before she dies,92 while the prologue to the life of Elizabeth asks the saint that Dame Elizabeth Vere receive “your special grace” because she “loves you affectionately in her heart.”93 Karen Winstead notes the preoccupation of fifteenth-century hagiographers with pleasing their readers, writing what she calls “customized hagiography.” Bokenham creates an authorial persona by foregrounding the noble patrons who commissioned him to translate religious works. As Winstead concludes, Bokenham, his patrons, and the saints he celebrates “thus mingle comfortably in texts that testify to the worthiness of them all.”94 I would recast these insights not to undermine them but to emphasize how they represent an important but under-discussed form of “cultural work” that saints perform. The saints are not just the creators and defenders of their cults at shrines or through a variety of ecclesiastical institutions (as discussed in Chapters One and Two); they can also have an intimate and personal connection to individual believers. Those

110 The saint as patron of individuals individuals with a “special devotion” to the saint can expect special consideration – whether in the form of a miracle, an intercession with God, or even literary inspiration. The unique manuscript of the Legendys of Hooly Wummen has been a prime example for many Middle English scholars of a tight network among gentry and nobility in East Anglia that offered Bokenham and other writers of the region patronage for their writings. In this chapter’s argument, the saints’ lives collected in the manuscript also reveal the intensely personal basis for many commissions of religious works by laywomen in particular.95

The Abbotsford manuscript The well-established portrait of Bokenham created in the Legendys manuscript – as a confidante of noblewomen who chose to write with autobiographical candor about himself and even his subjects, the female saints – was challenged in 2004 by the discovery at Abbotsford House of another Bokenham legendary, his complete translation of the Latin Legenda Aurea by Jacobus de Voragine.96 Whereas the earlier Legendys manuscript contained only 13 women’s lives, the Advocate Library Abbotsford Manuscript is a collection of 170 legends. To Jacobus’s Legenda Bokenham added a number of saints, including Barbara (one of his “valentines”), Monica (mother of Augustine), and Nicholas of Tolentino (an Austin friar). There are also many specifically British additions to the collection’s saints: Wulstan, Gilbert, David, Cadde, Felix, John of Beverley, Dunstan, Aldhelm, Botolph, Alban, Audrey, and Wilfred and Winifred.97 What was taken to upend the conventional portrait of Bokenham the hagiographer – as provincial churchman cozily ensconced in an admiring community of lay families but with none of the literary panache or international exposure of the English writers Chaucer, Lydgate and Capgrave – I prefer instead to read as confirmation that different arrangements of texts and manuscript collections perform differing kinds of cultural work at different times. Our new understanding of the production history of Bokenham’s saints’ legends suggests a continuing process of appropriation, with each stage of appropriation shaped to a new reception audience or context.98 In a first stage, the individual legends of holy women translated with idiosyncratic color by Bokenham testify to the saint’s capacity for personal relationships, whether that is a name saint for a woman named after them, as special friend and guardian for a person born on their feast day, or as intercessor for a specially devoted petitioner, male or female. A.S.G. Edwards has explicated the “piecemeal” creation of these lives by Bokenham.99 The inscribed narratives show the translator responding to diverse requests for a saintly life story that will reassure the individual of the saint’s particular connection to them. This is the thematic focus of the present chapter. In a second stage signaled by the colophon of Friar Thomas Burgh, Arundel 327 collects thirteen of these individual saintly legends, reframing them within one manuscript defined by the female gender.100 While the focus is still relatively personal in that Burgh was a close friend to Bokenham and he was thinking of the collection as promoting prayers for his sister, Burgh sends it to a women’s convent – which highlights its communal rather than individual function. The collection at this stage retains the original lives with all their charming evidence of local lay and female reception. It demonstrates what many recent scholars have said about the porous boundary between religious institutions and lay society in the fifteenth century, and especially the existence of a female readership of religious texts.101

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The recently discovered Abbotsford collection of saints’ legends represents a third stage of appropriation, one closer to the ecclesiastical agendas discussed in Chapter Two of this study. The source text, the Latin Legenda aurea, contains lives of both males and females, organized by the liturgical calendar and adapted and expanded by Bokenham for his imagined readership. Horobin argues that the revisions emphasize human “moral and social virtues” and downplay the “miraculous aspects” of saintly biographies preferred by Jacobus de Voragine.102 He also notes a tendency in the editing to avoid “discussion of complex theological or ecclesiastical matters.”103 Most significant for our focus on appropriation, the Abbotsford manuscript edits out individual personal relationships between saint and patron, giving Bokenham’s saints a more institutional religious orientation and set of tasks. The Abbotsford version of legends that are also in the Arundel manuscript removes “all trace of the original request and dedication to his patrons.”104 The translation contains not just the thirteen women of Arundel 327 but legends of desert hermits, monks, friars, bishops, and Saint Augustine himself, suggesting “an audience that included members of the secular and regular clergy, particularly those of Bokenham’s own order of Austin friars.”105 The autobiographical additions to the lives are mostly about the British shrines he has visited, “recounting local legends and miracles associated with British saints,” details that articulate a British nationalism.106 The significance of his international travels to religious sites is also emphasized, placing him within a cosmopolitan religious world.107 The personal, local intimacy with saints that marks Bokenham’s better-known Legends of Holy Women is completely erased in the Abbotsford legendary. In its international orientation, Abbotsford performs a different cultural task of locating Bokenham’s religious order in the widest ecclesiastical setting. As polysemic symbols, saints and the cultural texts about them could be appropriated in diverse ways for diverse purposes. Even the individual clerics who claimed a personal tie to Sainte Foy are devout improvisers with the saint’s hagiographic traditions. They portray the saint in multiple roles – the young female trickster, miracle worker extraordinaire, composition coach, proto-monk, birth date patron, name saint – each of which performs a distinctive personal task for the writer.

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Figure 3.1 Chartres, 1750 map with location of Foy’s church Photo by Kathleen Ashley

Figure 3.2 Chartres, Foy chapel seen through Romanesque porch Photo by Poulpy- Own Work, CC By-SA 3.0

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Notes 1 Pierre Delooz made the classic argument that sanctity is a collectively generated concept in his influential article “Pour une étude sociologique de la sainteté canonisée dans l’Eglise Catholique,” Archives des sciences sociales des religions 13, no. 1 (1962): 17–143. An English translation,“Towards a Sociological Study of Canonized Sainthood in the Catholic Church,” is found in Saints and Their Cults: Studies in Religious Sociology, Folklore and History, ed. Stephen Wilson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, repr. 1987), 189–216. For Delooz, sanctity “is situated in collective representations and must be expressed in systems of associated conduct or behavior within a given network of social relations … All saints are more or less constructed in that, being necessarily saints for other people, they are remodeled in the collective representation which is made of them” (193, 195). 2 Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400–1580 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992), 160, 161. 3 Luca Robertini definitively edited the Latin text of the Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1994). The Latin miracle narratives along with other hagiographic texts associated with the saint have been translated into English by Pamela Sheingorn as The Book of Sainte Foy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995). I use her translations when quoting from the Liber and other Foy cult texts. 4 Two historians, Pierre Bonnassie and Frédéric de Gournay, have painstakingly traced the references to actual people mentioned in miracle stories of the Liber miraculorum, as they make an argument about dating the parts of the collection; “Sur la datation du Livre des miracles de sainte Foy de Conques,” Annales du Midi CVII (1995): 457–73. 5 Sheingorn, “Letter to Lord Fulbert,” Book of Sainte Foy, I.34, 111. 6 Amy Remensnyder says that Bernard’s account could be considered a conversion; “Un problème de cultures ou de culture? La statue-reliquaire et les joca de Sainte Foy de Conques dans le Liber miraculorum de Bernard d’Angers,” Cahiers de Civilisation Medievale, Xe– XIIe siècles 33 (1990): 351–79. Her interpretation challenges the conventional view of an unbridgeable gap between popular and elite cultures in the Middle Ages, arguing instead the Liber miraculorum shows a “convergence of the two traditions” (357, 352). 7 The genre of “spiritual autobiography” is best known as a literary form in early modern England, where the narrative of transformation from sin to salvation was ubiquitous in some Protestant sects. However, several of the classic spiritual autobiographies come from the Christian Middle Ages, beginning with Augustine’s Confessions and including a number of twelfth-century works such as Peter Abelard’s History of My Calamities or, in the fourteenth century, Dante’s Divine Comedy. 8 See “Tableau de la ville de Chartres en 1750.” Published by S.A.R.L. in 1860 and reprinted by the Société Archéologique d’Eure-et-Loir by P. Buisson and P. Bellier de la Chavignerie, Mémoires, t. XXI (1895). The ancient chapel was a landmark in Chartres – there were “fosses” of Sainte-Foy, a twelfth-century “poterne of Sainte-Foy,” a cemetery of SainteFoy, and a charity hospital of Sainte-Foy next to the prior’s house. It ceased to function as a church in 1794 and became a masonic lodge, then a theater. The Marists bought the chapel in 1859 and brought back the cult of Sainte Foy. The Romanesque portal survives along with the fifteenth-century chevet, although much of the nave was demolished. See Charles Stegeman, “Les cathédrales pre-romanes de Chartres,” in Monde Médiéval et Société Chartraine: Chartres 1195–1994 (Paris: Picard, 1997), 21–38. Stegeman focuses on the cathedral at the time of Bishop Fulbert, Bernard of Angers’ teacher (ca. 1020–24). Other essays in the collection discuss Chartres history before the building of the current Gothic cathedral. 9 Sheingorn, “Letter to Lord Fulbert,” Book of Sainte Foy, 39. 10 For the wider political context of Bernard’s unhappiness at Angers, see S. Fanning, A Bishop and His World before the Gregorian Reform: Hubert of Angers, 1006–1047 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1988), 69–70. 11 Sheingorn, “Letter to Lord Fulbert,”Book of Sainte Foy, 39–40. 12 Sheingorn, “Letter to Lord Fulbert,”Book of Sainte Foy, 40. Bernard had presumably heard miracle stories at the Chartres Foy chapel as part of the official liturgy, but in

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14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25

26 27 28

29

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Conques they are part of oral culture too. Rachel Koopmans argues that a saint’s cult depended primarily on the telling of stories, with oral transmission as the “dominant discourse”, Wonderful to Relate: Miracle Stories and Miracle Collecting in High Medieval England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011). Bishop Fulbert of Chartres had been Bernard’s mentor during his student years at Chartres. Fulbert at the time was an eminent teacher at the cathedral school. After 1020, when fire destroyed most of the town and cathedral, Fulbert dedicated his remaining eight years of life to reconstructing the cathedral and creating new liturgies for the cult of Mary’s Nativity, as well as writing sermons for Advent. These works are analyzed by Margot E. Fassler, The Virgin of Chartres: Making History through Liturgy and the Arts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), especially 79–129. The major relic at Chartres was a tunic of the Virgin. Sheingorn, “Letter Intended for the Abbot and Monks, Which is Considered the Conclusion of the First Book,” Book of Sainte Foy, I.34, 109. Sheingorn, “Letter,” Book of Sainte Foy, I.34, 109. Sheingorn, “Letter,” Book of Sainte Foy, I.34, 110. Sheingorn, “Letter,” Book of Sainte Foy, I.34, 110. Sheingorn, “Letter,” Book of Sainte Foy, I.34, 110–11. Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, II.8, 132. Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, I.33, 104–5. Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, I.13, 77. Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, I.13, 77. Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, I.13, 78. Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, I.13, 79: “The image represents the pious memory of the holy virgin before which, quite properly and with abundant remorse, the faithful implore her intercession for their sins. Or, the statue is to be understood not intelligently in this way: it is a repository of holy relics, fashioned into a specific form only because the artist wished it.” Jacques Bousquet comments about Bernard’s criticism that it’s perhaps “excessive” to imagine that the abbey was not able to find acceptable redactors of miracles on site, since he notes there was no interruption in producing a cartulary and other texts throughout the century; Le Rouergue au premier Moyen Âge, vers 800–1250. Les possessions, leurs rapports, et leurs domains, t. 1 (Rodez: Société des lettres, sciences et arts de l’Aveyron, 1992), 282. Johannes Fabian, Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), 31. Mary Louise Pratt, “Scratches on the Face of the Country; or, What Mr. Barrow Saw in the Land of the Bushmen,” in “Race,” Writing, and Difference, ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 139. Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, II.4, 120–24, recounts a procession to the place called Molompize, where Sainte Foy had property rights. “Its purpose was to lay claim to the property for the use and sustenance of the abbey. For it is a deeply rooted practice and firmly established custom that, if land given to Sainte Foy is unjustly appropriated by a usurper for any reason, the reliquary of the holy virgin is carried onto that land as a witness in regaining the right to her property” (120–21) [my italics]. Sheingorn, Book of Saint Foy, I.23, 88. Dominique Barthélemy suggests that the Bernardian playfulness is not as unique as some have argued, finding such joking a characteristic of works produced in a pilgrimage setting; “Sainte Foy et les quadrupèdes d’après Bernard d’Angers et ses continuateurs,” in La Dérision au Moyen Âge: De la pratique au ritual politique, ed. Elisabeth Crouzet-Pavan and Jacques Verger (Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 2007), 13–33. See the Conques monastery cartulary for their rich holdings of dependencies and donations from the ninth to the twelfth century; Gustave Desjardins, Cartulaire de l’Abbaye de Conques en Rouergue (Paris: Alphonse Picard, 1879; repr. 2017). In the Liber miraculorum I.25, Gerbert is shown stealing a nugget of gold from the workshop where the golden altar had been made, and in I.17 Bernard lists the many liturgical objects produced by the monastery’s metal workshop.

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32 Sheingorn, “Prologue of the Third Book,” Book of Sainte Foy, 142–43. 33 Robertini’s Latin edition of the text, 469–73, includes an extensive index of classical Latin authors cited or echoed in the Liber miraculorum – not just by Bernard of Angers but also by his several monk-continuators in Books three and four. Pamela Sheingorn and I in our analysis of the miracle texts, Writing Faith: Text, Sign, & History in the Miracles of Sainte Foy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 65–99 identified several different monk-continuators of the Liber miraculorum, arguing that all use a corporate monastic voice as opposed to Bernard’s intellectual outsider (ethnographic) voice, but their writing was no less erudite despite Bernard’s condescension. 34 Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, I.6, 60–63. 35 Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, I.7, 63. 36 Sheingorn, “Letter to the Lord Fulbert,” Book of Sainte Foy, 41. 37 Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, I.7, 67. 38 Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, I.9, 69. 39 Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, I.34, 109. 40 Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, I.34, 111. 41 Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, II.13, 139. 42 Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, II.14, 140. 43 Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, II.15, 140–41. 44 Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, II.1, 115. 45 Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, I.1, 50. 46 Michael Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses (New York: Routledge, 1993). 47 Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 177. 48 Thomas Head, Hagiography and the Cult of Saints: The Diocese of Orleans, 800–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 17. Head lists several medieval authors who claimed the help of their saint in writing and expressed the hope that the work would help them earn an eternal reward. 49 Robert Clark translation of “The Song of Sainte Foy,” in Sheingorn, The Book of Sainte Foy, 282. The prayer in occitan: “Arat preg, donna, que m’aiuz” (v. 453). 50 The Vie de seinte Fey exists in a single manuscript, formerly Welbeck, Portland I.c.I (Campsey Collection), now London, British Library Ms. Add. 70513, ff. 146–56. For the Anglo-Norman text, see A.T. Baker, “Vie anglo-normande de sainte Foy par Simon de Walsingham,” Romania 66 (1940–41): 49–84. I will quote from both the Baker edition and the translation of Delbert W. Russell, Verse Saints’ Lives Written in the French of England, trans. with Notes and Introduction (Tempe, AZ: ACMRS, 2012). Russell says Simon used Foy’s Passio in both prose and metrical versions, the Translatio, liturgical offices for the octave of Foy’s feast, and the Liber miraculorum (54). 51 M. Domenica Legge, Anglo-Norman in the Cloisters: The Influence of the Orders upon Anglo-Norman Literature (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1950), 10–12. The chapel was re-roofed in 1205–10, approximately the time Simon was asked to put the narrative of Foy’s life into the vernacular, according to Antonia Gransden, A History of the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, 1182–1256: Samson of Tottingham to Edmund of Walpole (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2007), 86, 88, 133–35. 52 Russell, Verse Saints’ Lives, 53. He notes that the contemporary biography of Abbot Sampson by his chaplain Jocelyn of Brakelond refers to the abbot as “below average height.” 53 Russell, Verse Saints’ Lives, vv. 88–106, 167. 54 Russell, Verse Saints’ Lives, calls attention to details of Simon’s narrative that show a monastic viewpoint; for example, the Benedictine monks (“black-robed”) at Conques whose visions instructed them to “transfer” Foy’s relics from Agen to Conques – a detail found only in the Latin metrical Translatio (182, note 60). Also in Simon’s narrative, the monk, Arinisdus, sent to steal the relics from the Agen monastery (where he lived for ten years in disguise) at Epiphany excused himself from the celebration “to see to the capes and vestments and other furnishings of the church – work which the other monks liked to avoid” (vv. 1063–68, 183). Russell comments that only a monk would have known this fact about monastic life!

116 The saint as patron of individuals 55 Russell, Verse Saints’ Lives, vv. 49–63, 166. 56 Russell, Verse Saints’ Lives, vv. 64–74, 166–67. 57 Russell, Verse Saints’ Lives, vv. 1–10, 165. The translator has capitalized the final “Faith,” but he comments in note 3 that “the writer is using a play on words – this is both bone Fei’ and bone fei, ‘righteous Faith’ and ‘the right faith.’ The deliberate play on the double meaning of proper name and theological virtue is used repeatedly in the narrative.” In the medieval text, a lowercase letter was always used for a proper name, enhancing the ambiguity of the reference. 58 Russell, Verse Saints’ Lives, v. 20, 165. 59 Russell, Verse Saints’ Lives, vv. 125–26, 168. 60 Russell, Verse Saints’ Lives, vv. 127–36, 168. 61 Emma Campbell, Medieval French Saints’ Lives: The Gift, Kinship and Community in Old French Hagiography (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2008), 101. Campbell adds, “The saint embodies the faith that she receives from Christ by virtue of the fact that she returns herself to him in acknowledgment of this gift, thereby affirming faith as a relationship that is maintained dynamically through its repeated performance” (102). See also 199–200 for the multiple puns on Foy’s name. 62 Russell, Verse Saints’ Lives, vv. 23–26, 165. On the metaphor of gem and ring for the consonance of name and life of Faith and Christ, see Campbell, Medieval French Saints’ Lives, 103. 63 Russell, Verse Saints’ Lives, vv. 820–22, 179. She is referred to as a treasure in Agen (vv. 853, 1144, 1159) and then in Conques (vv. 925, 987). 64 Russell, Verse Saints’ Lives, vv. 211–16, 170. In note 20, Russell comments that the passage “is clearly written for stylistic effect, making the proposed lectio difficilior plausible.” 65 Russell, Verse Saints’ Lives, vv. 537–40, 175. 66 Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Saints’ Lives and Women’s Literary Culture ca. 1150–1300: Virginity and its Authorizations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 73. In note 46, she cites scholarly references for the connection between virginity, gold, and precious stones. For the connections between the reliquary statue’s embellishment with gold and gems and the medieval picture of the heavenly Jerusalem adorned with gold, gems, and crystal, based on the biblical Revelations 21: 11–21, see Ellert Dahl, “Heavenly Images: The Statue of St. Foy of Conques and the Signification of the Medieval ‘Cult-Image’ in the West,” Acta ad archaeologiam et artiam historiam pertinanta 8 (1978): 182. 67 See Baker, “Vie anglo-normande de sainte Foy,” vv. 87, 104, 157, 265, 287, 331, 363, 501, 526, 595, 811, 819, 884, 914. Russell translates “amye” several times as “beloved,” which suggests a connection to courtly romance. See, for example, v. 265, “la Deu amye e sa drue,” but that is the only place in the poem where the courtly love term “drue” makes the connection explicit. Simon of Walsingham prefers to leave open the multiple connotations of “amye.” 68 See Baker, “Vie anglo-normande de sainte Foy,” vv. 180, 172, also vv. 384, 390, 465. 69 Wogan-Browne, Saints’ Lives and Women’s Literary Culture, 69. She also notes Simon’s reference to the person “danz Benjamin,” who gave him the Latin source material for his project, and notes that there was another Norfolk man (perhaps a relative), Thomas of Walsingham, in the monastery. For the ecclesiastical politics of Bury St Edmunds, see Baker, “Vie anglo-normande de sainte Foy,” 50–52, 57–58; also, Russell, Verse Saints’ Lives, 51–53. 70 Russell, Verse Saints’ Lives, vv. 145–48, 168. 71 Russell, Verse Saints’ Lives, vv. 149–56, 168. 72 Russell, Verse Saints’ Lives, vv. 157–60, 168–69. 73 Campbell, Medieval French Saints’ Lives, comments, “the subject position that the saint embodies as a spiritual model is both transferable and open to manipulation” – although Campbell emphasizes “communal” rather than individual appropriation (203). 74 See the careful, in-depth examination of this manuscript by Delbert Russell, “The Campsey Collection of Old French Saints’ Lives: A Re-examination of its Structure and Provenance,” Scriptorium 57 (2003): 51–83; also, discussion of Campsey by Campbell, Medieval French Saints’ Lives, 181–204. 75 Russell, “The Campsey Collection,” 69, note 57.

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76 Russell, “The Campsey Collection,” 63. 77 Wogan-Browne, Saints’ Lives and Women’s Literary Culture, 70. As she also argues persuasively, the Campsey collection reveals connections between women’s convents and noble laywomen’s religious interests, in “‘Clerc u lai, muïne u dame’: Women and AngloNorman Hagiography in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” in Women and Literature in Britain, 1150–1500, ed. Carol M. Meale (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 61–85. 78 The title of the collection was given by its editor, Mary S. Serjeantson. Osbern Bokenham, Legendys of Hooly Wummen. EETS. o.s. 206 (London: Oxford University Press, 1938). The unique manuscript of the work is in London, British Library Ms. Arundel 327. It contains the lives of Saints Margaret, Anne, Christine, Faith, Agnes, Dorothy, Mary Magdalen, Katherine, Cecilia, Agatha, Lucy, Elizabeth, and Ursula and the 11,000 virgins. 79 Karen A. Winstead notes that “Middle English authors were most likely to write about themselves in prologues, epilogues, or in autobiographical interludes,” in The Oxford History of Life-Writing, Vol. I The Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 128, 129–30. 80 I will quote from the translation by Sheila Delany, A Legend of Holy Women: A Translation of Osbern Bokenham’s Legends of Holy Women (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 195. The colophon’s writer, Thomas Burgh, reveals Osbern Bokenham’s identity, although Bokenham had coyly avoided giving his name in the manuscript’s first prologue to the life of St. Margaret: “[T]he author was an Austin friar whose name I will not just now reveal lest the unworthiness of his person and his name make the work be scorned” (Delany, A Legend of Holy Women, 3). 81 Delany, A Legend of Holy Women, 79. Serjeantson, Legendys, vv. 4028–34, 110. John Capgrave, Bokenham’s fellow East Anglian hagiographic translator, describes in the prologue to the Life of Augustine a conversation with a gentlewoman patron who requested the translation because she was born on Augustine’s feast day; Karen Winstead, John Capgrave’s Fifteenth Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 88. 82 Delany, A Legend of Holy Women, 155. Serjeantson, Legendys, vv. 8275–79, 225. 83 Delany, A Legend of Holy Women, 5. Another part of St. Margaret’s foot was at Reading convent; see Serjeantson, Legendys, xiv for patroness connections between Reading Abbey and Bokenham Priory. 84 Delany, A Legend of Holy Women, 6. Serjeantson, Legendys, vv. 179–80, 5. 85 Only Saints Christine, Ursula, and Agnes are not given personal links to women patrons. 86 Delany, A Legend of Holy Women, 41. Serjeantson, Legendys, vv. 2096–97, 58. On Katherine Denston (half-sister of John Clopton) and the Clopton clan’s special devotion to St. Anne, with many children named after the saint as well as chapels and altars they have dedicated to her in East Anglia, see Gail McMurray Gibson, The Theater of Devotion: East Anglian Drama and Society in the Late Middle Ages (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 82–84, 91–92. Also, her essay “Saint Anne and the Religion of Childbed: Some East Anglian Texts and Talismans,” in Interpreting Cultural Symbols: Saint Anne in Late Medieval Society, ed. by Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1990), 95–110. 87 Karen Winstead calls it “a scene so vibrant and intense that it is practically cinematic,” Life Writing, 129. It fits Gail Gibson’s definition of Bokenham’s “gossipy” tone in his “characteristically rambling and name-dropping explanations of the circumstances and patronage of each poem” (“Religion of Childbed,” 102). 88 Delany, A Legend of Holy Women, 102, 103. Serjeantson, Legendys, vv. 5065–69, 139. So-called “Holy Years” are when Saint James’ day July 15 falls on a Sunday, which it did in 1445. 89 Gibson, “Religion of Childbed,” 102–3. Bokenham’s Yorkist sympathies have been examined by Sheila Delany in “Bokenham’s Claudian as Yorkist Propaganda,” Journal of Medieval History 22 (1996): 83–96; on English political history in Aquitaine (site of Agen and Conques), see also Delany, Impolite Bodies: Poetry, Saints and Society in Fifteenth Century England (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 165–68; and on English politics in the Katherine legend, Delany, Impolitic Bodies, 172–79. See also Carol Hilles, “Gender and Politics in Osbern Bokenham’s Legendary,” New Medieval Literatures 4 (2001):

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92 93 94 95 96

97 98

99 100 101

102

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189–212. Hilles argues that Bokenham’s Legendary is “designed less to promote the interests of women than to appropriate women’s religious culture for a strategic political interest: the claims of Richard of York.” It does so by using “female piety to develop a rhetoric of political dissent” (190). Delany, A Legend of Holy Women, 126. Serjeantson, Legendys, vv. 6365–66, 174. Delany, A Legend of Holy Women, 140. For an in-depth discussion of Bokenham’s version of this saint’s life, see also Alexandra Cassatt Verini, “Reading Between the Lines: Female Friendship in Osbern Bokenham’s Life of St. Katherine of Alexandria,” Magistra: Women’s Spirituality in History 17 (2011): 53–70. Delany, A Legend of Holy Women, 158. Delany, A Legend of Holy Women, 176, 195. Serjeantson, Legendys, vv. 9534, 259, v. 10612, 288. Karen A. Winstead, Virgin Martyrs: Legends of Sainthood in Late Medieval England (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), 146. Rebecca Pinner draws attention to the correlation between donors’ names and the names of saints represented on Norfolk rood screens and retables in The Cult of St. Edmund in Medieval East Anglia (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2015), 200–1. The discovery was described by Simon Horobin in two articles: “A Manuscript Found in Abbotsford House and the Lost Legendary of Osbern Bokenham,” English Manuscript Studies, 1100–1700 17 (2007), 132–64; and “Politics, Patronage, and Piety in the Work of Osbern Bokenham,” Speculum 82 (2007): 932–49. See Horobin, “Politics, Patronage, and Piety,” 935. Mary Beth Long surveys hagiographic manuscripts in Middle English with an eye to reception by specific audiences in “Corpora and Manuscripts, Authors and Audiences,” in A Companion to Middle English Hagiography, ed. Sarah Salih (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2010), 47–69. A.S.G. Edwards, “The Transmission and Audience of Osbern Bokenham’s Legendys of Hooly Wummen,” in Late Medieval Religious Texts and Their Transmission: Essays in Honor of A. I. Doyle, ed. A.J. Minnis (Woodbridge, Suffolk: D.S. Brewer, 1994), 157–67. See A.S.G. Edwards, “Fifteenth-Century English Collections of Female Saints’ Lives,” in The Yearbook of English Studies 33 (2003), 131–41. For an original interpretation of the popularity of female saints’ lives, see Catherine Sanok, Her Life Historical: Exemplarity and Female Saints’ Lives in Late Medieval England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), especially chapters 2 and 3, “which show how such lives ‘construct a female audience’ and encourage that audience to use saints for ‘historical reflection’” (ix). See also Felicity Riddy, “‘Women Talking about the Things of God’: A Late Medieval Sub-culture,” in Women and Literature in Britain, 1150– 1500, ed. Carol M. Meale (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 104–27. Horobin, “Politics, Patronage, and Piety,” 937. These qualities, he argues, “manifested themselves in acts of charity, chastity, edifying conversation, preaching,” etc. (936). This is also the argument of Karen Winstead’s chapter “Decorous Lives: Saints and Consumers, 1400–1450,” in her Virgin Martyrs, 112–46. Horobin, “Politics, Patronage, and Piety,” 938. Alice Spencer, however, argues for a more sophisticated analysis of etymology and Trinitarian symbolism that Bokenham accentuates as he translates the Legenda aurea prologues; see her Language, Lineage, and Location in the Works of Osbern Bokenham (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013), 119 and 37–54. Horobin, “Politics, Patronage, and Piety,” 942. Horobin, “Politics, Patronage, and Piety,” 949. Horobin, “Politics, Patronage, and Piety,” 939. Horonin, “Politics, Patronage, and Piety,” 947–48.

4

Celebrating noble patronage of Foy’s cults

“Behind the foundation of any ecclesiastical institution lay the support of a layman,” Joel Rosenthal wrote in his classic study of gift giving and the aristocracy.1 His focus was late medieval England, but the interest of rich Christian families in acquiring the relics of saints and thereby becoming patrons of a saint’s cult goes back to the third and fourth centuries, according to Peter Brown, the historian of Late Antique Christianity, who notes that the “progress of the Christian community … rapidly dissolves into a loose bundle of family histories.”2 The church was designed as an “artificial kin group” whose members “were expected to project onto the new community a fair measure of the sense of solidarity, of the loyalties and of the obligations that had previously been directed at the physical family.”3 However, Brown cites numerous cases in which wealthy and influential citizens – women as well as men – appropriated the bodies of martyrs and put them in the family graveyard so that the holy grave was “brought out of the Christian community as a whole into the orbit of a single family.”4 “Privatization of the holy” was an aspect of early Christianity that worried Augustine even more than the danger of “superstition.”5 During the succeeding centuries, noble families continued their involvement in monastic foundations, fostering a relationship between their dynasty and a favored saint’s cult. As Megan McLaughlin suggests, by the eighth century the growth of monasticism provided liturgical communities with which lay elites sought to establish relationships – and the process “intensified” in the tenth and eleventh centuries. “By the year 1100, the bonds that linked the laity to the community that prayed were … very strong.”6 The lower classes established relationships with their parish church, but the seigneurial class (the “potentes”) had more options of how to associate with ecclesiastical structures.7 More often than not, they chose to become patrons of a monastery, either founding a new one or directing gifts of property toward an extant institution with which a noble family was often connected for generations. In the view of Howard Colvin, “the patronage of a religious house was as much a part of feudal privileges as the possession of a mill or a fishery.”8 Members of the patron family might enter the monastery, thus strengthening the ties between the church and their family.9 These ties were complex, and scholars have emphasized different aspects of the exchange of property as part of a “gift relationship” that promoted social bonding.10 Despite the focus of McLaughlin’s study on prayers for the dead, she concludes that the laity “seem to have been much more interested in creating and maintaining close bonds with potentially powerful intercessors – the local saints and their servants – than in specifying the kinds and quantities of prayers to be performed for them after death.”11 It is the power of those bonds, both

120 Celebrating noble patronage of Foy’s cults social and spiritual, that we will explore in this chapter on noble families as patrons of Foy’s cult. Amy Remensnyder argues that the secular nobility was seen as a threat to “monastic identity and liberty” and that monastic “legends rarely celebrate bishops and lay members of the aristocracy as founders, usually relegating them to secondary roles at best.”12 Many scholars of monastic history emphasize the conflicts between monasteries and their lay neighbors, especially the nobility. While he debunks historiographical theories of a large-scale shift in feudalism around the year 1000 (“mutation féodale de l’an mil”) as applicable to Sainte Foy’s miracle stories, Dominique Barthélemy sees a milieu of small enmities that can break into violence but usually feature the petty aristocracy, who are more troubled by the loss of a falcon or unexpected baldness! Barthélemy calls Sainte Foy the “lord” (“seigneur imaginaire”) of Conques abbey who occasionally must deal with threats to her honor, power, and possessions from the local aristocracy, threats she meets with vengeance miracles.13 Most scholars have acknowledged that the available sources – monastic cartularies, charters, annals, chronicles and other narratives – were produced by the monastery and were therefore written from a monastic perspective, one not necessarily “objective” but often hostile to outside lay interests.14 However reluctant abbeys were in general to acknowledge their noble patrons, there are certainly cases where family agendas outweighed monastic reluctance. One of those was the priory dedicated to Foy at Horsham St Faith, Norfolk, where on the refectory wall a thirteenth-century narrative painting celebrates the Anglo-Norman founders. Another was the priory dedicated to Foy in Sélestat, where to the liturgical materials of Foy’s cult sent from Conques were added texts acknowledging the aristocratic family of founder-patrons. Both locations will be discussed in depth in this chapter. In both cases, the longevity of the affiliation between noble founders and Sainte Foy’s cult is notable; the initial bond established between saint and family was sustained over several generations. Although the documentary and material evidence that remains for the majority of early Foy foundations is much less abundant than for Horsham St Faith or the Foy priory in Sélestat, the role of noble families as founders and patrons is evident across Europe. In the year 1105 – arguably the height of donations to Conques abbey – Pons II of Polignac with his wife Elisabeth and son Armand bequeathed the church at Bains (Haute-Loire) and an endowment to the monks of Saint-Foy, Conques.15 A Benedictine priory was built to manage the church and celebrate the liturgy. The donation charter added the provision that, although ambiguously stated, seems to put Pons and his male offspring into a special category of “donati” – that is, members of the monastic “familia” who were adult entrants that might live at the monastery.16 Dom Ursmer Berlière considers this category as the adult equivalent of “oblati,” young children given to the monastery to be raised.17 The “donati” normally retained control of their personal property and could manage it to their own benefit. They were regarded as members of the spiritual confraternity of the monastery who could be buried there when they died, at which time their goods would pass to the monastery.18 Rebuilt over the centuries, only the church’s Romanesque porch and nave remain, as well as a twelfth-century burial niche on one wall.19 The history of the Bains foundation from the later twelfth century onward was associated primarily with another local noble family, the De Fayets, who built a family chapel dedicated to Sainte Foy south of the choir. The first known prior was a member of the patron family, Robert

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De Fayet (1246–1282). The church became the parish church in the sixteenth century, with the De Fayets retaining ownership of their family chapel into the seventeenth century.20 The priory remained a dependency of Conques until the seventeenth century, when after long negotiations between all relevant parties it was given to the college of Jesuits at Puy-en-Velay.

Noblewomen and the Foy cult A connection between the cult of Sainte Foy and noble families is first apparent in the region around Conques. There is evidence from the early eleventh century – when Sainte Foy became the ascendant patron saint of Conques – that Foy’s name was given to female children of local aristocratic families who saw themselves as patrons of the abbey. A 1032 donation to the canons of Narbonne by the countess of the Rouergue, Richarde of Millau, mentions her companion Foy, the wife of Richarde’s son Hugues. Hugues de Calmont-d’Olt was a leading baron in the region. A 1051 donation to the Conques abbey names not just his mother Richarde but his wife Foy and their only daughter and heir, Berthe.21 In 1060, Hugues and his wife Foy again made a donation, this time giving the monastery of Perse near Espalion to Conques abbey.22 Foy the noblewoman, with her son Begon, also decided to give Conques complete control of the Figeac foundation that the Calmont-d’Olt family patronized.23 Unfortunately, Begon decided to re-gift the Figeac monastery to Cluny, triggering a face-off between Figeac and Conques monasteries that was only resolved when the two institutions were legally separated in 1096.24 The Conques cartulary clearly reveals the prominent role of noblewomen in monastic politics and economics, usually as donors and founders with their husbands or sons but occasionally on their own. The acknowledgment of women’s roles in founding and sustaining religious institutions is especially notable in eleventh- and twelfthcentury texts and documents as a result of the Church’s cultivation of noblewomen as allies.25 Despite the evidence, modern (male) historians have perennially ignored the agency of women in creating and supporting saints’ cults, a deficit that a careful reading of the texts here may avoid.26 The most long-lived Foy foundation in Normandy resulted from a quasi-resurrection miracle performed for Goteline (or Godehilde), the wife of Roger de Tosny, the dominant lord of the region.27 The miracle, positioned first in Book Three of the Liber miraculorum, was written by a Conques monk, who took up the task of recording Foy’s miracles on the death of Bernard of Angers (that is, after 1020). The monkcontinuator acknowledges Bernard’s collection, which the monk claims revealed the reach of Foy’s miraculous power “traversing the farthest region of the universe.”28 Most of Bernard’s stories are located in the Conques region of Aquitaine; the monkcontinuators who appropriate his text shift the emphasis to far-flung regions of the country and to foreign lands. The Goteline miracle happening far from the Rouergue sets the stage for Conques’ internationalizing project, which depended upon aristocratic patronage. The story functions as foundation myth for the cult in Normandy and features a noblewoman as both miracle recipient and church founder.29 With the lady Goteline near death, a bishop tells her husband Roger de Tosny, “We have just learned the quickly spreading news that in Aquitaine a very holy virgin and martyr named Foy shines brightly, working miracles completely unheard of and full of wonder.”30 Roger

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then swore on a relic in the bishop’s hands, “vowing Goteline to the holy martyr. He also promised that he himself would conduct her to the abbey church of Sainte Foy with a great gift for the saint.”31 Goteline was miraculously restored to health, but the promised trip to Conques could not take place due to threats from Tosny enemies.32 Goteline therefore built a church in honor of Foy on their feudal domain, which became known as Conches-en-Ouche.33 The Tosny couple appear in historical records, but the stories of Goteline’s healing miracle and subsequent foundation dedicated to Sainte Foy do not. They occupy the liminal space of myth with the miracle story as foundation legend for Foy’s cult in Conches. Significantly for the gendering of the myth, the aristocratic female is given primary credit for building the Conches church of Foy. As Lucien Musset points out, however, the historical record does support a view of Goteline/Godehilde as a powerful noblewoman. After the death of her husband, her name appears in at least four official acts with that of her son, likely still a minor.34 The first church of Sainte Foy in Conches was probably attached to the Tosny chateau but also appears to have functioned as a parish church (documentation for the early eleventh-century church is lacking).35 Dating tenth- and eleventh-century-Tosny activities is challenging, and historians disagree about which Tosny warrior went to Spain, when, and whether one of these males founded the Foy cult back home.36 The history of the Normans and Normandy lends itself to myth-making.37 Taken as history, the story of Goteline’s healing implies that the Foy church was founded ca. 1026, since the miracle narrative mentions a ruler Richard who had ordered her male relations, “the leading men of the realm,” to gather at the house of the dying woman. Historians identify Richard as Richard II, duke of Normandy from 996 to his death in 1026.38 The miracle story thus situates Goteline’s Foy foundation ca. 1026, or ten years before her husband returned from Spain to found the abbey of Saint Pierre at Chatillon (Castillon/ Castellion) in 1035. In doing so, the miracle story engages history to foreground aristocratic female agency in establishing the Norman cult of Sainte Foy.

Horsham St Faith The cult of Sainte Foy/Saint Faith came to England as a result of the Anglo-Norman hegemony in the late eleventh century, with Norman elites bringing not just their political and administrative apparatus across the Channel but also their saints. The cults that were introduced to England came under the aegis of noble families who established priories on their newly acquired lands.39 Writing of the aristocracy of Norman England, Judith Green says, “the vast majority of surviving aristocratic charters are in favor of religious houses.”40 There were at least five church dedications to Saint Faith in Norfolk, according to Charles Linnell, and 23 in England as a whole according to Francis Bond.41 The foundation at Horsham St Faith near Norwich is a rare example of a site where the saint’s cult (established ca. 1100) has been able to maintain – via multiple reappropriations – a vital identification with the saint until the present. It is an identity based on more than just retention of the place name, unlike so many other former Foy cult sites across Europe where all that remains is the saint’s name. Horsham St Faith’s Benedictine monastery ceased to exist in 1537 when Henry VIII suppressed institutional Catholicism in the kingdom, but the priory building survived in part and has retained its Catholic connections until the present. The unique wall

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paintings featuring Foy/Faith’s founding miracle that were rediscovered in the twentieth century have kept Saint Faith’s reputation as well as the memory of the AngloNorman founding couple alive at the site. The nearby parish church also functioned to preserve the cult in East Anglia through its guild of St. Faith and close ties to the priory, which supplied the parish priest. A diachronic perspective thus allows us to see how reappropriations can work over a long timeline, although the primary emphasis in this chapter will be the role of the noble family for the first two centuries of the priory’s existence. Sybil de Cheyney and her husband Robert Fitzwalter were responsible for establishing the cult of Sainte Foy on their lands in Norfolk ca. 110542 – a pattern followed by many of the early Foy foundations outside the Rouergue that resulted from a visit to Conques by noble couples who then dedicated a priory to the saint or made other gifts to Foy’s cult when they returned home. For example, Gautier (Walter) Giffard, the Count of Longueville (Seine-Inférieure), went to Conques with his mother Agnes and a large retinue of Norman lords ca. 1107, according to the Conques cartulary. Among the eighteen Norman witnesses named were the mother of one lord and the wife of another. Gautier gave the dime of Taverham to the monks and abbot of Horsham St Faith.43 Guy de Grancey, Count of Saulx-Tavannes, also visited Conques and returned to the Val-Suzon north of Dijon (Burgundy) to found a priory dedicated to Sainte Foy at Chevigny in 1086. The donation came with substantial lands – cultivated and wild, woods and meadows, and workers.44 Noble families were also responsible for a number of other early Burgundian foundations (mostly ninth or tenth century).45 The Horsham foundation legend survived in a now-lost manuscript and was printed by Dugdale in his Monasticon Anglicanum, first in Latin in 1655 and then in English translation in 1817.46 According to the legend, Robert and Sybil were in southern France returning from a pilgrimage to Rome when they were captured by brigands and put into prison. Their prayers to Sainte Foy led to their liberation by the saint, who loosened their fetters. They then detoured to the shrine of Foy at Conques, where they were received by the abbot and monks. During a twelve-day stay at the abbey, they heard the life and miracles of the saint recounted daily and made a vow to found a priory dedicated to Foy on their land at Horsford, Norfolk.47 They returned to England with two monks of Conques, Bernard and Girard.48 This story of miraculous liberation by Foy/Faith was painted on the refectory wall of the Horsham St Faith priory in the thirteenth century, a century and a half after its founding (Figs. 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3). The paintings are exceptional in England, both in their style and in unambiguously celebrating the agency of the saint and the AngloNorman couple. There could not be a clearer representation of the symbolic and material roles of noble families in founding and sustaining the cult of a saint. The first two scenes in the narrative of the priory’s foundation were concealed by alterations to the room when the building ceased to be a priory in the sixteenth century. In the third scene, we see Sybil and Robert traveling on horseback in southern France, surrounded by mounted bandits (Fig. 4.4). They are then shown imprisoned (Fig. 4.5), with a subsequent scene of the couple praying to Sainte Foy for help (Fig. 4.6). In the next scene, Sainte Foy holds open the prison door, liberating Sybil and Robert (Fig. 4.7). After being freed, they visit Conques, and we see them praying before the golden reliquary statue of the saint (Fig. 4.8). In the penultimate scene, they return to England on a ship with the two monks from Conques (Fig. 4.9), and the final scene is one of building the priory (Fig. 4.10).

124 Celebrating noble patronage of Foy’s cults Given the 150-year gap between the founding of the priory in 1105 and the painting of the miraculous liberation scenes ca. 1250, one might ask why it was suddenly important in the mid-thirteenth century to celebrate the Anglo-Norman founding miracle with such a prominently placed work of art. It’s a question we cannot answer definitively, but the effort given to creating this wall painting so long after the event testifies to the continuing importance of the noble family of patrons – as donors with considerable material influence on the running of “their” monastery but also as patrons alongside Saint Faith in the monastic “imaginaire.”49 In the Horsham wall painting, human and sacred history fuse. The founding miracle commemorated visually on the wall of the refectory is a continual reminder of the priory’s dependence upon the intercession of both its human and divine patrons.50 The wall painting and its source legend blur the boundary between this world and the next, between lord and saint, representing both patrons as essential to the foundation.51 Priory deeds throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries show grants from the couple, their son William, and later members of the family, who continued their patronage until 1270, when the priors took over as lords of the manor,52 and there are hints in the records that Sybil’s role was especially prominent.53 The foundation deed says that the priory is to be supported by the advowson of churches of Horsford, Royden, and Mor, with tithes from sixteen other churches. Sybil gave her lands at Rudham that she had inherited from her father, Ralph de Cheyney, lord of Rudham. He was evidently of higher status than Robert’s father, Walter de Cadomo (or Caen), who had acquired the manor of Horsford after the Conquest.54 It seems significant that the three sons of Robert and Sybil – John, Robert, and William – usually took the family name Cheyney of their mother Sybil rather than the name Fitzwalter of their father Robert.55 Simon Yarrow suggests that taking the mother’s name was “a decision that probably reflected their pride in what was a powerful family name.”56 Horsham St Faith, unlike the Conques shrine, does not appear to have drawn large numbers of pilgrims. Although the initial foundation of the priory resulted from a miraculous liberation commemorated on its refectory wall, Horsham itself was not a site famous for new miracles or relics that would make it a pilgrimage destination.57 It functioned as a modest and traditional monastic house during four centuries, managing its local holdings,58 providing liturgical services for the pious,59 and even copying astrological and astronomical texts.60 In the Horsham parish church, Saint Faith is represented as a virgin martyr among other virgin martyr saints on the rood screen. Faith’s was one cult among many in the rich and diverse devotional landscape of East Anglia. Competition between saints’ cults was a familiar feature of medieval ecclesiastical life, and one of the miracles of the Norwich child martyr William describes a woman preparing wax candles for both William’s and Faith’s shrines.61 The cults of Faith and William were rivals in the Norwich locale in the mid-twelfth century – Faith’s supported by a noble family and William’s created and sustained by the Norwich ecclesiastical authorities. William, a twelve-year-old apprentice, was murdered in 1144, and ca. 1150 a monk of the Benedictine priory at Norwich, Thomas of Monmouth, began to write a narrative, The Life and Passion of St. William, the Martyr of Norwich, to promulgate the child’s cult.62 The Norwich bishop William of Turbeville saw the new cult of William as a “means of gaining revenue for the cathedral and, in particular, publicized any miracles that brought benefits to his clergy.”63 However, the bishop’s cult was actively opposed from the start by the Norwich sheriff, John de Cheyney, who was Sybil’s son and thus member of the patron family

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behind the cult of Saint Faith in Horsham. The child William’s death had been attributed to the Jews of the city. According to Benedicta Ward, the Cheyneys “held Norwich Castle for the king” and were supposed to “protect the interest of the Norwich Jews.”64 Therefore, in addition to his family loyalties, John de Cheyney was a representative of the king, responsible for discouraging anti-Semitic sentiment and protecting the Jewish community. The chief agitator for the cult of William, Thomas of Monmouth, accused John de Cheyney of accepting bribes from the Jewish community in order to prevent justice being done for the child’s murder.65 Jeffrey Cohen has analyzed the rhetoric of blood surrounding the child William’s cult creation, for which Thomas of Monmouth’s Life and Passion was chiefly responsible. Thomas accused the Jews of ritual murder, emphasizing the unstaunchable flow of blood from the child’s corpse and the Jews’ lust to shed Christian blood. The narrative climax of Thomas’s blood motif is the death of sheriff John the Cheyney, “representative of the king, who repeatedly gave Jews shelter in the castle whenever the citizens of Norwich united in their desire to massacre them.” In the story, Sheriff John suffers an internal hemorrhage that lasts two years until, exhausted from loss of blood, he dies.66 The rival cults of William and Faith survived until the Reformation, when saints’ cults were reformed. Although by the fourteenth century the patronage of the Anglo-Norman founding family had ceased, the Saint Faith priory benefited from the advocacy of two powerful noblemen at the very end of the century. In 1389, Horsham priory was still an “alien” priory, subordinated to the Conques abbey, but in that year the monks elected their own prior, an English monk, for the first time. They petitioned to be naturalized, since, they argued, as “alien” the required payments for charity and to the national exchequer were too onerous. The petition was backed by John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the young king’s uncle, as well as the Earl of Huntingdon, the king’s brother. With that quasi-royal support, the priory was granted denization and discharged from fines that had crippled it throughout the preceding century.67 The support of the cult by these powerful aristocrats was not a personal dynastic tradition – as it was for the Fitzwalter-Cheyney family – but it shows that lay noblemen could step in to alleviate monastic needs and substantially affect the ecclesiastical history of a religious institution and its cult. As Sydney Armitage-Smith writes in his biography, John of Gaunt was heir in a broader sense to Lancastrian traditions of ecclesiastical patronage: The man whom Wycliffe in 1376 thought to be sincerely opposed to the undue wealth of the religious orders, whom the country in 1378 believed to be plotting a wholesale expropriation of Church property, is the patron of more than a score of abbeys. He is constantly giving gifts, not only the small marks of favor like timber and venison from his forests, but gifts of land, solid endowments, manors, and the advowsons of churches and chapels. He protects clergy from the rapacity of the King’s officers and from oppression by his own purveyors. He acts as their champion in difficulties and as an arbiter in their disputes.68 The wall painting of Horsham’s founding miracle was retouched in the early ffteenth century (c. 1440) to update details of armor and clothing, with resources probably supplied by noble lay patrons like John of Gaunt. The official celebration of Faith’s cult at Horsham ended in 1537; the religious orders had been “harassed continually by government agents for more than a year,” as

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David Knowles points out. In Norfolk, eight houses including Horsham had a total of sixty-nine religious that decreased to thirty-two between 1535 and 1536.69 The priory was acquired by one of the commissioners for the suppression, Richard Southwell, who also received three other monastic properties.70 It was said Horsham St Faith was his favorite. The priory, then known as “Abbey Farm,” came with 328 acres of agricultural land. Southwell pulled down most of the monastery buildings, leaving the refectory wing (location of the wall paintings), and built his family house next to the original monastery. Southwell had managed to maneuver in the political and religious crosscurrents of the sixteenth century to maintain his family, which remained Catholic. Although he played a large role in the suppression of the monasteries, he kept a Marian priest in his family house “as a sign of their attachment to the old ways.”71 At the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign, many Catholics who had served Mary in her brief term, including Richard Southwell and his son Robert Southwell, were removed from office but eventually regained their commissions.72 Richard’s grandson Robert Southwell therefore grew up in Horsham, close to the former priory. He was raised a Catholic and sent to the Jesuit school in Douai on the continent. He later returned to England to proselytize, becoming a martyr for the Catholic faith in 1595.73 The former priory retained its Catholic connections until contemporary times.74 Given the Southwell family’s recusant history, they may be the ones in the Tudor period who covered the thirteenth-century wall painting with oak paneling. Above the foundation miracle narrative, a gigantic Crucifixion scene with figures of Christ, Mary, and John and towering figures of a queen and a king on each side was whitewashed after the suppression, when the priory refectory was turned into a private home. The upper wall paintings were discovered in 1924 when Abbey Farm caught fire and the east wall of what had been the monks’ refectory was exposed. A new owner with an interest in medieval wall painting bought the building in 1968; only then were the unique cartoon-like scenes with the founding miracle of Sybil and Robert’s liberation uncovered.75 The legacy of the Saint Faith cult is still visible in modern Horsham.

Sélestat and the Hohenstaufen dynasty Establishment of a saint’s cult in a new location often led to a reshaping of the cult through new versions of its iconography and hagiography to meet local needs and interests. Rewriting the saint’s passio or miracle stories was not uncommon with any appropriation, as we have seen with Foy’s cult throughout the centuries in multiple cult sites. The foundation of a new priory dedicated to Sainte Foy at Sélestat in the late eleventh century, from which the cult of Foy spread eastward through family connections of the aristocratic patrons, provides a clear example of how the hagiographic texts could be rewritten to change the focus of the cult and acknowledge powerful benefactors. At the same time, surviving cult materials also reveal the tensions between various stakeholders working to appropriate the cult message. Robert Bartlett points to the “new vistas” (stylistic, narrative, and ideological) that open up when a new author decides to rewrite a saint’s life. Among the forms of rewriting he mentions are “omission; addition; rewording; restructuring; new framing elements … such as prologues and headings. A prose Life could be turned into a verse Life or vice versa, and of course, there were translations from one language into

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another.” In previous chapters, we have seen the omissions or additions of characters from the Foy martyrdom story in sculpture and text, depending on which saint or which cult location is being valorized. At Conques, the monk-continuators of the Liber miraculorum had a different subject position with regard to the monastery than northern cleric Bernard of Angers, who had begun the collection of Foy’s miracles, while the stylistic flourishes of Books Three and Four reflect the monks’ very different literary tastes. The Chanson de Sainte Foi translates the story of the saint into the vernacular from its original Latin, while other versions of the saint’s life versify it. Osbern of Bokenham’s legendary adds intimate personal prologues and epilogues that frame the received saint’s story, and he then removes them in his later legendary. Discussing how monastic identities are created, Susan Boynton uses the concept of “layering” to define the process by which traditions are reshaped;77 new possibilities are developed as new information is incorporated into older traditions. “In both history and liturgy the elaboration of preexisting material through expansion and interpolation of new ideas results in a new work with a complex, cumulative meaning.”78 This kind of appropriation does not directly replace the older meanings but adds to them and in so doing may make significant changes in the message being sent, possibly introducing contradictions between older and newer elements. Because each text or collection of texts at a new site potentially performs a different kind of cultural work, it is important to look beyond the general ascription to Sainte Foy and to focus instead on the specific changes that are made – which may be explained by the new historical setting and new tasks to be performed. In looking closely at family appropriations of Foy’s cult, the process of layering is especially visible in Sélestat. There the aristocratic family dedicated a priory to Sainte Foy and received from the mother house at Conques a libellus – an illuminated manuscript with a full set of extant texts to celebrate its patron.79 The texts from Conques provided the basis for liturgical celebrations in the new priory. Changes were then made to accommodate the texts to the liturgical practices at Sélestat. For example, marginal notes to the sermons in the libellus (Sélestat 22) divide the sermons into lessons to be read in the liturgy of Sainte Foy. Sermo in festivitate santae Fidis (fol. 105r–106v) is divided into three parts, and Sermo de eadem festivitate (fols. 106v–108r) is divided into eight parts for reading. The passio in the manuscript is divided into eight numbered sections for Foy’s vigil and feast day.80 Eventually layered into the compilation as time passed were new materials that integrated the aristocratic sponsors into the saint’s cult and legends, identifying the cult not just with its patron saint but also with its patron family, the Hohenstaufen. From the Sélestat priory, the Foy cult materials were later copied at other monasteries with family connections to the Hohenstaufen, where they were also revised to work effectively in their specific cultural milieux.81 André de Mandach discusses the original part and then various thirteenth- and fourteenth-century additions to the Sélestat manuscript, calling it a “literary chameleon” that was “transformed in the course of centuries by adapting itself to diverse conditions: hagiographic, political, liturgical, theatrical, and musical.”82 The cultural work that the Sélestat manuscript was designed to do was first of all authorize a new foundation dedicated to Sainte Foy and enable the celebration of Foy’s feast days according to liturgical tradition. Texts in the extant libellus now include the saint’s Passio and two versions of her Translatio (prose and verse), hymns

128 Celebrating noble patronage of Foy’s cults to Foy and other saints, sermons in honor of Foy, chants for the office of Foy as well as other liturgical texts, a list of books in the priory library (from 1296), the foundation legend of the Sélestat priory (in a thirteenth-century hand), a communal charter confirming the rights and privileges of Sélestat by King Frederic (dated 1315), and the most complete copy of the Liber miraculorum – almost one hundred miracle narratives that had been redacted at Conques in the course of the eleventh century. The Sélestat foundation was therefore appropriating relevant materials that had taken shape in the cult site of Conques, to which it added texts composed in Sélestat. The Conques agendas are most visible in the Liber miraculorum, which had multiple authors as discussed in previous chapters of this book. The first author, who wrote early in the eleventh century, was Bernard of Angers, a cleric and intellectual from northern France, who traveled south to the Conques, where he collected stories of miracles worked by Foy, the child martyr. Bernard represents Foy not only as a young girl but as a trickster or practical joker who extracts jewelry and pretty golden objects from the wealthy and enjoys teasing the monks. In his collection of Foy’s miracles, Bernard features himself as sophisticated outsider and central character, investigating the stories from an academic perspective, and even undergoing a spiritual conversion of his own. Bernard offers his miracle collection to the Conques abbey, but his primary agenda appears to be use of the unusual Foy miracles to establish his reputation as a scholar and hagiographer for an elite clerical audience in northern France. After Bernard’s early death, monks at Conques continued to write down narratives of miracles their saint had performed, and they appended their chapters to Bernard’s to form a four-book collection of miracles. Several sets of anonymous monk-authors, writing at different times throughout the eleventh century, successively took up the task of redacting new miracles. Each set of monastic authors wrote with differing styles and emphases, but all shared in the central goal of promoting the prestige of their monastery as a pilgrimage site. In the new post-Bernard miracle narratives written by the monks at Conques, the saint loses most of her playful Bernardian trickster characteristics to become a celestial virgin martyr and powerful physician of both soul and body. Without eliminating either Bernard’s miracles with their autobiographical agenda or the Conques-centered miracles with their corporate agenda, the foundation at Sélestat appropriated the cult materials to its own political ends. The priory was entirely dependent on the patronage of a single noble family known as the Staufer or Hohenstaufen. The result in Sélestat was a sustained contest between the monastic authorities, the Hohenstaufen family of patrons, and the town to control the cult narrative. The extant liturgical texts, historical documents, and material culture reveal very clearly the struggle that took place. Here the focus will be on the rhetorical moves of both the monastic writers and the Hohenstaufen family members during the first two centuries; later, the town (the commune and the parish church) entered the contest.83 As in Conches (Normandy) and Horsham St Faith (Norfolk), a noblewoman Hildegard figures centrally in the story of the Foy cult foundation at Sélestat in Alsace. The historical representation of female patronage can take place in the documentary record or in the legendary narratives, or both. Goteline’s role as founder of the Conches Foy church is celebrated only in a miracle story, whereas in Horsham St Faith, Sybil appears in both the legal donation charters and the foundation legends (textual and visual). At Sélestat, Hildegard is present only in the historical foundation

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documents, not in the subsequent narratives added to the miracle collection which feature her sons and male ecclesiastics. Toward the end of her life, Hildegard of Egisheim, the widow of Frederick von Büren, founded a church dedicated to the Holy Sepulchre on her domain in Sélestat; then, with her six children, she also dedicated the church to Sainte Foy in 1094. Calling herself “poor and undistinguished in Christ” (“in Christo pauper & modica”), Hildegard’s donation charter names her sons Otto (the bishop of Strasbourg), Frederic (duke of Swabia), Louis (Count Palatine), Conrad and Walter, as well as her daughter Adelaïde. Land around the extant church was reserved to the monastery for future building, with property in Wittisheim and a vineyard in Orschwiller as well as two serfs given for support of the monastery. The abbot at Conques was to provide religious direction to the priory, and provision was made for a burial ground by the church.84 The location of the Foy church in the center of the town led to centuries of conflict with both the nearby parish church and the town government that required endless legal and ritual negotiation.85 After Hildegard’s death and that of their brother Conrad in 1095, her other sons confirmed their support for the monastery86 and then in July 1095 gave the church and their entire domain at Sélestat to the monastery at Conques.87 Both 1095 documents acknowledge that the donation of the church to Conques follows the wishes of their mother, Hildegard. The July charter says that all the brothers want to complete the donation begun by their mother in honor of Sainte Foy because they have inherited the intention (voluntatis) of their mother as well as her property. In her offspring’s documents, Hildegard figures as prime mover for the establishment of a Sélestat Foy foundation. At the earliest stage of appropriation after the Foy church was given to Conques, the liturgical texts acquired from Conques were simply copied for the new foundation; however, in the twelfth century (ca. 1108–38) an addition to the Sélestat libellus was made in a second stage of appropriation by adding a miracle story that featured the founding family.88 Although Hildegard’s historical role as the original donor to Foy’s cult was well-documented, the new foundation legend omits her entirely. Hildegard and the maternal piety of her sons vanish in the new addition, and ecclesiastical authorities take center stage. Rather than a gesture in honor of their mother, the narrative explains the brothers’ motive as penitence. Bishop Otto as a churchman is given the leading role when the brothers agree to build a church and offer it to the Conques abbey. The penury of the monks at the Sélestat priory is emphasized along with the role of Foy, who works a miracle on their behalf. Modes of tropology and allegory shape the interpretations offered. This is evidently an account of the priory’s founding and fortunes from a monastic perspective and in a monastic mode. The Hohenstaufen family is now acknowledged but only within the framework of Foy’s miraculous rescue of the impoverished priory, since the saint appears to manipulate the aristocratic patrons into being generous. The legend opens with a visit the brothers made to Conques that resulted in ties between the Hohenstaufen dynasty and the Conques abbey. The text emphasizes that when the brothers arrived at the Conques monastery they were received with great ceremony by Abbot Begon and the monks and were named as members of the monastic community. When they returned home to Sélestat, the brothers agreed to build a church modeled on the Holy Sepulchre and offer it to Conques and Sainte Foy. Their mother Hildegard is never mentioned; her agency in the foundation has been totally

130 Celebrating noble patronage of Foy’s cults obliterated. The foundation legend suggests that the Hohenstaufen family was the legitimate founder of the cult of Sainte Foy in Alsace because it had been authorized by the Foy abbey in the Rouergue. The legend frames the action by a description of the priory’s penury as time passed, with the implication that the Hohenstaufen founders were not doing their duty as patrons. Sainte Foy’s miraculous intervention was therefore necessary. It tells a story of a soldier, Walter of Tubelsheim, doing penance at night until matins at the door of the Sainte-Foy priory, Sélestat. Walter is surprised by a vision of multitudes of men in the priory courtyard, dressed in white, carrying sacks on their shoulders, with a walking stick in their hands in the style of pilgrims. Behind them on the public road, he saw horsemen dressed in red on red horses. Suddenly, Walter’s name was called by one of the pilgrims, who introduced himself as the spirit of Count Conrad, in life a benefactor of the soldier. Conrad asks Walter to tell his brother Bishop Otto to rescue the Foy church with a donation of the property that Conrad was supposed to have inherited. Otto should also go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem in order to rediscover his love of heavenly goods and give up his tendency to cherish earthly goods. If Otto didn’t follow his brother Conrad’s counsel, he would suffer an early death. Conrad then explicated the significance of the white-clad men, who had earned the protection of Sainte Foy by leading a chaste and penitent life, going on pilgrimage, and giving generously to the church. Although not yet at peace, they would eventually join Sainte Foy in heaven. Here the spirit gestured toward a figure of a young virgin of surpassing beauty wearing a diadem who was standing in the threshold of the cloister. He added that the redcolored horsemen were souls who had transgressed earthly and heavenly laws or died in battle without confessing. They would suffer the torments of hell, which Conrad would have shared except that he and his brothers had given Sainte Foy a church. The foundation legend says that shortly after having that vision Walter saw the Hohenstaufen brothers in Sélestat and told them about his vision of Conrad. Although the monks of the Foy priory were not expecting much support from the Hohenstaufen family, the dead brother Conrad’s messages persuaded the brothers to give an adequate donation to the priory so that monks who had been living miserably were suddenly enriched through the intervention of their powerful patroness the saint. This legend primarily celebrates the saint and her powers while portraying the noble brothers as sinners who must be shown the right way. The point of view of the text is a monastic one, acknowledging the material needs that a lay patron could and should supply (but only with a divine nudge!). Walter’s vision is a well-known genre in hagiographic literature, the oraculum – in which a person of authority who is now dead appears to make predictions and offer counsel to the living. In Macrobius and other medieval dream interpreters, it’s often a family member of an earlier generation who comes to warn descendants.89 Here it is the dead brother Conrad. As Patrick Geary has shown, portrayal of the dead as intermediaries between this world and the next is found in both Germanic and Classical traditions.90 The dream vision was especially favored in monastic literature, so it is not surprising to find it used when the Sainte Foy priory at Sélestat produced a foundation legend.91 At a third stage of appropriation, there was a subsequent addition to this founding legend. A prophecy was added to it that the descendants of Hildegarde’s son Frederic would rule the Empire.92 This prophecy was certainly written after 1138 when Frederic’s son became Emperor Conrad II, as it acknowledges the Hohenstaufen dynasty’s power. The whole foundation legend, including the prophecy, was redacted later in

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a thirteenth-century hand and inserted into the Sélestat libellus, presumably in the thirteenth century. It occupies f. 13r–v at the start of the collection of Foy’s miracles.93 The amplified narrative foregrounded the significance of the Hohenstaufen family as patron of the priory and conditions the reading of all that follows in the manuscript. Thus, as the family’s fortunes rose, the monks at Sélestat reshaped their miracle book in order to glorify their aristocratic patrons and attract their resources to the monastery. The Büren line became the Hohenstaufen dynasty, and their substantial patronage of the Foy cult continued uninterrupted from the late eleventh-century donation charters through the twelfth century, when a new Romanesque church was built.94 Hildegard’s great-grandson, Frederick Barbarossa, was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 1155, and his gift of stained-glass windows for the new church of Sainte-Foy in 1162–63 demonstrates the wisdom of the monks’ strategy of reminding their aristocratic patrons of their obligations. The windows no longer exist, but a sixteenthcentury description by the humanist scholar Beatus Rhenanus when they were still in place identified a central window with Christ in glory accompanied by John the Baptist and Sainte Foy receiving the window from donor Frederick Barbarossa. A window to the right depicted Foy’s martyrdom, and one on the left showed the spirit of Conrad appearing to Walter of Tubelsheim, with a procession of pilgrims, horsemen, and Hohenstaufen brothers, who gave their mother’s heritage to Sainte Foy.95 The public imagery of Foy’s church in the Middle Ages gave pride of place to the Hohenstaufen dynasty as patrons and protectors of the cult in Sélestat. In 1217, however, Duke Frederick II gave the economic and political control of the Sainte Foy priory to the Sélestat commune as a result of his larger policy of establishing imperial cities.96 Also in the thirteenth century, the monks decided to forge a charter that invoked the vision of Walter from the foundation legend to remind the Hohenstaufens of their patronage obligations.97 The history of the cult of Foy in Sélestat thus reveals an alternation of efforts by the sustaining dynasty and the priory as each party attempted to control the cult to their ends. All of the successive appropriations of the Sélestat Foy miracle collection surveyed above operate according to a principle of layering, with addition of new texts. Without cancelling the significance of the original materials, each added layer offers new perspectives on the saint and her cult. Reshaping is at the level of the entire libellus, which means that the accreted layers of different eras may contain contradictory interpretations of what agency motivated the action. However, a Foy libellus surviving in two copies (manuscripts from the Austrian monasteries of Melk and Klosterneuberg), which is a fourteenth-century revision of the Sélestat Liber miraculorum, operates according to a very different principle of appropriation: radical excision.

Babenberg appropriation of Foy’s cult The transmission of the miracle collection from Sélestat to the monasteries at Melk and Klosterneuberg appears to be based on a connection between two aristocratic families: the Hohenstaufen and the Babenbergs. The specific link is Agnes of Waiblingen, who was married to Frederick I, Hildegard’s son and a patron of the Sélestat monastery. Agnes and Frederick had two sons and eight daughters. The youngest daughter, barely a year old when her father died in 1105, was named Gertrud, which is the Alsatian vernacular for Fides or Faith. Thus her name saint was the patron saint of the Hohenstaufen family in Sélestat. Her mother Agnes remarried – the Austrian margrave Leopold III – and it appears that as a result of this liaison the Foy cult was

132 Celebrating noble patronage of Foy’s cults transplanted to the two Austrian monasteries founded by the Babenbergs: Melk and Klosterneuberg.98 The existence of two fourteenth-century copies of Foy’s libellus is no doubt due to the need for liturgical materials to celebrate the feast day of a saint important to the founders of these institutions, although these are not monasteries dedicated to Sainte Foy. Celebration of the saint primarily performs the cultural work of acknowledging the important aristocratic patrons of the monastery. Perhaps the most striking feature of the act of appropriation in these Austrian libelli is the opening text: a translation of the Sélestat foundation legend into German. Whereas the twelfth-century prototype foundation text at Sélestat is entirely in Latin, these fourteenth-century manuscripts foreground a vernacular version of a story that proclaims their dynastic link to Sélestat, and this again raises the question of cultural work. Was this vernacular text perhaps read aloud on the saint’s day in the presence of Babenberg family members as well as the monks? Not as striking as the translation into German of the foundation legend but perhaps even more significant was the kind of revision carried out on the received miracle collection. The rewriting has been so thorough and so careful that few signs of an earlier version are left. The result is an example of the unusual strategy of appropriation through excision, whereas incremental addition or selection among units of miracles are the more common modes of appropriation. The identical Austrian libelli contain only 38 of the 96 miracle narratives in the Sélestat Liber miraculorum. Interestingly, most of the narratives come from the section of the Liber written by Bernard of Angers in the early eleventh century, but in this revision all of Bernard’s autobiographical formulations have been excised. To do this, the editor had to go through virtually every word of the text – not a usual procedure in appropriation. Bernard’s collection had begun with an eloquent, rhetorically sophisticated letter to his intellectual mentor, Fulbert of Chartres, explicitly setting out the cultural work he envisaged for his text. This letter is entirely omitted from the Austrian libellus, which begins instead with the German foundation legend celebrating the noble patrons. Similarly, the chiding letter to the abbot and monks of Conques with which Bernard ends the first part of his collection is omitted. The excision of Bernard’s letters is indicative of the entire revision project, which ruthlessly cuts his ubiquitous personal comments. Typically, Bernard had framed each of his miracle narratives with personal contextualization and testimonial, through which he casts himself not just as a redactor but as the chief witness to Foy’s powers.99 He thus makes himself into a central character in the miracle collection, second only to the saint in importance. While the monk-continuators at Conques in the later eleventh century had to some extent muted Bernard’s personality, using corporate formulations in their own narratives, they did not edit Bernard out of his own section of the Liber. By contrast, the editor of the Austrian libellus removes whole chapters in which Bernard describes the Conques monastery church and its history.100 As a result, the editor produces a more universal saint’s cult, one less embedded in the specific locale where the miracle took place. Also, Bernard’s portrayal of Foy as a trickster-saint is almost entirely suppressed in this version,101 as are other liminal characters like the warrior-monk Gimon in I.26 or the dishonest merchant of I.24. In addition, the fourteenth-century editor systematically works to eliminate Bernard’s idiosyncratic voice, turning the Liber into a much more miracle-centered and official text. The level of meticulous excision to be found in this version coexists with a paradoxical commitment to maintaining as much as possible the vocabulary and details of the miracle plots. In other words, this is not a loose and exuberant rewriting

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of the miracle narratives; our editor works at a micro level with a scalpel to shape individual words and sentences to his agenda. He turns direct speech to third person summary. Bernard’s very first miracle (I.1) includes a long dialogue between Sainte Foy and Guibert, which concludes with Foy’s instructions to Guibert as to what he must do in order to get her to replace his eyeballs. In the Austrian libelli, the entire interaction is reduced to indirect speech.102 The Austrian text gets rid of rhetorical or stylistic flourishes; for example, Bernard’s I.6 ends with 45 lines in hexameters that the Austrian editor shortens and puts into prose, and in I.12 hexameters also become prose. Sentences tend to be shorter and simpler in structure. Even when changing tenses or cases the rewriter usually follows wording closely, sometimes employing the same words but slightly shifting word order. Qualifying words are often omitted, as well as material not directly pertinent to the narrative, so that there is a tighter focus on the singular miraculous event.103 Where Bernard is intensely interested in processes (physical and emotional), this editor jumps to the result, short-circuiting intricate Bernardian descriptions of exactly how something happened. In II.6, for example, a long description of how the fetters were put on a prisoner is omitted in the Austrian version. For all intents and purposes, the writer Bernard disappears as a narrative presence.104 What is left after this operation of surgically precise excision is a stripped-down Liber miraculorum, representing a powerful but much more generic saint. Bernard’s self-justifying rhetoric, the intense localization of miracles in the Conques region, and even the monk-continuators’ focus on Conques monastery as numinous center have disappeared. Edited for narrative straightforwardness and ideological blandness, this is a Reader’s Digest version of Foy’s miracles. The colorful and individualized passages that have been systematically omitted from the Austrian libellus would simply have detracted from the agenda of the monasteries to acknowledge the Babenberg family, patrons of Foy’s cult. In this process of appropriation, the cult of Sainte Foy becomes a vehicle for the all-important cultural work of honoring noble founders.

Privatization of the holy, redux Fourteen centuries after Augustine worried about families appropriating relics for their private use, there was an exceptional case of an eighteenth-century family requesting a relic of Sainte Foy – from whom they claimed to be descendants!105 Sieur Delabat de Savignac, a councilor at the Parlement of Bordeaux, supplied the genealogical information to demonstrate his family’s connection to the saint and recruited a colleague in the Parlement, Balsa de Firmy, to make the request for a relic to the Conques canons. They evidently consented. A bone was taken from the rectangular silver reliquary known as the “châsse de sainte Foy.”106 The relic was wrapped in silk cloth before being sent to Rodez and eventually to Delabat de Savignac, who had it authenticated by the archbishop of Bordeaux. On August 16, 1734, the relic was put into a new reliquary in a ceremony at the archbishop’s palace, with instructions to show it in the domestic chapels of the councilor’s country houses at Monclairon, Bastoney, and Lausac. It is still in the private ownership of descendants of the family, who also own several hangings painted with scenes of Sainte Foy’s martyrdom.107 A prayer recited in their devotions to Foy by the family Delabat de Savignac is printed in Bouillet and Servières.108 We may take these devotional practices as the most extreme example of family identification with Sainte Foy, who became the chief patron of the Delabat de Savignac and the focus of worship in their family chapels.109

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Figure 4.1 Horsham St Faith, Priory building Photo Crown Copyright. Historic England Archive

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Photo Crown Copyright. Historic England Archive

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Figure 4.2 Horsham St Faith, Refectory wall painting

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Figure 4.3 Horsham St Faith, Refectory wall painting (det.)

Figure 4.4 Horsham St Faith, Wall painting, patrons departing on pilgrimage Photo Crown Copyright. Historic England Archive

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Figure 4.5 Horsham St Faith, Wall painting, couple imprisoned Photo Crown Copyright. Historic England Archive

Figure 4.6 Horsham St Faith, Wall painting, couple praying Photo Crown Copyright. Historic England Archive

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Figure 4.7 Horsham St Faith, Wall painting, Foy liberates couple from prison Photo Crown Copyright. Historic England Archive

Figure 4.8 Horsham St Faith, Wall painting, couple praying in Conques abbey church Photo Crown Copyright. Historic England Archive

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Figure 4.9 Horsham St Faith, Wall painting, couple sailing back to England with monks Photo Crown Copyright. Historic England Archive

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140 Celebrating noble patronage of Foy’s cults

Figure 4.10 Horsham St Faith, Wall painting, building of Horsham priory Photo Crown Copyright. Historic England Archive

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Notes 1 Joel T. Rosenthal, The Purchase of Paradise: Gift Giving and the Aristocracy, 1307–1485 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972), 53. See also Guy Fitch Lytle, “Religion and the Lay Patron in Reformation England,” in Patronage in the Renaissance, ed. Guy Fitch Lytle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 65–114. 2 Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 30. 3 Brown, Cult of the Saints, 31. 4 Brown, Cult of the Saints, 34. Edina Bozóky develops Brown’s point with examples until the eighth century of the appropriation of relics by private individuals for their family veneration, La Politique des Reliques de Constantin à Saint Louis (Paris: Beauchesne, 2006), 28–32. Felice Lifshitz uses Brown’s comment about the preponderance of women among early martyr commemorators to suggest that “a series of later-Roman women invented the practice” of memorializing martyrs at their tombs, but in an act of “episcopal appropriation” Bishop Ambrose took it over, an episode recounted in Augustine’s Confessions, since it involved his mother, Monica; “The Martyr, the Tomb, and the Matron: Constructing the (Masculine) ‘Past’ as a Female Power Base,” in Medieval Concepts of the Past: Ritual, Memory, Historiography, ed. Gerd Althoff et al. (Cambridge and Washington D.C.: Cambridge University Press and German Historical Institute, 2002), 323, 324. Lifshitz comments that “[a]ssumptions about gender have prevented scholars from seeing the full range of cultic strategies that Ambrose appropriated from his female rivals” (331). 5 Brown, Cult of the Saints, 35. 6 Megan McLaughlin, Consorting with Saints: Prayer for the Dead in Early Medieval France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 113. Stephen D. White claims that it was the gifts of land and legal power over people by local lords and knights that provided “most of the material support necessary to sustain the remarkable growth in wealth, power, and reputation of Benedictine monasteries” between c. 980 and c. 1150; he adds that “the ceremonies at which these gifts were made provided occasions for the establishment or reaffirmation of complex and enduring social relationships linking monastic communities to their neighbors”; Custom, Kinship, and Gifts to Saints: The Laudatio Parentum in Western France, 1050–1150 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 20. 7 McLaughlin, Consorting with Saints, 114–127. For later medieval merchants as patrons of saints through parish churches, guilds, and confraternities, see Emily Kelley and Cynthia Turner Camp, eds., Saints as Intercessors Between the Wealthy and the Divine: Art and Hagiography Among the Medieval Merchant Classes (London and New York: Routledge, 2019). Foy does not appear among the saints favored by the mercantile classes between 1200–1600. 8 Howard M. Colvin, The White Canons in England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951), 2. Amy G. Remensnyder also notes the shift from monastic foundations by kings to aristocratic families after the tenth century; Remembering Kings Past: Monastic Foundation Legends in Medieval Southern France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), 24–41. 9 Sébastien Fray hypothesizes that there were conflicting factions supporting the histories written about different abbots of Conques during the eleventh and twelfth centuries because the abbots belonged to rival dynasties; Sébastien Fray, “Les gesta abbatum de Conques et l’historiographie monastique conquoise du début du XIIe siècle,” Etudes aveyronnaises. Recueil des traveaux de la Société des lettres, sciences et arts de l’Aveyron (2014): 353–64. 10 McLaughlin, Consorting with Saints, 134–36 and 138–53. See also the studies by Constance Brittain Bouchard, Sword, Miter, and Cloister: Nobility and the Church in Burgundy, 980–1198 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987) and Barbara H. Rosenwein, To Be the Neighbor of Saint Peter: The Social Meaning of Cluny’s Property, 909–1049 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989). For an historiographical overview of theories of gift exchange applied to aristocratic gifts to religious communities, see Arnoud-Jan A. Bijsterveld, Do ut des: Gift-Giving, Memoria, and Conflict Management in the Medieval Low Countries (Hilversum: Verloren, 2007), 17–50. He traces a difference in gift-giving between the earlier Middle Ages, when families made donations of landed property and

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12 13 14

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19 20 21 22 23 24

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Celebrating noble patronage of Foy’s cults ecclesiastical revenues, and the later period, when individuals using their testaments gave money and individual donations expressing personal devotion and seeking personal prestige. For a densely argued examination of material objects given by lay donors to ecclesiastical institutions, see Philippe Buc, “Conversion of Objects,” Viator 28 (1997): 99–143. McLaughlin, Consorting with Saints, 252. On the Farfa Abbey’s donation charters and the motivation for gifts, see Susan Boynton, Shaping a Monastic Identity: Liturgy and History at the Imperial Abbey of Farfa, 1000–1125 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006), 144–48. Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past, 217. Dominique Barthélemy, Chevaliers et miracles. La violence et le sacré dans la société féodale (Paris: Armand Colin, 2004), 77–83. For these arguments, see the “Introduction” and essays in the collection edited by Emilia Jamroziak and Janet Burton, Religious and Laity in Western Europe, 1000–1400: Interaction, Negotiation, and Power (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2006). Stephen D. White’s essay in this volume, “Garsinde v. Sainte Foy: Argument, Threat, and Vengeance in Eleventh-Century Monastic Litigation,” 169–81, shows that the version of the event in Bernard of Angers’ miracle narrative follows “monastic vengeance scripts” – “formulaic story-lines used by monks throughout late tenth- and early eleventh-century France” to threaten those who tried to take property from the monastery (172). “cum sepultura et decima”; Gustave Desjardins, “De Bains,” Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Conques en Rouergue (Paris: Alfonse Picard, 1879; repr. 2017), No. 475, 345. “Therefore, if it happens that Almighty God and Sainte Foy give me or my sons the ability to fulfill the wish of the monks, the abbot and the monks then in that place ought to receive me or my sons with the addition [to the endowment?] I would want to make for them” (Ideo ut si omnipotens Deus et Sancta Fides michi vel filiis meis voluntatem efficiendi monachum dederit, abbas et monachi qui tunc ibi erunt me vel filios meos cum melioration quam eis vellem facere accipere debent) Desjardins, Cartulaire, 345. Dom Ursmer Berlière, La familia dans les monastères bénédictins du moyen âge (Bruxelles: M. Lamertin, 1931), 82–97. A majority of his examples come from the thirteenth century. Berlière, La familia, 92, 93. The founding family never took advantage of this provision in the charter, as Pons de Polignac died in Rome and only had one son who was married with numerous children according to Pierre Cubizolles, “Le prieuré Sainte-Foy de Bains (Haute-Loire),” Cahiers de la Haute-Loire. Revue d’études locales (1991): 89–90. Gilbert Castanet, Sainte-Foy de Bains: Sanctuaire Roman et Byzantin, XIe-XIIe siècle (Saint Chamond: P.A. Stelytec, 1994), 19. Castanet, Sainte-Foy de Bains, 18. See Jacques Bousquet, Le Rouergue au premier Moyen Âge (vers 800–vers1250): Les pouvoirs, leurs rapports et leurs domaines, t. 1 (Rodez: Société des lettres, sciences et arts de l’Aveyron, 1992), 53, 54. Bousquet, Le Rouergue au premier Moyen Âge, 287. The long donation is No. 572 in Desjardins, Cartulaire, 401–3. Bousquet, Le Rouergue au premier Moyen Âge, 290. The power struggle between Figeac and Conques lasted only a dozen years, and scholars have perhaps attributed too much influence to the saga when they argue that most Conques documents and texts of the period were generated to bolster Conques’ claims to preeminence over Figeac. See also comments on the Conques-Figeac conflict in Chapter One. See our discussion of the semiotics of the Liber miraculorum, in which the Bernardian miracles written between 1010 and 1020 portray noble wives as exemplary supporters of monastic values and goals against the problem of secular male violence; Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn, Writing Faith: Text, Sign, & History in the Miracles of Sainte Foy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 122–24. Note 15, 174 adds further scholarship by Sharon Farmer, Dyan Elliott, Georges Duby and other historians on the role of the “pious matron” in the emergence of early Christian institutions. In studying the relics and reliquaries sent back to Europe by the crusaders after the Fourth Crusade, Anne E. Lester points out that many were sent to women in the crusaders’ families: “As a result women became the initial arbiters of new cults created to honor the Greek objects in the west and their kinsmen”; “What Remains: Women, Relics and

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30 31 32 33

34 35

36 37

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Remembrance in the Aftermath of the Fourth Crusade,” Journal of Medieval History 40, no. 3 (2014): 313. On the de Tosny dynasty, see Dr. Semelaigne, Histoire de Conches-en-Ouche (Paris: Res Universis, 1989; repr. of 1867), 10–54; also, Alexandre Gardin, Conches: Notice historique sur la ville (Paris: Res Universis, 1993; repr. of 1865), 11–25. The miracle text calls Roger’s wife “Goteline,” but the historical documents give her name as “Godehilde.” After Roger’s 1040 death with two of their sons in battle, Godehilde married the Count of Evreux, as she testifies in a charter; see Gallia Christiana XI, instr. 129–30. Pamela Sheingorn, ed. and trans., Book of Sainte Foy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), III.1, 144. The centrality of noblewomen in society is also suggested in Bernard of Angers’ story (II.6) of meeting Beatrice, the daughter of Duke Richard I of Normandy; the meeting took place in Poitiers after Bernard’s second return from Conques. Beatrice described a miracle about Foy’s liberation of prisoners in which she had a role as lady in charge of the castle. The narrative confirms that there was knowledge of Sainte Foy in Normandy by the beginning of the eleventh century, independent of Bernard’s writing about the saint. Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, III.1, 145. Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, III.1, 145. This appears to be a reference to a long-standing local conflict between Roger I de Tosny and his neighbor Roger de Beaumont; see Lucien Musset, “Aux origines d’une classe dirigeante: les Tosny, grands barons normands du Xe au XIIIe siècles,” Francia 5 (1977): 55. Roger had inherited the land from his father Raoul de Tosny, who in 1004 built a fortress on a high escarpment. Roger was in Spain in 1034 fighting for Sancho the king of Aragon. On his return, he founded the Benedictine abbey dedicated to Saint Pierre on his feudal land, as well as a chateau surrounded by walls that became the town of Conches. See Gardin, Conches, 12. A surviving son of Roger and Godehilde, Raoul, was standard-bearer for William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and five other Tosny relatives fought in the battle; Semelaigne, Histoire, 23–24. In 1204, the Tosnys were ousted from their continental fiefs centered at Conches by King Philippe-Auguste. They became feudal lords in England, on land generously granted by William the Conqueror after 1066. Musset, “Aux origines,” describes pages and pages of the “Domesday Book” that enumerate Tosny lands in Berkshire, Hertfordshire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Norfolk (58). Radulphus de Thoenio cum Godehilde matre sua; Musset, “Aux origines,” 56, note 53. Musset bases his study on the poorly preserved cartulary of the abbey of Saint-Pierre de Castellion and on approximately 25 Tosny documents from 1035–1204. This is a case where the Foy foundation was not strictly speaking monastic, although the abbot of Saint-Pierre de Castellion monastery (founded by Godehilde’s husband Roger) appointed the priest for the church and later had responsibility for upkeep and decoration of the east end of the church, as will be discussed in Chapter Five of this study. See M. Charpillon, Dictionnaire de l’Eure, t.1 (Les Andelys, 1868), 794. See R.H.C. Davis, The Normans and their Myth (London: Thames and Hudson, 1976); also, Emily Albu, The Normans in Their Histories: Propaganda, Myth, and Subversion (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2001). On the Tosny as figures of legend for medieval chroniclers, see Musset, “Aux origines,” 47–48; on various traditions of Tosny family origins, see 48–52. There is now agreement on the basis of an existing foundation charter of 1035 that it was Roger I de Tosny who founded the abbey on his land at Castellion; Musset, “Aux origines,” 53. See Gardin, Conches, 11–12. Marjorie Chibnall notes that the new houses were called “priories” when founded by a lord who supplied a large endowment; often these were the result of a vow. The priories were spiritual dependencies but had their own head and temporal authority; “Some Aspects of the Norman Monastic Plantation in England,” in La Normandie bénédictine au temps de Guillaume le Conquérant (XIe siècle), ed. Louis Gaillard (Lille: Facultés Catholiques de Lille, 1967), 403. Judith A. Green, The Aristocracy of Norman England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 391.

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41 C.L.S. Linnell, Norfolk Church Dedications (York: Institute of Historical Research, 1962), 16; Francis Bond, Dedications and Patron Saints of English Churches (London: Oxford University Press, 1914), 117. 42 The spelling of Sybil’s family name varies from Cheyney, Chesney, to Cayneto in the records. 43 Desjardins, Cartulaire, pp. CXV and no. 497, 359. 44 Desjardins, Cartulaire, pp. CXI–CXII and no. 445, 325. 45 Constance Brittain Bouchard, Rewriting Saints and Ancestors: Memory and Forgetting in France, 500–1200 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), Appendix I, “Monasteries in Burgundy and Southern Champagne,” lists Vézelay, Ponthières, NotreDame de Vergy, Cluny, and Paray-le-Monial. 46 W. Dugdale, “Priory of St. Faith at Horsham, in Norfolk,” in Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. III, ed. J. Caley et al. New edition (London: James Bohn, 1846), 635–40. The foundation legend also appears in Francis Blomefield and Charles Parkin, An Essay Toward a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, vol. X (London: W. Miller, 1809), 439. The Victoria History of the Counties of England, ed. William Page, vol. II, “A History of Norfolk” (London: Archibald Constable, 1906), 346, retells the Dugdale story of the founding miracle, with information from Blomefield’s history of Norfolk. 47 The first building site at Horsford failed, so they moved the construction to their lands at Horsham. 48 The Conques cartulary contains a number of charters from the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries that document the donations of the founding family to maintain the priory at Horsham, as well as support from the royal and ecclesiastical authorities. See Desjardins, Cartulaire de l’Abbaye de Conques, no. 516, 368–69 (partially defaced); no. 519, 370 (testifying to Sibilla’s donation of Rodeham). See also no. 520, 370–71 (King Henry 1 gives permission for an annual fair to take place the eve, the day and the day after Foy’s feast in October); no. 521, 371 (permission from Herbert, Bishop of Norwich for 40 days indulgence to those who visited the church at the fair of Foy). The fair, begun in the twelfth century, lasted until the late nineteenth century – no. 522, 371–72 (permission from Bishop Ebrard of Norwich adding 40 days indulgence at the feast of the translation of Foy’s relics). Desjardins notes other ecclesiastical documents from 1276 in the Aveyron archives granting more indulgences to visitors at the priory church (cxvi). Herbert de Losinga, bishop of Norwich, consecrated the priory church before his death in 1119; Julian Eve, Horsham St. Faith: A History (Norwich: Catton Printing, 1994), 14. The Horsham Saint Faith cult was given the blessing of Pope Alexander III in 1163; see Eve, 24 for an English translation. 49 Roger Chartier, Cultural History: Between Practices and Representations, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988) defines the term “imaginaire” as “the realm of imagined social reality of a given period” (45). 50 For an argument about the function of the Horsham wall painting, see Kathleen Ashley, “The Mural Paintings of Horsham Saint Faith, Norfolk: Secular Patronage and Monastic Memory,” in Out of the Stream: Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Mural Painting, ed. Luís Urbano Afonso and Vitor Serrão (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007), 318–34. 51 Alison A. Chapman discusses the “equivalence” between earthly and heavenly patrons in premodern and early modern literature, Patrons and Patron Saints in Early Modern English Literature (New York and London: Routledge, 2013), 1–20. 52 Eve, Horsham St. Faith, 23 note 2. A 1325 document lists the land and possessions of the priory along with the value of each piece, including 23 churches in Norfolk and 14 in Suffolk, with 1 in London. The economic and legal history of the priory is well documented until the Dissolution of the monasteries in 1536; see Victoria History, Vol. II “A History of Norfolk,” on “The Priory of St. Faith, Horsham,” 346. 53 Judith A. Green observes that the topic of aristocratic women in Norman England has been “relatively neglected,” The Aristocracy of Norman England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 6. 54 Eve, Horsham St. Faith, 8.

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55 Green, Aristocracy of Norman England, says William’s practice varied; he “sometimes used his mother’s name, sometimes his father’s, and sometimes called himself William the sheriff or William of Norwich” (347). 56 Simon Yarrow, Saints and Their Communities: Miracle Stories in Twelfth Century England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006), 145. See also Green, The Aristocracy of Norman England, 346–47, for the practice of adopting the mother’s name. 57 According to Norman P. Tanner, wills mention over 20 pilgrimage sites in East Anglia; Horsham is not in the list. The Church in Late Medieval Norwich, 1370–1532 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1984), 85–90. 58 Julian Eve, Horsham St. Faith, discusses the management of the manor throughout its long history. Documents concerning property holdings are the best-preserved evidence from this site, from which most materials of religious and cultural interest have vanished – with the exception of the wall paintings. 59 For fifteenth- and sixteenth-century wills of Norwich citizens leaving bequests to the monks of Saint Faith, see Tanner, The Church in Late Medieval Norwich. In 1428, William Setman gave each monk 6d. (242), while in 1530 Robert Jannys says he wants a mass at the “abbey of Saint Faith,” with the prior to have xii d., every monk and priest to have iiii d., and every novice ii d. He also left a bequest to have Saint Faith’s prayers for his soul, his friends, and all Christian souls (249). 60 See a manuscript in English and Latin, written ca. 1476 at Horsham St Faith, now Bod. Lyell 37, described by Albinia de la Mare, compiler, Catalogue of the Collection of Medieval Manuscripts Bequeathed to the Bodleian Library Oxford by James P.R. Lyell (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 101–5. In addition to a text on how to foretell future events, it contains an English translation of William Rede’s canons for his Tabulae ad meridian Oxonie, as well as the scientific texts and tables. A monk of Saint Faith made some of the tables, it says. Few of Horsham’s manuscripts have survived. 61 A detail noted by Benedicta Ward in her discussion of the cult of William of Norwich in Miracles and the Medieval Mind (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987), 76. Yarrow, Saints and Their Communities, also sees examples in William miracle stories of the cult “poaching” devotees of Saint Faith, 146. 62 Thomas of Monmouth eventually became the relic guardian for the martyr and termed himself the saint’s private secretary and special caretaker; see Robyn Malo, Relics and Writing in Late Medieval England (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), 96–98. For the text, see The Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich, ed. and trans. A Jessup and M.R. James (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1896). 63 Charles Freeman, Holy Bones, Holy Dust: How Relics Shaped the History of Medieval Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), 91. 64 Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind, 236. 65 Yarrow, Saints and Their Communities, 166. 66 Jeffrey J. Cohen, “The Flow of Blood in Medieval Norwich,” Speculum 79 (2004): 26–65, especially 43–49, 55–59, and 62. Based on extensive and rich scholarship, Cohen’s article is a postcolonial tour de force, surveying the impact of the Norman Conquest in England broadly and applying these insights to the murder of William of Norwich, whose blood, Cohen argues, symbolized a Christian community that might reconcile the “fractured multi-ethnic population” resulting from the Conquest (27). 67 Eve, Horsham St. Faith, 30. 68 Sydney Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt: King of Castile and Leon, Duke of Aquitaine and Lancaster, Earl of Derby, Lincoln and Leicester, Seneschal of England (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1964), 168; see also his note 2 on the Duke supporting the petition of the Benedictine Priory of St. Faith’s to be an English priory. 69 David Knowles, The Religious Orders in England, vol. III: The Tudor Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), 309. For the Horsham events at the time of the Dissolution of the monastery, see Eve, Horsham St. Faith, 33–36. 70 According to T.H. Swales, Southwell received the most monastic property among Norfolk gentry; “The Redistribution of the Monastic Lands in Norfolk at the Dissolution,” Norfolk Archaeology 34 (1969): 22.

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71 Christopher Devlin, The Life of Robert Southwell, Poet and Martyr (New York: Farrar, Straus and Audeley, 1956), 5. 72 A. Hassell Smith, “The Personnel of the Commissions of the Peace, 1554–1564: A Reconsideration,” Huntington Library Quarterly 22 (1959): 306–9. 73 F.W. Brownlow, Robert Southwell (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996), 1. On the career and religious politics of Robert Southwell, see also Arnold Pritchard, Catholic Loyalism in Elizabethan England (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979), 67–72. 74 It was owned by the Carmelite order in 1994, according to Eve, Horsham St. Faith, 162. 75 According to Anthony Emery, the Horsham scene is regarded as “some of the most stunning wall paintings in England,” Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales, 1300– 1500, vol. II: East Anglia, Central England and Wales (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 76. For a first reaction to the discovery, see D. Purcell, “The Priory of Horsham Saint Faith and its Wall Paintings,” Norfolk Archaeology 35 (1974): 469–73. A scientifically based analysis of the materials and techniques used for Horsham’s and other Gothic wall paintings may be found in Helen Howard, Pigments of English Medieval Wall Painting (London: Archetype Publications, 2003). 76 Robert Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2013), 541. 77 Boynton, Shaping a Monastic Identity, 41–63. 78 Boynton, Shaping a Monastic Identity, 63. 79 Such libelli typically contained lives of the saint, a book of miracles, sermons, hymns and liturgical readings for the saint’s feast day. There is scholarly disagreement about where the libellus now in Sélestat was produced. Sélestat, Bibliothèque Humaniste 22 contains a variety of liturgical works as well as the most complete collection of Foy miracles extant. Luca Robertini, who edited the Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 1994), thinks that Sélestat 22 was probably produced in Sélestat itself as it uses a Germanic hand and the illuminated initials resemble Germanic style. Pierre Bonnassie and Frédéric de Gournay also believe the manuscript was probably produced in Sélestat using a Conques manuscript, “Sur la Datation du Livre des Miracles de Sainte Foy de Conques,” Annales du Midi CVII (1995): 457–73. A comparison with a manuscript definitely attributed to the Conques abbey (Bibliothèque de l’Abbaye 1) suggests that the Seléstat manuscript is directly dependent upon the Conques manuscript and that it was copied in the new Alsacian priory at the time of its founding in 1094, perhaps with the borrowed Conques manuscript. A handsome facsimile edition of Sélestat ms. 22 appeared in 1994 for the nine-hundredth anniversary of the priory of Sainte Foy there, courtesy of the Amis de la Bibliothèque Humaniste. The Amis de la Bibliothèque Humaniste de Sélestat also produced their Annuaire XLIV (1994) to commemorate this occasion. 80 On these changes, see Ernest Hoepffner and Prosper Alfaric, La Chanson de Sainte Foy T. II, Traduction française et Sources Latines, Introduction et Commentaire historique par Prosper Alfaric (Paris: Société d’Édition: Les Belles Lettres; Oxford University Press, 1926), 44–45. The editors argue that the two sermons influenced the text of the Chanson de Sainte Foy. 81 Sélestat 22 was the prototype for Oxford, Bodleian Library, Lyell 64 – formerly Melk, Bibliothek des Benediktinerstiftes, Ms. latin 897 (Q 34); it is also the original for Klosterneuberg, Augustinerchorherrenstift 1080. The Melk and Klosterneuberg manuscripts contain the same texts, and since they are dependent upon the same source, I will treat them as the same libellus. A complete history and stemma for the extant manuscripts containing the Liber miraculorum may be found in Robertini’s edition of the Liber, 1–49. For discussion of the manuscript tradition with attention to the various manuscripts containing a single Foy miracle or just a few unique miracle stories, see Faye Taylor, “Miracula, Saints’ Cults and Socio-political Landscapes: Bobbio, Conques and Post-Carolingian Society,” Ph.D. Thesis, University of Nottingham 2012, 120–26. Unique miracles were produced in the twelfth century by Foy foundations in Longueville (Seine-Maritime) and Saint-Martial de Limoges, and several at Saint-Pierre de Chartres in the fourteenth century. As Taylor points out, all these daughter houses of Conques wrote their own “locally-centered miracles, providing interesting examples of the continuing and, importantly, non-Conques centered process of hagiographic production” (122).

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82 André de Mandach, “Contribution à l’histoire du théâtre en Rouergue au XIe siècle: un Mystère de Sainte Foy?” La vie théâtrale dans les provinces du Midi. Actes du IIe Colloque de Grasse, 1976, ed. Yves Giraud (Tubingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1980), 16. 83 For close examination of those spatial semiotics in Sélestat, see Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn, “Discordia et lis: Negotiating Power, Property, and Performance in Medieval Sélestat,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 26 (1996): 419–46. 84 The charter was probably written by the secretary of son Otto and was found in the bishop’s archives in Strasbourg in the eighteenth century by Abbé Grandidier, who provides the Latin text, Histoire ecclésiastique, militaire, civile et littéraire de la Province Alsace (Strasbourg: Librairie académique, 1787), CLX no. 510. A French translation of the 1094 charter appears in Jean-Yves Mariotte, “La Comtesse Hildegarde, fondatrice de SainteFoy,” Annuaire. Sélestat Bibliothèque Humaniste XLIV (1994): 13–14. 85 These conflicts are traced in detail by Ashley and Sheingorn, “Discordia et lis.” 86 Grandidier, Histoire, CLXI–CLXII, no. 511. Hildegard was buried in the monastery. For the donation charter, see Desjardins, Cartulaire, no. 575, 405–6. 87 Grandidier, Histoire, CLXII–CLXIII, no. 512. See French translation by Mariotte, “La Comtesse Hildegarde,” 14–15. The July 1095 charter is also recorded in the Conques cartulary, the only document about an Alsacian donation, see Desjardins, Cartulaire, no. 575, 465. 88 See O. Holder-Egger, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptorum, t. XV 2, 996–1000. 89 William Harris Stahl, trans. and ed. with Introduction and Notes, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio by Macrobius (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990). In Book I, chapter iii (87–92), Macrobius identifies five types of dreams: the oraculum or oracular dream; the visio, a true prophecy of future events; the somnium, an enigmatic dream that requires a skilled interpreter; an insomnium or meaningless nightmare; and a visum or phantasma, which is an apparition between waking and sleeping but one with no significance. See also the discussion of Macrobius’s typology in Steven F. Kruger, Dreaming in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 21–23. 90 Patrick J. Geary, Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 3. 91 On visions providing divine guidance in foundation legends, see also Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past, 52–53. 92 Prophecy added to Sélestat foundation miracle: “eiusque propaginem a tempore, quo super Romanum imperium regnare coeperit usque ad eius imperii finem regnaturum” (and that his line will reign from the time when it begins to rule over the empire of the Romans …). 93 On the revisions to and dating of this foundation legend, see Robertini, Liber miraculorum, 425. For a French translation of f. 13r–v, the foundation legend, see Louis Servières, “Notice légendaire sur l’origine du prieuré de Sélestat (Folio 13),” Annuaire. Sélestat Bibliothèque Humaniste XLIV (1994), 23–25. 94 Germain Sieffert, “L’Eglise Sainte-Foy de Sélestat dans le cadre de l’art roman alsacien,” Annuaire. Sélestat Bibliothèque Humaniste IV (1954): 71–78. 95 For the iconography of the church, see Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn, “Le culte de Sainte Foy à Sélestat et à Conques: étude comparative,” Annuaire. Sélestat Bibliothèque Humaniste XLIV (1994): 81–82; also, their “Discordia et lis,” 427. On the windows, see also René Bornert, “Un millénaire d’histoire Bénédictine à Sélestat (VIII–XVIIIs),” Annuaire. Sélestat Bibliothèque Humaniste XXX (1984): 80. In 1615, the church was given to the Jesuits, who transformed it in a Baroque style. Another renovation took place ca. 1890; only the twelfth-century portal remains. 96 For negotiations between Frederick II, the priory, and the town, see Ashley and Sheingorn, “Discordia et lis,” 429 and notes 42 and 43. On the Hohenstaufen policy of creating “imperial cities,” also John B. Freed, Frederick Barbarossa: The Prince and the Myth (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 374–78. 97 For the Latin text and scholarly sources, see Ashley and Sheingorn, “Discordia et lis,” 428–29 and 442, notes 40 and 41. For the “Rise and Fall of the Hohenstaufen Empire (1152–1272),” see Geoffrey Barraclough, The Origins of Modern Germany (New York: W.W. Norton, 1984), 167–246. 98 Agnes and Leopold were buried in the Klosterneuberg monastery. An unusually grandiose late fifteenth-century engraving (1491) represents the Babenberg genealogy in the form of

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Celebrating noble patronage of Foy’s cults a family tree. The males of the line are shown in roundels, while the eighteen wives and their twenty-seven daughters occupy a separate garden setting. Christiane Klapisch-Zuber attributes the invention of the family tree image to the Hapsburg empire. The Babenbergs had been extinguished in the thirteenth century, but their line joined the Hapsbourg line; L’Ombre des Ancêtres: Essai sur l’imaginaire médiéval de la parenté (Paris: Fayard, 2000), Figs. 40 and 41 and 295–304. Klapisch-Zuber argues that the vision of the family structure in the engraving is a monastic one, appropriated to celebrate the aristocratic patrons (297). For examples of Bernard’s autobiographical frames which were removed in the Austrian libelli: a. opening to I.11: “Fuit et aliud quoque divini ultiminis miraculum, sed alio tempore ante adventum meum” (“There was also another miracle of divine vengeance, but at another time, before my arrival”). b. closing to II.6: “Anno fere et dimidio post secundam a Conchis reversionem, accidit mihi certo negotio domni Vuillelmi Pictavorum comitis adire curiam. In qua cum domnam Beatricem viderim, a Richaredo fratre suo Rotomagensium comite illuc missam, ardenter eius colloquium aggressus, ilico rogitare coepi super hoc miraculo.” (“Almost a year and a half after my second return from Conques, some business affair took me to the court of the lord William, count of Poitiers. There I saw the lady Beatrice, who had been sent there by her brother Richard, count of Rouen. I eagerly entered into conversation with her; then and there I began to ask her about this miracle”). The Austrian libelli tend to remove descriptions of Conques and its church history, for example, I.16 “The Miracle of the Golden Doves,” and I.17 “How Sainte Foy Collected Gold Everywhere for the Fashioning of an Altar.” I.23–I.28 in the Sélestat libellus form a cluster of joking miracles. In the Austrian libelli miracles I.24–I.27 are completely omitted, and in the remaining stories the references to “jokes” (ioca) are removed. In II.10, the term ioca is replaced by miracula. “dum pridie ante vigiliam membra sopori dedisset, astitit beatissima fides fulcro cubilis invixa, quem blande consolata est oculos quos amiserat recepturum si vigilia sui festi conchas pergeret duosque cereos emeret quorum unum ad altare sancti salvatoris alterum ad altare isius deponeret.” The long description and allegorization of Foy’s clothing in the Sélestat libellus I.1 is omitted in the Austrian version, while in I.4 Bernard has an aside to the reader that invokes Prudentius, which is omitted in the Austrian text. For example, two chapters (II.8 and II.9) in which Bernard reports his enjoyable encounter with the cultured Abbot Peter are totally omitted. The long emotional reunion with Guibert in II.7 is also excised, while II.13 in the Austrian libellus describes Bernard in the third person and supplies information as if the reader knows nothing about him – which would be the case, given all the excisions in the Austrian text. For details of the transaction from original documents, see Pierre Lançon, “La translation des reliques de sainte Foy de Conques à l’époque moderne (XVI–XVIII siècle),” Études aveyronnaises (2000): 26–29. Auguste Bouillet and Louis Servières, Sainte Foy, vierge et martyre (Rodez: E Carrère, 1900), 274–76, give an account of the family’s devotion to the saint. For a description of this reliquary, see Bernard Berthod et al., Conques, un trésor millénaire (Paris: Éditions CLD, 2019), 43. The painted cloth scenes were originally hung in the Monclairon chapel built by Sieur Delabat de Savignac in 1733 in a roman style (“a la romaine”); see J. Marcel Nattes, “La chapelle et le retable de Monclairon, commune de Quinsac en Gironde,” Aquitaine Historique no. 55 (n.d.): 14. Bouillet and Servières, Sainte Foy, vierge et martyre, 742. Likewise, a Florentine family, the Minerbetti, claimed descent from St. Thomas Becket, whose cult they helped shape in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Italy; see Costanza Cipollaro and Veronika Decker, “Shaping a Saint’s Identity: The Imagery of Thomas Becket in Medieval Italy,” in Medieval Art, Architecture and Archaeology at Canterbury (British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions, 2009), ed. A. Bovey (London and New York: Routledge, 2013), 128–32.

5

The saint in popular piety

The heuristic of “cultural work” used for the sake of clarity in the first four chapters of this study might imply that we can identify one kind of cultural work as operative in a place or time at the direction of one type of patron. The goal of constructing and maintaining Sainte Foy’s cult dominates activity by the abbey at Conques throughout many centuries, as Chapter One argues, while the agenda of the Catholic Church to create and broadly disseminate ecclesiastical institutions, texts and practices focused on the saint is the subject of Chapter Two. Saints also had special ties to individual devotees, Chapter Three demonstrated, while the important role of noble families as cult patrons was the focus of Chapter Four. The reality of saints’ cults is, of course, far more complex than this heuristic model might suggest. Multiple types of cultural work could overlap at any cult site, and if the cult persisted over time then one kind of patronage or goal could give way to others. As Simon Gaunt notes, “… hagiography, perhaps more so than any other vernacular genre, inscribes a particularly complex configuration of communal (genuinely popular), institutional (Church) and individual positions.”1 Substituting the term “saint’s cult” for the narrower concept of vernacular hagiography, we can say that Sainte Foy’s cult depended upon some combination of genuinely popular, ecclesiastical, elite family, and individual support. This final chapter will first examine visual arts and texts designed to be especially accessible to as well as meaningful for lay viewers at Conques and other cult sites. The sponsor for the production of such texts and objects was usually ecclesiastical, but understanding “patronage” as including reception we can also understand their characteristics as attributable to popular piety. In this analysis, I am drawing on the definition of “popular culture” by cultural historians like Roger Chartier, who with Michel de Certeau argues that by eliminating “the separation between producing and consuming” we “affirm that the work acquires a sense only through the strategies of interpretation that construct its meaning.”2 Michel de Certeau defines “popular culture” as “‘arts of making’ this or that, i.e. as combinatory or utilizing modes of consumption.”3 For Chartier and Certeau how something is used puts it into the category of the “popular.” They explain that the “presence and circulation of a representation” (created by preachers and other authority figures) “tells us nothing about what it is for its users. We must first analyze its manipulation by users who are not its makers.”4 Of course, studying reception by “users” is an easier task for twentieth-century cultural theorists than for the medievalist looking at fifteenth-century wall paintings or sixteenth-century stained glass or reading narratives whose earlier readers are unknown. The examples of Foy cult art and texts discussed in this chapter typically

150 The saint in popular piety represent the interaction of official sponsorship and popular initiative and reception. Chartier points out that identifying “popular culture” by means of cultural objects considered “popular” makes no sense; rather, one should focus on appropriation by specific groups or individuals. It is clear that the relation of appropriation to texts or behavior in a given society may be a more distinctive factor than how texts and behavior are distributed. The “popular” cannot be found readymade in a set of texts that merely require to be identified and listed.5 A second focus of this chapter will be examples of sequential appropriation in regions where Foy’s cult was reanimated several times and in the process accrued “symbolic capital.”6 Most sites where Sainte Foy was venerated offer limited materials for a diachronic analysis compared to Conques – the cult center whose history across the centuries can be reconstructed from its rich surviving records, texts, art, and architecture – but there are some exceptions. Discussion in this chapter includes Conches (Normandy), where the surviving documents, art, and architecture enable a partial view of Foy’s cult and its reception over multiple centuries, and it concludes with an examination of Burgundy, where the cult of Foy had a series of different auspices between the eleventh and the twentieth centuries. When such a diachronic view of cult appropriation is possible, we might argue that we have evidence of the cult’s continuing relevance, in other words its “popularity.”

Sainte Foy, Conques, and popular religion The surge in donations to the Conques monastery registered in the late tenth century cartulary testifies to the drawing power of the abbey’s miracle-working saint. The earliest narrative evidence for the popular reception of Foy’s cult at Conques is found in the eleventh-century Liber miraculorum. Like most high medieval saints, Foy’s healing powers were often called on by sufferers. Perhaps because her best known and earliest miracle was the replacement of Guibert’s eyeballs after they had been torn out, Foy was renowned for curing blindness.7 She was not primarily associated with responding to the petitions of women; however, in one story from the Liber miraculorum, Foy grants the petition of an infertile woman for a child.8 Arsinde, wife of the count of Toulouse, was approached by Foy in a dream. What the saint wanted from Arsinde was her two golden armlets to be used in making the new gold and gem-covered altarpiece, and Arsinde agreed – if Foy would grant her wish of a male child. After the gift of armlets was delivered to Conques, Arsinde became the mother of not one but two sons. There is more evidence after the twelfth century that Foy was especially associated with petitions for fertility by devotees. In the late nineteenth century when the French Catholic church was promoting Foy’s cult anew, a popular history of the saint written by Abbé Louis Servières notes among liturgical items at Conques a girdle (ceinture) of Sainte Foy, which he describes as a band composed of several layers of stuffed silk brocade sewn one above the other, doubtless to protect a relic within.9 The “Ceinture dite de sainte Foy” is pictured and described in a recent book on the abbey treasures that dates the extant girdle to the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century.10 The girdle, Servières says, was the object of special devotion by women who came to beg

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for pregnancy or a good delivery. Those women wore the belt as the priest recited a benediction and prayers for the blessing of conception and the care and nourishment of a child; the prayers had been approved by Bishop Gabriel de Voyer de Paulmy in 1678.11 Petitioners who couldn’t go to Conques might ask the priest to send them a “girdle” in the form of cords or ribbons that had been sanctified by touching the saint’s girdle in the treasury and blessed by the priest. Servières says that there were “innumerable” success stories as a result, and the requests came from all countries.12 These fertility rituals required collaboration between the petitioner and ecclesiastical authorities. They are an example of the interaction of “official” and “unofficial” practices and characteristic of “popular religion,” as James Bugslag has argued.13 Devotion to Foy as a protector of fertility appears to have survived well into the twentieth century. A sociological questionnaire on popular devotion to the saints in the Rouergue conducted in the 1980s by Jean Delmas yielded responses that pilgrims still came to Conques to resolve their sterility issues, requesting a child or a fruitful harvest. Petitioners made their requests while touching the bar (verrou) of the door, and evidently the girdle (“ruban de Sainte Foy”) was still ceremonially operative until 1969.14 The gesture at the entry of the church invokes the symbolism of liminality – doorways often functioned as transitions to the sacred; in this case, the impetus for the ritualization of the doorway seems to have originated in popular religious practices, not the official liturgy. The Conques abbey went beyond rituals created in response to needs of the devotees to reshape the interior space of the church, presumably to make the cult more accessible. In the late Middle Ages, a wall built at the southern arm of the transept created a room inside the church at Conques. On the wall facing the aisle, scenes from Foy’s martyrdom were painted where worshippers could see them (Fig. 5.1).15 Each scene in the martyrdom is accompanied by a provençal verse in quatrain explaining what is occurring along with a moralization – a presentation similar to that found in the Conches stained-glass windows to be discussed later in this chapter. Use of the vernacular was a mode of explication to address a viewer who did not have a full knowledge of the Foy legend and its significance, likely a lay worshipper. Presented in upper and lower registers, the fifteenth-century wall painting expands the martyrdom narrative in unique ways over the depictions of the earlier Middle Ages. The first scene above brings into Foy’s martyrdom story an episode not present in the original passio;16 in it Foy resembles Saint Elizabeth – surreptitiously giving the poor bread as alms that, when discovered by her father, miraculously turn into flowers. The scene dramatizes Foy’s role as a model for charitable giving, not one of her major roles as a martyr. Foy’s almsgiving is not emphasized in eleventh-century versions of her life and death except in the Chanson de sainte Foi. A second scene on the Conques wall, however, mirrors the central event in her early passio and subject of the earliest iconography where the saint is arrested and taken by soldiers before the seated proconsul Dacian. His name is visible over his throne (Fig. 5.2). In a third scene, after Foy has refused to sacrifice to the pagan goddess Diana, Foy is whipped while a heavenly hand emerges from a cloud over her. The next scene shows her undressed and beaten by two executioners. Two witnesses on balconies watch the flagellation, a motif that recurs in art directed at the non-clerical viewer. The final scene on the upper register is no longer visible but was probably Foy’s torture on a burning grill.17 In the lower register, scenes also develop the martyrdom story in new ways, showing Foy imprisoned and praying. There is a decapitation scene with Caprais and

152 The saint in popular piety Prime, as Foy’s soul is carried to heaven by two angels. Foy’s status as martyr for her faith is signaled by a crown that an angel places on her head. A group of the faithful witness the martyrdom and echo the public outcry over Dacian’s cruelty, as the text indicates. The inclusion of ordinary people as observers in scenes of Foy’s torture and killing suggests the intention of the painting’s designers to appeal to viewers in the abbey church, drawing them into the role of witnesses. The final scene in the lower register shows the fifth-century bishop Dulcidius, who moved Foy’s relics to a church from her burial site outside the walls, with Foy’s relics in a cloth being put into a sepulcher by clerics. These visual elaborations of the Foy legend are modernized by representations of architecture, military weapons, and shoes in styles of the mid-fifteenth century when the painting was probably done.18 Given the visibility of the wall painting, which was positioned at eye level for someone walking through the nave, we can assume that this re-telling of the Foy legend was intended for church-goers in general rather than the clergy in particular.19 It has a direct communicative function resembling that of the church tympanum. The space behind the wall has been used as a sacristy, but Marcel Deyres hypothesizes that originally the room had another purpose: it was designed to exhibit the reliquaries owned by the abbey.20 He argues that putting the expanded story of their abbey’s patron saint – the foundation legend of Conques – on the wall of the room marked it as a ritually important location for the cult. We might add that it was a location accessible to lay worshippers and not just to the clergy. Deyres points out that by the fifteenth century pilgrimages were no longer so central to the abbey’s mission and that the abbey had been secularized in 1424, shortly before the wall was painted.21 The windows in the wall would have allowed worshippers to peer into the reliquary room, while the depictions of Foy’s martyrdom on the outer wall offered a narratively expanded story of the abbey’s patron saint. Furthermore, one scene shows the elevation of the saint’s relics, as if signaling what lies beyond the wall. As Nicole Lançon notes, Deyres offers a “seductive” hypothesis of the new structure’s function,22 and the expansion of the martyrdom narrative in the wall painting would respond to the devotional needs and interests of a lay viewer.

Pujols wall paintings Just as the Conques abbey in the later Middle Ages added new visual images to a wall in its church designed to appeal to worshippers of the day, so too the Sainte-Foy parish church in the village of Pujols (diocese of Agen) decorated its interior in the fifteenth century with wall paintings of diverse saints in contemporary clothing – among them Sainte Foy. The village is spectacularly set on a narrow plateau with an escarpment to the west and views over the valley of the Lot river. Given its dominating position, there was a medieval fortress as well as various religious establishments, including churches dedicated to Saint Nicolas and Sainte Foy outside the walls. In the fifteenth century, a new church dedicated to Foy was built inside the town walls (Fig. 5.3). Its frescoes – painted on the walls of the sanctuary and of one chapel – have been recognized as Historical Monuments. This appropriation by cultural and art history echoes the similar appropriation of the Conques abbey church in the early nineteenth century after the visit of Mérimée, discussed in Chapter One.

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The Saint George chapel and the nave in the former Sainte-Foy church at Pujols feature a variety of holy figures. The chapel has a tree of Jesse with branches ending in the kings and patriarchs and the Virgin Mary at the summit with the Christ child in her arms. It also has a scene of the Assumption of the Virgin and a somewhat indistinct martyrdom scene that was identified by a nineteenth-century local scholar, Abbé Gerbeau, as a martyrdom of Sainte Foy.23 On the sanctuary wall, a tall painted cross divides two panels. To the left, Saint George in martial garb on a horse spears a dragon; to the right, Saint Martin cuts his cloak to divide with a beggar (Fig. 5.4). Behind them, from the parapet of a crenellated castle, people look down at the battle (Fig. 5.5). It’s unclear whether the onlookers are being entertained by the sight or whether they are meant to represent devout witnesses to saintly power – or a mixture of the two attitudes. Other saints depicted include Saint Anthony, Saint Catherine with her wheel, Saint Vincent, and Saint Caprais. The Agen martyr Sainte Foy appears nimbed and crowned, with a martyr’s palm branch in her hand and a book. She has a virgin’s long blonde hair and a red dress (Fig. 5.6). Despite her nominal preeminence as the church’s patron saint, the Pujols Foy is shown as just one among her fellow saints. The setting is courtly and all the saints are fashionably dressed, looking more like participants at an upscale social gathering than sober religious figures and martyrs. The fifteenth-century representation of Foy and her saintly peers reveals, I would suggest, the lay taste of the times. Fashion here is “appropriation” in the truest sense – making the saints into members of the viewers’ own society.

The two martyr Foys Throughout the previous chapters we have shown the multiple and varied appropriations of Sainte Foy of Agen and Conques. One of the unusual aspects of her legend is its occasional fusion (or confusion) with another saint’s legend. In addition to the young girl martyred in Agen by the Romans, there was a second virgin-martyr Foy/ Fides whose legend was occasionally combined with that of the Agen Foy: a Roman girl Faith, martyred with her sisters Hope and Charity.24 The hagiographical tradition of the three Roman sisters and their mother Sophie (Wisdom) goes back to at least the sixth century in Byzantium when it was a popular cult, according to François Halkin.25 Greek orthodox traditions focused on Sophia, with many Russian, Greek and Bulgarian churches named for her. Luca Robertini summarizes an international trajectory of appropriation: with its origin in Greco-oriental society, the legend was imported into Italy in the late seventh and the first half of the eighth century and translated from Greek into Latin at that time.26 It was known in Germany in the tenth century when Hrotsvit, a canoness at the Benedictine Imperial Abbey of Gandersheim, wrote a play about Sapientia and her daughters Fides, Spes, and Karitas.27 The legend of Sophie and her daughters was also popular in eastern France during the late Middle Ages, no doubt influenced by the acquisition of Sophie’s relics in 778 by Remigius, Bishop of Strasbourg. He placed them in a female abbey on an island nearby, later named Eschau. The existing church was rebuilt to receive the relics, and it became the only place in Western Europe that celebrated Sophie’s cult continuously until the early modern era.28 The cult flourished in Poland and Hungary in the fifteenth century, where altarpiece paintings and sculptures paired Sophie and her daughters with images of Saint Anne, her daughter Mary, and grandson Jesus.29

154 The saint in popular piety Sophie was part of a group of “mother saints” that became popular in the later Middle Ages; both Sophie and Anne were shown as educators, teaching their daughters to read.30 The Legenda Aurea included the Sophie legend for August 1,31 especially in vernacular redactions; however, the legend of Foy of Agen does not appear in the Legenda Aurea. It is difficult to determine in every case to be discussed here whether the co-mingling of the two Foy legends was deliberate or simply a result of confusion. The cleric Bernard of Angers had chided the monks of Conques for their misuse of Latin, pointing out that “Fidis” (the third declension), not “Fidei” (the fifth declension) was the correct genitive in liturgical use at Chartres: “For if we change the rule, it will seem we mean the virtue named Faith, or the Faith who was martyred with her two sisters Hope and Charity at Rome under the emperor Hadrian.”32 Bernard and later clerical hagiographers might distinguish between the two martyr-saint legends, but clearly he was aware even in the eleventh century that Foy of Agen and Conques could be confused with either the allegorical virtue of Faith or the first of three Roman martyr sisters. An early extremely puzzling example of combining the two Foy legends occurs in Dublin, Ireland in the late twelfth-century Christ Church cathedral. The unusual iconography has been attributed to the Anglo-Norman founders of the cathedral, Baron Richard FitzGilbert of Clare, Raymond le Gros, and Robert FitzStephen.33 The amalgamation of the two legends appears on a double capital carving at the crossing of the north transept. As described by Beuer-Szlechter, the right corbel shows Sainte Foy as a young girl standing and facing forward. She has long hair and a pleated dress with a V-neck, long sleeves, and a wide gem-encrusted belt. Behind her, barely visible to her left, there are traces of one or more unidentified people. In her right hand, the saint brandishes either a grill (attribute of Agen Foy) or a martyr’s palm branch, which is seized by a lion with a large head on the left angle. With the left hand, the girl protects her breast while pushing away a small ugly man – presumably the executioner.34 If this is indeed Foy of Agen, the presence of a lion introduces a novel and possibly threatening symbol not found in any other representation of her martyrdom scene. On the same corbel there is a second girl, the sister Esperance/Hope from the Roman martyr story, with other people behind her. She carries a man’s head in her arms, which Beuer-Szlechter argues must be the decapitated saint Caprais from the Agen martyr story. The lion puts his paw on the head. Behind Esperance is another young girl, identified as Charité/Charity the third Roman martyr sister. On a second corbel is a carving of an older woman with a sad face turned toward the viewer – presumably their mother Sophie. On the exterior angle of the corbel is a bearded man dressed in rich clothing, probably their tormenter Prince Adrien that the Legenda Aurea entry about Sophie and the Roman three martyr sisters describes as dying of putrefaction while regretting his persecution of the three girls.35 Although some of the identifications are problematic, and figures like the lion truly puzzling, the Dublin cathedral capital carvings seem to combine the two different Foy legends. Given the interpretive ambiguities involved, it’s impossible to identify the specific cultural work intended by this fusion of the two Foy legends. In other churches, the melding of the two legends of the virgin martyr Sainte Foy is much clearer. The appropriations from both legends are frequent in late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century French churches, for example in a sixteenth-century sculpture

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at Cernay (Doubs), which shows Roman mother Sophie sheltering her three daughters under her mantle.36 Daughter Foy carries the grill, a primary attribute in most French representations of the Agen martyr.37 This seems to be a case where legends of the two Foys are unproblematically combined – where the origin of one legend in Agen and the other in Rome is irrelevant to the creation of a family unit of three daughters under the motherly protection of Sophie.

The good mother at Sainte-Foy, Conches One of the most elaborate appropriations and fusion of the two Sainte Foys – the Agen martyr Foy and the Roman martyr Fides – occurs in the stained-glass windows of the Conches (Normandy) church choir with their unique blend of the two legends. These magnificent windows offer a hybrid narrative of the saint’s life and death that I will suggest served the pastoral goals of the choir windows’ patrons, the sixteenth-century abbots of the nearby SS. Peter and Paul abbey: Nicolas Levavasseur (1509–25) and his nephew Jean Levavasseur (1526–56). In this case, therefore, an argument can be made about the cultural work performed by a fusion of the two Foy legends. A small church dedicated to Sainte Foy had been built in early eleventh century Conches by the feudal couple Roger de Tosny and his wife Godehilde, as we saw in Chapter Four. The church, which appears to have functioned as both family chapel and parish church, was extended with a choir and bell tower by their descendant Roger III in the twelfth century, but that church was destroyed in the fourteenth century. By the end of the fifteenth century, the population within the walls of Conches had increased substantially, and a new parish church in flamboyant gothic style was begun. As conventional, the naming of a priest and the decoration of the choir end of the Conches Sainte-Foy church were under the patronage of the abbots of SS. Peter and Paul abbey.38 The term “patronage” has been analyzed by art historian Jill Caskey, who notes that the “question of agency lies at the heart of patronage studies. Whose actions had the greatest impact on the appearance of a work of art?”39 The case of the Conches choir windows raises this tantalizing issue but provides no definitive information. We are left with many facts from disparate sources that at best can be assembled to create the argument I will make about the relations between donors, artists, and users. The sixteenth-century windows of the late fifteenth-century Foy church at Conches are now recognized as national art treasures of France, but here I will emphasize their role in communicating with viewers. The chevet is a heptagonal space with seven tall stained-glass windows of more than ten meters in height. Each window is divided into two registers – above, three scenes in the life and passion of Christ, and paralleling it below, two scenes from a unique version of the life and passion of Sainte Foy. There is a third scene at the bottom of each window with portraits of donors and their patron saints.40 The Foy narrative in the lower register of the windows is close to the ground and highly visible, with a didactic descriptive caption in French beneath each scene of Foy’s life and death. Their design and placement enabled easy viewing by churchgoers. The Conches Foy program consists of the legends of the two different virgin martyr Foys fused into a unique narrative featuring the Roman mother Sophie and one daughter, Foy. Sainte Foy’s martyrdom images include several tortures not in the Agen

156 The saint in popular piety Foy legend (the tearing off of the saint’s breasts and the cauldron of boiling oil). The program equally emphasizes the positive mothering of Sophie, who raised her daughter, educated her appropriately, and supported her as she declared her faith. After Foy is martyred, her mother mourns (no doubt on the model of the Virgin Mary), but Foy’s body begins to work healing miracles, and her shrine becomes a pilgrimage site where mother Sophie dies. The prominent role given to Sophie in the Conches choir windows is unique in Foy martyrdom depictions, even those that fuse the Agen Foy story with the Roman mother and daughters legend. The involvement of Foy’s mother Sophie in almost every scene highlights the important parental role of nurture – here dependent entirely on the mother. As in the Roman Sophie legend, the father is absent. Both images and their accompanying texts give Sophie a prominent place in the narrative of Foy’s life and death.41 The first scene, Foy’s birth, depicts two women washing the infant, with the mother in a canopied bed attended by two other women, one reading a book and the other with hands raised as if in awe. The text says, How Sophie with great joy gave birth, From which her heart was greatly comforted. The virgin, baptized Foy, She has joined to her very noble lineage. (A4)42 The scene mirrors the Birth of the Virgin or the Birth of John of Baptist in medieval art, and the phrase “with great joy” (“a grant ioye”) echoes the theme of the Joys of the Virgin Mary. The text also tells us about the birth of a child to a high-ranking family, a motif in the early passio. The next scene of Sainte Foy at school foregrounds Sophie’s role in properly educating her intelligent daughter. The child Foy is shown in direct confrontation with the schoolmaster, prefiguring her eventual confrontation with Dacian (Fig. 5.7). The scene parallels the Biblical episode of the child Christ in the temple with the Doctors, as well as iconographic representations of the young Virgin Mary in schoolroom settings.43 The Conches image shows a classroom with male and female students sitting in a semi-circle as a young Foy and the master debate. The text tells us that as an intellectual prodigy Foy’s education is carefully guided by her mother: Her mother took great care in raising her, She was placed in a good school to learn. She often disputes over very obscure things Against the master, who is incapable of understanding them. (A5) The mother Sophie’s important educational role overshadows Foy’s lineage, as if nurture were being emphasized over nature. In the third scene, Foy is shown as a young woman preaching, an unusual role for a woman in both medieval and renaissance ideology.44 The text does not mention Sophie, but she is shown in the scene with hands clasped beside Foy, who stands on a platform making a speaking gesture – pointing with the index finger of the right hand. Foy’s audience is men who appear to be listening attentively (Fig. 5.8).

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In the fourth scene, Dacian tries to convert Foy to pagan gods while Sophie counsels her daughter to resist. The confrontation is stark: Dacian points downward, while Sophie (a forceful presence) points upward. Foy kneels at her mother’s feet (Fig. 5.9). Her mother, seeing her questioned there By a senator about what law she is preaching, Says to her then, “My beloved daughter, May your faith not be hindered for fear of dying.” (B4) In the following scene (B5), Foy is interrogated again before Dacian (Fig. 5.10). Having stood frm in her faith, she undergoes various tortures which combine the Agen Foy’s torture on the burning grill with others belonging to the Roman Fides story (B6, C4, C5, D4, D5) (Figs. 5.11 and 5.12). Mother Sophie is not present but returns in the remainder of scenes portrayed in the windows. As both Caprais and Foy are tortured, Sophie experiences “great sorrow in her heart” (“grant douleur en eust au coeur la mere”) (E4). After they are decapitated, Foy’s mother resumes a central role in mourning her daughter (Fig. 5.13). After having suffered death by martyrdom The good virgin surrendered her soul to God. Her poor mother laments and sighs. The bailiff of the court regrets his crime. (F4) The following scene shows Foy’s body put into a shroud by women as Sophie looks on (Fig. 5.14). The text notes that Christians and pagans took the body at night to help prepare it for burial, and the poor, sick, crippled, and lame came to be miraculously healed at the tomb (F5). The church is then portrayed as a pilgrimage shrine with people kneeling around a châsse containing Foy’s relics. The text confrms that their devoted prayers are accompanied by valuable gifts! (G6).45 The final scene and its text – Sophie dying by her daughter’s draped coffin, under a canopy and surrounded by candles (Fig. 5.15) – not only end with an echo of the sorrows of the Virgin Mary but offer an allegory of the “good mother”: As one can fnd in writings, The good mother surrendered her spirit to God Near the tomb of her beloved daughter, Her heart martyred from great sorrow. (G5) The original commission of the choir windows was probably by Abbot Nicolas Levavasseur, and the emphasis on the “good mother” with an important role in educating and modeling proper behavior suggests that the abbot Levavasseur wanted to use the stained-glass images of the saint to teach humanist values of education and good conduct to the parish congregation. The period 1480 to 1550 was when the cult of Saint Anne – the nurturing mother of the Virgin Mary – flourished in northern

158 The saint in popular piety Europe, promoted by church reformers and humanists.46 Writing on “Saint Anne and the Humanists,” Karin Tilmans concludes that, What attracted these humanists to Saint Anne was her stature as a classical Magna Mater, and her wisdom … . The function of the mother as the first and most important teacher and educator of her offspring is a new theme in the humanistic writing of the fifteenth century.47 Although the Conches Foy windows are the only place where the legend of Sainte Foy is imbued with this idea of maternal wisdom, it’s not a stretch to see how the contemporary conceptions of Saint Anne promulgated by humanist intellectuals might have infuenced an iconography that fused Roman mother Sophia with Foy of Agen to promote the importance of nurture and education. We know from the surviving abbey library that the abbots were humanists, well read in all the latest authors of the early sixteenth century.48 In his study of the Cathedral Chapter in Rouen, Philip Benedict has commented on the tendency among welleducated clergy from urban elite families to be influenced by the humanist ideas of moderate reformers like Erasmus and Lefevre in the early sixteenth century.49 The abbots Levavasseur appear to share a broadly humanist outlook, at least judging by the unusual emphasis on nurture and education in the Foy windows donated by Abbot Nicolas, as well as by Abbot Jean’s gift of land to build a collège for the children of Conches in the mid-sixteenth century.50 The unique appropriation and fusion of two Foy legends in the Conches choir stained glass may not be so puzzling given the dynamic creative world of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century in Normandy. Two thirds of Norman monuments were rebuilt during those years, and their artists enthusiastically appropriated models from outside the region, as scholars have confirmed.51 The patrons of the new programs were largely members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy – a culturally sophisticated segment of society – followed by the rich bourgeoisie, guilds and confraternities – all of whom made sure their images as donors were represented in the windows they had commissioned.52 The sources for the choir windows were eclectic, and although often recognizable, the designs were freely adapted. The representation of Foy tortured in a cauldron was based on Italian engraver Marcantonio Raimundi’s portrayal of the martyrdom of St. Cecilia. Roman Buron of Gisors was one of the major designers of the Foy program.53 He had worked as an assistant to Engrand Le Prince of Beauvais, whose window on the education of Saint Claude in the Gisors church was freely interpreted by Roman Buron for the education of Sainte Foy window at Conches.54 Like Le Prince, Buron was keenly aware of the popular woodcuts and engravings coming from southern Germany in the early sixteenth century. The upper windows of the apse on the Passion of Christ were indebted to Albrecht Dürer’s engravings on the subject. Art historical research into the eclectic sources appropriated by the Conches window makers has not yielded any information about possible reasons for the combination of the two Foy legends in the choir window iconography and texts. What lay behind the unique construction of Sophie “the good mother” and Foy her intelligent daughter remains a subject for debate. In the choir of the Conches church of Sainte-Foy, both the Passion of Christ windows above and the Martyrdom of Sainte Foy windows below were commissioned after 1500 – probably during the second quarter of the sixteenth century – and completed by a single glazing shop. The arms of the Levavasseurs, the family of the two abbot donors of the choir windows, are on escutcheons carried by four putti on the

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bottom of C6 bay (Fig. 5.16). Two saints are represented: the saintly king Louis IX and either Nicolas, Bishop of Myrrhe, or Benedict, founder of the Benedictine order. Either Nicolas or Benedict would be an appropriate patron saint for Abbot Nicolas Levavasseur.55 The donor panel on window D6 shows Saint Peter with his key and Paul with a sword; both Peter and Paul were patrons of the abbey of Castellion led by the Levavasseurs. Abbot Jean Levavasseur, nephew and successor to Abbot Nicolas, is shown with his patron saint John the Baptist, while most of the windows of the nave have prominent donor portraits of local notables and their families.56 Laurence Riviale begins her trenchant study of the stained glass in churches of Normandy by citing the claim of Émile Mâle that the Conches church was a kind of refutation of Calvinism.57 Riviale extends that claim to the whole of Norman religious stained glass produced in the sixteenth century, calling stained glass “the Catholic art par excellence.” She sees 1540 as the point when Calvinism coincides with a new classical style of the Renaissance;58 however, the Conches choir windows with the Foy legend were certainly commissioned much earlier in the century and executed mostly before 1540.59 Riviale’s interpretation of the choir program at Conches depends upon allegorizing the name of Saint Foy. She argues that the legend of Foy is appropriated to combat the protestant heresy through a play on the word “Faith” and that the importance of Sophie (or “Sagesse”) in the Foy narrative can be explained by the parallel with the Virgin Mary as Wisdom.60 In the absence of hard evidence about the specific hagiographical sources of the Foy windows – and given their commissioning at an earlier date than the stained-glass windows in the church nave, along with their very didactic messaging – it seems likely that the abbots Levavasseur were using the choir windows to express their Catholic humanism, with its pastoral emphasis on the importance of education, parental guidance, and devotion to the saints through traditions such as pilgrimage. Riviale’s (and Mâle’s) argument that the Conches church windows function as propaganda for the Catholic faith, which was then confronting the challenge of Protestantism, applies much more readily to the nave windows – which are all dated after 1540 and whose subjects are the Catholic dogmas, which received renewed emphasis in the Catholic-Protestant confrontation.61 The Catholic theological and dogmatic focus of the mid-century stained glass in the nave at Conches is apparent and obviously supports the views of Riviale and Mâle. The choir windows featuring the Passions of Christ and Foy arguably express an earlier, less confrontational, Christian humanism. However, they share the eclectic creativity of Conches glass generally in successfully combining the legends of the two different Sainte Foys and the Roman mother Sophie.

Foy as patron of place In fifteenth-century Conques and Pujols, updated costume was the means of bringing Sainte Foy close to the fifteenth-century viewers of wall paintings, and in the Conches choir windows it was the nurturing relationship of mother and daughter. Another mechanism for increasing the saint’s relevance to a specific audience was geographic identity. The history of Spanish Santa Fe foundations after the twelfth century has not received much scholarly attention since Bouillet and Servières’ brief survey in 1900.62 As in many European countries, the early foundations connected to the mother abbey in Conques underwent multiple appropriations. In the process, the cult tended to lose identity as offspring of Conques abbey and Sainte Foy took on a role as patron of local institutions. Two prints produced in eighteenth-century Barcelona, Spain,

160 The saint in popular piety illustrate Santa Fe’s local importance. Both carry “goigs” – songs celebrating the saint in the Catalan dialect.63 The first was sung in the parish church of Calonge in the diocese of Vich in eastern Spain (Fig. 5.17). The glamorous saint with necklace is shown holding a palm branch and sword. The song pays tribute to her as patron who showed “Catholich valor” (Catholic bravery) before Dacian and inspired Saint Caprais to come out of his rocky hiding pace to be martyred also. The refrain praises their church’s patron as “Santa prodigiosa,” who is crowned by earth and heaven. As Bouillet and Servières point out, there is an eleventh-century miracle story in the Liber miraculorum about the leading men of Calonge, who placed their town under the protection of Sainte Foy.64 They promised to send the monks of Conques an annual tribute of gold, in return for which the monks sent the inhabitants of Calonge a banner with Foy’s image, which they carried against their enemies, the Saracens. This miracle story written by a monk of the Conques monastery unsurprisingly foregrounds the agency of the Conques monastery in producing miraculous victories. By the eighteenth century, the “goig” portrays Foy as the sole patron of the Calonge church. Connections to Conques are absent. The appropriation to the Spanish location is total in the song produced by and for a Spanish town. Another “goig” from the region is also dedicated to Santa Fe as “patrona,” “protectora,” and “intercessora,” for the people of Raurich (Fig. 5.18). It retells the passio story, but the saint’s agency is similarly directed at the Spanish population that celebrates her, not to devotees at her martyrdom site of Agen or her shrine in Conques.

The cults of Foy in Burgundy The cult of Sainte Foy was appropriated early in Burgundy, and traces of an active popular religious cult in eastern France have been found into the twentieth century. A church manual for pilgrims to Foy sites written in 1941 notes a pilgrimage to La Doye-sur-Seille (Jura), where prayers were offered for sick children and the bread and salt for the animals was blessed at Sainte Foy’s altar.65 Also, in the church at Graye-et-Charney (Jura), an altar dedicated to Foy drew women and girls each year on Foy’s feast day. “From time immemorial, eggs were offered at the mass, and bread and salt for domestic animals were blessed to preserve them from sickness.” There was another church at Nautrey, two kilometers from Graye, with a chapel of Sainte Foy that drew pilgrims on October 6.66 The documentation of Foy’s cult in Burgundy is not continuous, but it does permit reconstruction of its history across many centuries and provides a diachronic picture of appropriation not possible in most other locations. In the Burgundian materials with which this chapter concludes, the saint is described as “belonging” to the valley of Val-Suzon north of Dijon or to the city of Dijon itself – suggesting that, as in Spain, appropriation took the form of geographical identity. Eleventh- and twelfth-century donation charters indicate an early Burgundian foundation of the cult, and there is a fourteenth-century Foy priory building in the valley location of Chevigny-Sainte-Foy. Many documents remain from the late Middle Ages when Foy’s relics were transferred to the Sainte Chappelle in Dijon. There is also a sixteenth-century parish church in the village of Val-Suzon that became a Foy cult site.67 Finally, there is textual evidence from the late nineteenth century that the popular cult of Foy was being fostered anew regionally through drama and pilgrimage. These Burgundian developments show clearly how the cult of Sainte Foy had different regional patrons throughout its history, each of which strove to make the cult their own.

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The Foy cult was first established in Burgundy in the late eleventh century by the aristocratic de Saulx family, a pattern of cult foundation discussed in Chapter Four. Guy de Grancey, the count of Saulx in July 1086, drafted a document giving the abbey his property at Chevigny (later known as Sainte-Foy) and that of Goix (alternatively written Goes, Gois, or Goa) in the beautiful valley of Val-Suzon.68 With their son Eblon, Guy’s wife Ligiarde/Luitgard also made a donation of her own property inherited from her parents, an aleu of Cavanicus and property in the parish of Goes, to the Conques abbey. The document is dated 1110, after her husband Guy’s death. This separate donation by Ligiarde has been described as just a “confirmation” of her husband’s previous donation, but since she specifies that she is donating her own family property it appears to be her personal addition to that earlier gift, and it is another example of the strong role of noblewomen in supporting Foy’s cult.69 In the later twelfth century, family members Guy, the count of Saulx-Tavannes, and his brothers documented the division of authority at Chevigny-Sainte-Foy; while the property belonged to the Conques abbey, the powers of the mayor and his home belonged to a local family.70 It’s unclear when the Saulx-Tavannes family stopped being patrons of the Chevigny-Sainte-Foy priory, but the priory chapel continued to function as the valley parish church, with services, baptisms and interments in their cemetery throughout the Middle Ages. The original priory buildings were mostly in ruins by the sixteenth century, when a new church in the more populous village of ValSuzon down the valley became the parish church, according to a 1563 document.71 A major shift in patronage of Foy’s cult had taken place in 1487, when the Conques abbey revoked its title to the priory of Chevigny-Sainte-Foy in the Val-Suzon; in 1489, the canons of the Sainte-Chapelle in Dijon became the official Foy cult patrons until the Revolution, three centuries later.72 At the outset, the canons were offered new relics of Foy, to be brought from Conques by abbot Louis de Crévaux. In return, they promised to create a rich reliquary that would be carried in first place with the Host to celebrate Foy’s cult at Corpus Christi Day processions in Dijon.73 However, the appropriation by the Sainte-Chapelle canons was not without difficulty; settling who controlled the cult appointments took several years and many legal documents still preserved in the Sainte-Chapelle cartulary.74 The Sainte-Chapelle in Dijon was destroyed at the Revolution, along with the canons’ patronage of Foy’s cult. Despite losing the original Chevigny site of the Burgundian Foy cult, the valley of Val-Suzon retained its nominal connection to Sainte Foy into the modern era, a connection that was exploited when late nineteenth-century Church leaders in Dijon decided to bring back the cults of local saints. In the valley, a spring named for Sainte Foy supplied water for the growing city of Dijon when engineer Henri Darcy designed an aqueduct to bring the resource to the city in the 1840s.75 Fifty years later, Burgundy participated in the project of the French Catholic Church to revivify the faith throughout the country, and Val-Suzon cult history took on new symbolic salience. Rodez Bishop Bourret’s efforts on behalf of Sainte Foy’s cult in the Conques region (discussed in Chapter One) provided impetus. The Dijon bishop’s office corresponded with the Conques abbey and again received new relics of Foy. The contact was said to be Dom Marie-Bernard, curate of Conques.76 However, a note added to the margin of a manuscript by a local church historian, Abbé J. Denizot, says, “Vers 1898, le Curé de Val-Suzon a pu se procurer de nouvelles reliques – Et le pèlerinage essaie de se relever;”77 Denizot suggests that credit for the acquisition of new relics should go to the parish of Val-Suzon, not the Dijon bishop!

162 The saint in popular piety In his study of pilgrimage in the diocese of Dijon between 1860 and 1914, Sylvain Milbach argues that the clergy of France were reinventing national and religious memory after the “brutal rupture of the Revolution.” The process involved new emphasis on the parish clergy and on local traditions and practices, especially pilgrimage.78 Pilgrimages were seen to express a profoundly Catholic identity, and by bringing back local pilgrimages the place of religion in contemporary society would be reaffirmed, as the populace would be reminded of sacred sites in the local countryside.79 High on the list of initiatives for the Dijon ecclesiastical officials was therefore promulgation of a pilgrimage to the Val-Suzon, the original site of Sainte Foy’s cult. The Foy relics given to the parish church of Val-Suzon were placed in a new reliquary. The relics galvanized the popular cult of Foy, and a pilgrimage was successfully organized for October 6, 1899.80 Lyon artists made a life-size wax figure of the saint that was put into a glass and bronze case (Fig. 5.19). A photo of the 1899 procession shows the châsse being carried by four young women in long white dresses and white caps followed by men carrying processional banners. The church steeple and houses of Val-Suzon village appear behind the procession.81 The figure in her case is now on the altar of the Val-Suzon church of St. Nicolas. Engraved in the marble below is the motto on the seal of Conques ca. 1300, “Duc nos quo resides Inclyta Virgo Fides.”82 A flyer for the pilgrimage of 1907 advertises the masses to be sung for the celebration as well as the opportunity to venerate Foy’s relics at her altar. It gives the schedule of special trains to the valley for pilgrims from Dijon and reprints a “cantique” to be sung to the air of “Catholiques et Français.” The refrain gives Foy’s cult its local Burgundian habitation: “Sainte Foy, Patronne chérie,/Garde au Coeur bourguignon la foi des anciens jours;/ Entends du haut du ciel le cri de la Patrie:/ ‘Bon chrétien et Français toujours’!” (“Sainte Foy, dearest patron, /Preserve the faith of ancient days in the Burgundian heart:/ Hear from the highest heaven the cry of the native land:/ ‘Good Christian and forever French!’”).83 The curate of the Val-Suzon church became the head of the Confraternity of Sainte Foy, established in the parish church ca. 1912. A brochure of the time cites the original Foy confraternities established by Popes Urban V (1370), Paul III (1537), and Paul V (1615), as well as the re-establishment of the confraternity by Cardinal Bourret in 1874. It recounts the Foy passio, gives the statutes of association, and lists the many indulgences issued by Pope Paul V’s 1615 bull.84 The appropriation of Foy’s cult by the congregation of the parish church in ValSuzon is also evident from several memorial plaques on the wall near the saint’s châsse (Fig. 5.20). Dated between 1896 and the conclusion of WWII, these “reconnaissances” testify to the vitality of Foy’s cult in the Val-Suzon parish church. A large plaque dated December 15, 1899 gives “Reconnaissance à Ste Foy/ Pour la guérison de mon enfant” (“Gratitude to Sainte Foy/ For the healing of my child”). Another dated 1939–45 offers “A Sainte Foy/Reconnaissance des Prisonniers de Val Suzon/ Pour leur Délivrance” (“To Sainte Foy/ Gratitude from the Prisoners of Val-Suzon/ For their Deliverance”), with a list of seven names.85 Although initiated by the ecclesiastical authorities in Dijon, the reanimation of Foy’s cult in Burgundy clearly had a popular local base in the Val-Suzon parish church well into the twentieth century. The promulgation of Foy’s cult by the Dijon diocese involved making Val-Suzon into a romantic destination – perhaps with the suggestion that going on pilgrimage there would recapture the allure of the forgotten past. The landscape trope for Val-Suzon in Burgundy thus differed decidedly from that found in writings on Conques. The inaccessibility of Conques was a recurrent motif in writings about the Rouergue cult site,

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beginning with the 838 document that created a “New Conques” in Figeac that would be easier to access. When Mérimée made his visit to Conques in 1837 – one thousand years later – he too commented on the “difficult roads” leading to Conques in the winter and the “melancholy” setting in the gorge country. Even at the end of the nineteenth century, the diocesan newsletter that celebrated Bishop Bourret’s re-establishment of Foy’s cult in Conques repeatedly described the site as a “wilderness” that was “desolate and impassible” (in the words of Isaiah 35:1). The effect of the Conques inaccessibility trope was to highlight the near impossibility of situating a saint’s cult in such a forbidding landscape and to suggest the miraculous nature of the cult’s existence and revival. By contrast, the Dijon cleric writing a history of the cult calls Val-Suzon a “petite Suisse bourguignonne” (“a small Burgundian Switzerland”), where “the wild beauties of the wilderness contrast strongly with the laughing colors of a gay landscape.” Unlike Conques, which was seen as hostile to human activity, the Val-Suzon description emphasizes it as a beautiful place that attracts the faithful. The reader’s attention is called to the original cult site: beside an elegant small chateau a ruined chapel reveals a monastery that has disappeared (Fig. 5.21).86 The aim of the clerical writer was clearly to remake Foy into a local saint – to appropriate her not just for the ValSuzon region but as a Dijonnaise, since the canons of Sainte-Chapelle, Dijon had assumed authority over Foy’s cult at the end of the fifteenth century. He says, “classé dans notre liturgie dijonnaise, la vierge d’Agen n’était plus une étrangère: son droit de cité était authentique dès la fin du XVe siècle”87 (“Ranked in our Dijon liturgy, the virgin of Agen was no longer a foreigner: her claim to the city was authentic from the end of the fifteenth century”). Part of the effort to reappropriate Sainte Foy as genuine inhabitant of Burgundy may be seen in a poem by A. Degré that precedes his three-act play about Foy’s martyrdom, which was published in 1901 by the Dijon bishop’s press. At the bottom of the page where the poem appears, a date connects the text of the play with the newly established pilgrimage to Val-Suzon: “Lundi de la Pentecôte, 1901, jour de pèlerinage à Ste. Foy” (“The Monday of Pentecost, 1901, the day of the pilgrimage to Ste. Foy”). The poem opens by calling Val-Suzon a corner of the terrestrial Paradise and hidden jewel in the Burgundian jewel box: “Du Paradis terrestre est un coin détaché… Dans l’écrin bourguignon c’est un joyau caché” (ll. 3, 6). The original priory buildings at Chevigny-Sainte-Foy appear in the third stanza as a numinous location hiding the most beautiful flower, the saint herself: Dans un étang, rasé souvent par l’hirondelle Un antique manoir refète sa tourelle Et protège, à son tour, le Val de Sainte Foy. Mais, Val-Suzon, ta gloire est ta vieille chapelle Où de tes belles feurs tu caches le plus belle: Héroine agenaise, ah! Cette feur, c’est toi! (“In a pond, often skimmed by the swallow/ The tower of an ancient manor is refected/ And protects, in its turn, the Valley of Sainte Foy/ But, Val-Suzon, your glory is your old chapel/ Where among your beautiful fowers you hide the more beautiful/ Heroine of Agen, ah, this fower, it’s you!”) The last stanza appeals to Foy to relight the fre of “vertus antiques” (“ancient virtues”) on Burgundian soil, since “Autant que dans Agen, à Val-Suzon, l’on t’aime” (“As much as in Agen, we love you in the ValSuzon”). We notice that Foy is associated frst with Agen, her home and site of her

164 The saint in popular piety martyrdom, but then with Val-Suzon – skipping entirely the saint’s still-potent connection to Conques in an assertive Burgundian appropriation of the saint.

The Dijon Foy play A play published with the approval of the Dijon bishop’s office in 1901 dramatizes the classic story of Foy’s martyrdom, updating it in an inventively expanded version that foregrounds the saint’s family dynamics – presumably to appeal to the popular taste of the time. The early passio of Foy, as we have seen, presented the martyr as a lone courageous witness to the Christian faith. The saint’s chief antagonist was the Roman authority Dacian. The only other figures who may appear in the early narrative – Caprais, Prime, and Felician – are fellow Agenais inspired by Foy’s courage to come forward to their own martyrdom. In the original passio, Foy’s pagan birth family is mentioned primarily to emphasize her exceptional commitment to the forbidden new religion and to introduce the trope of her high birth that is outweighed by her nobility of character. Through the centuries, the Foy legend acquired additional characters, including a sister Alberte,88 and in the play, Foy is surrounded not just by Alberte and fellow Agen martyrs but a large cast of supporters and detractors. Foy has a nurse, Lucille, whose maternal counsel replaces that of her deceased mother. There are two Spanish Christian slaves (Espérina and Amerina); in the play’s opening scene, they warn Agen Christians about Dacian, who had persecuted Christians in the slaves’ Iberian homeland. Foy also has a bevy of girlfriends, neophytes in the faith who look up to her as their role model, as well as two nasty acquaintances (Dubia and Vipérina). There are lictors, heralds, soldiers, sounders of the tuba, patricians, Vindex the executioner, and a crowd including poor people, not to mention a Bard and a furious “Druidesse.” A subplot introduces a scheming neighbor woman Métella, the mother of the two youths (Prime and Félicien) destined to be fellow martyrs with Foy. Métella’s initial aim is to marry her son Prime to Foy, who is considered a good catch because of her noble status and wealth, but Foy rejects Prime for “un Époux ideal” (“an ideal Spouse”).89 In the third act of the play, a sympathetic Métella tries to intercede with both Foy’s father and Dacian on Foy’s behalf.90 The main drama of the play revolves around Foy’s emotionally conflicted relationship with her pagan father, Gallius. Multiple scenes play out the question “will she or won’t she reveal to her domineering father that she is a believer?”That revelation, the climax of the drama, happens two-thirds of way through the play. Foy tells her father, “Je suis toujours chrétienne” (“I am ever a Christian”), and her father “au paroxysme de la colère” (“in a paroxysm of anger”) tells her he will denounce her to Dacian – which he does.91 In Act III, the crucial declaration of faith before Dacian – a stark confrontation between the two figures in the passio – takes place on a stage full of participants. Dacian’s praetorium is filled with flattering patricians and lictors; the Bard and the Druidesse are there, and Foy is brought in by soldiers as a crowd of poor people attack the palace. Prime is there, as well as Métella, both of whom challenge father Gallius to defend Foy from the executioner and condemn Dacian for his cruelty. In the midst of all this, bishop Caprais has an intimate interaction with Foy in which they affectionately “tutoyer” each other! The crowd decries Dacian’s “infame barbarie”92 (“infamous cruelty”), and the executioner Vindex, seeing an angel beside Foy, falls to his knees and begs her forgiveness. The torturers light the grill, Foy climbs on of her own free will, but then a dove creates a breeze with its wings and rose petals fall on the saint. The crowd recognizes a miracle.

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Dacian and Gallius argue about the condemnation of Foy, with father Gallius finally admitting that he is also a tyrant even more cruel than Dacian. Foy from the grill says “Adieu, mon père, adieu, Foy te chérit toujours …”93 (“Goodbye my father, goodbye, Foy loves you always”). Then in the final scenes of Act III (vi–viii) all of Foy’s allies come on stage, where sister Alberte hears the saint’s voice speaking to her from heaven. Foy invites them to share her martyrdom, saying she awaits them all in Paradise with roses, lilies, and anemones, as well as six angels holding crowns for them. A note for this scene claims (mistakenly) that according to the historical hagiography Alberte, Prime, Félicien, and Caprais died as martyrs at the same time as Sainte Foy.94 The play might be considered a musical, as it features several songs. In Act I, Foy’s girlfriends Agnès and Cécile offer to chase away Foy’s cloud of sadness by singing, accompanied by a mandolin. It’s a spring song about a young girl talking to her warbler (“fauvette”).95 In Act II, the friends again sing but this time a hymn asking the lord of Israel to watch over them in the time of tempest and Jesus the divine shepherd to protect his flock. Foy tells the singers that their hymn seems an echo of heaven that revives her.96 In Act II, Foy herself as martyr sings a farewell, prefiguring her death and arrival in heaven. This song triggers an attack on Foy by the Druidesse, from whom Métella saves her.97 In Act III, the Bard says he will sing to please Dacian, who had revealed that he liked music – referring to Homer and Virgil. The bard’s song, a note tells us, is to be sung to the music “l’Aire de la Pologne.” It praises the pride of the Gauls and calls Dacian the “chef de nos vainqueurs”98 (“chief of our conquerors”). There are even some vague ironic echoes of “La Marseillaise” in the dialogue. Dacian uses the phrase “un sang impur” (“impure blood”) for Christian blood that is defaming altars of the pagan gods: “Romains, et vous Gaulois, de nos dieux immortels,/ D’un sang impur je viens arroser les autels”99 (“Romans, and you Gauls, from our immortal gods/ Of impure blood I just cleansed the altars”). The reference inverts the dominant motif of the play – the contest between pagan and Christian – but also perhaps Foy and her father’s contest between the blood of martyrs and patrician blood. In the final scene, Prime declares that Foy’s fellow martyrs will purge Dacian’s shame from their soil: “De honte Dacien abreuve notre sol” (“From the shame of Dacian, wash our soil”) –similar to the “Marseillaise” phrase “abreuve nos sillons.”100 In a prefatory letter giving approbation from the bishop’s office to the play, M. Bourlier expresses his hope that the Christian public to whom the play is directed will find pleasure and edification in it. However, it’s unknown whether this soap opera version of Sainte Foy’s life and death was ever performed in Dijon. What is clear is that its author put immense effort into developing the traditional single-focus passio story of Sainte Foy into spectacular and sentimental dramatic form that would appeal to his turn- of-the-century audience.

Conclusion The long history of the young martyr Sainte Foy provides multiple examples of the creative possibilities offered by saints’ cults. Far from being monolithic structures generating predictable responses, cults of saints have been dynamic assemblages of “cultural texts” of all kinds that are open to appropriation and reinterpretation by individuals and groups in society. The saint’s image is unexpectedly malleable, and the purposes for which a cult may be used also vary widely depending upon its temporal or spatial setting and, above all, on those who choose it and “make it their own.”

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Figure 5.1 Conques, Abbey church, wall painting of Passion of Foy Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 5.2 Conques, Abbey church, wall painting of Foy before Dacian Photo by Marilyn Deegan

Figure 5.3 Pujols, Foy chapel Photo by Kathleen Ashley

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Figure 5.4 Pujols, Foy chapel, wall painting of saints George and Martin Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 5.5 Pujols, Foy chapel, wall painting (det.), praying onlookers Photo by Marilyn Deegan

Figure 5.6 Pujols, Foy chapel, wall painting of Sainte Foy Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 5.7 Conches, Ste.-Foy church, window A, education of Foy Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 5.8 Conches, Ste.-Foy church, window A, Foy preaching Photo by Marilyn Deegan

Figure 5.9 Conches, Ste.-Foy church, window B, Foy kneeling before Dacian Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 5.10 Conches, Ste.-Foy church, window B, Foy interrogated by Dacian Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 5.11 Conches, Ste.-Foy church, window D, Foy on grill Photo by Marilyn Deegan

Figure 5.12 Conches, Ste.-Foy church, window D, Foy in cauldron Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 5.13 Conches, Ste.-Foy church, window E, Foy beheading Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 5.14 Conches, Ste.-Foy church, window F, Foy in shroud Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 5.15 Conches, Ste.-Foy church, window G, mother grieving at Foy’s tomb Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 5.16 Conches, Ste.-Foy church, window C, saints with putti and arms of Levavasseur family Photo by GFreihalter-Own Work, CC BY-SA 3.0

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Figure 5.17 Calonge, Spain, 18th c. Goigs poster, Santa Fe as parish church patron By permission: Coll. de la bibliothèque de la Société de lettres de l’Aveyron

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Figure 5.18 Raurich, Spain, 18th c. Goigs poster, Santa Fe as town patron By permission: Coll. de la bibliothèque de la Société de lettres de l’Aveyron

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Figure 5.19 Val-Suzon, Parish church, Foy processional statue Photo by Marilyn Deegan

Figure 5.20 Val-Suzon, Parish church, testimonial plaques Photo by Marilyn Deegan

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Figure 5.21 Chevigny-Val-Suzon, Foy priory Photo by Kathleen Ashley

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Notes 1 Simon Gaunt, Gender and Genre in Medieval French Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 183. 2 Roger Chartier, Cultural History: Between Practices and Representations, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 41. 3 Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven Rendall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), xv. 4 Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, xii. 5 Roger Chartier, “Culture as Appropriation: Popular Cultural Uses in Early Modern France,” Understanding Popular Culture, ed. Steven Kaplan (Berlin: Mouton, 1984), 233. 6 The term is Pierre Bourdieu’s in Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984). 7 Pamela Sheingorn, ed. and trans., The Book of Sainte Foy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), I.1, 43–51. 8 Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, I.19, 84–85. On the making of the altar from precious metals and gems, I.17, 82–83. 9 Louis Servières, Histoire de Sainte Foy (Rodez: E. Carrère, 1896; repr. Conques: Éditions Dadon, 1983), 134. 10 Conques, un trésor millénaire, by Bernard Berthod et al. (Paris: Éditions CLD, 2019), 48. 11 Servières, Histoire de Sainte Foy, 135. 12 Servières, Histoire de Sainte Foy, 134. 13 James Bugslag, “Performative Thaumaturgy: The State of Research on Curative and Spiritual Interaction at Medieval Pilgrimage Shrines,” in The Sacred and the Secular in Medieval Healing: Sites, Objects, and Texts, ed. Barbara S. Bowers and Linda Migl Keyser (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 222. 14 Jean Delmas, Les Saints en Rouergue: Enquête sur les pèlerinages et les dévotions populaires (Musée du Rouergue: Musée Joseph Vaylet, 1986), 47. 15 Nicole Lançon, “La peinture murale à Conques de l’époque romane à la renaissance,” Revue du Rouergue 36 (1993), 527. As she points out, there are numerous now-effaced examples of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century mural paintings in the Conques abbey (525). The painting of Foy’s martyrdom was whitewashed somewhat later and only uncovered in 1874 by the curate Gonzague Florens. 16 Marco Piccat notes that some of the scenes on the wall were not directly inspired by known literary or hagiographic texts about the saint; “Une autre chanson Occitane? La légende de sainte Foy représentée en peinture murale dans l’abbatiale de Conques,” Revue du Rouergue 97 (2006): 312. 17 Lançon, “La peinture murale,” 528. 18 Lançon, “La peinture murale,” 529. 19 Piccat, “Une autre chanson Occitane?” 318–32, discusses the only five stanzas out of the fifteen that are still lisible and hypothesizes a provençal “chanson” about Foy circulating in the fifteenth century that departed significantly from the eleventh-century Chanson by integrating Foy into the Agen martyr group (324). 20 Marcel Deyres, “Le local à usage de sacristie à Sainte-Foy de Conques,” Annales du Midi 83 no. 103 (1971): 338. 21 Deyres, “Le local,” 339. 22 Lançon, “La peinture murale,” 527. See also the argument made by Christof L. Diedrichs, “Desire for Viewing: A Deluge of Images in the Middle Ages,” in The Cultural Heritage of Medieval Rituals: Genre and Ritual, ed. by Eyolf Østrem et al. (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen, 2005), 87–117, esp. 109ff. Diedrichs emphasizes the late medieval desire to see relics displayed “en masse” in a showing of all a church’s reliquaries together. 23 Abbé J.-B. Gerbeau, Essai historique sur la baronnie de Pujols en Agennais (Agen: J. Rode, 1891; repr. 2017). Gerbeau was curate of the church and responsible for uncovering the frescoes, which were covered by layers of whitewash. The desacralized building now functions as a community and exhibition center. 24 The Catholic Encyclopedia says there were actually two sets of Roman sister martyrs: (1) in Hadrian’s reign, a Roman mother Sophia (Wisdom) and her three daughters called by the Greek names of Pistis, Elpis, and Agape (Faith, Hope, and Charity), who were

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interred after death on the Aurelia Way; and (2) a second martyr Sapientia (Wisdom) and her three companions, referred to in Latin as Spes, Fides, et Caritas (Hope, Faith, and Charity), who were buried in the cemetery of Callistus on the Appian Way. J.F.X. Murphy, “Sts. Faith, Hope & Charity,” in The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Robert Appleton, 1909). Retrieved March 14, 2020 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent. org/cathen/05766a.htm. On the Greek tradition and its sources of the Sophie legend, see François Halkin, “Les Martyres Foi, Espérance, Charité et leur mère sainte Sophie,” in Légendes grecques de martyres romaines. Subsidia Hagiographia 55 (Société des Bollandistes, 1973), 179–228. Luca Robertini, “Il ‘Sapientia’ di Rosvita e le fonti agiografiche,” Studi medievali 30, no. 2 (1989): 654. Halkin thought the legend and the liturgical cult were not developed until the ninth century, “Les martyres,” 180. A translation with introduction and interpretive essay and notes by Katharina Wilson is Hrotsvit of Gandersheim: A Florilegium of Her Works (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1998), 81–97. Robertini, “Il ‘Sapientia’ di Rosvita,” 654, claims that Hrotsvit used a Latin version from Rome as the basis of her play. Joseph Gross, “L’histoire de l’abbaye Saint-Sophie d’Eschau,” Annuaire de la Société d’Histoire des Quatre Cantons 11 (1993): 7–23, esp. 13–22. The source of information about the relics of Sophie at Eschau comes from a 778 testament of Remigius, Bishop of Strasbourg, who was responsible for placing Sophie’s relics on the island. See also, Judit Sebö, “Sanctifying Virtues: Saint Sophia and Her Daughters, Their Image, and Their Role in Late Medieval Hungary,” M.A. Thesis in Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest (2004), 11. The monastery church became a parish church in the nineteenth century. The original relics were lost during the French Revolution, but in 1938 new relics of Saint Sophia were brought back from Rome, and a Russian Orthodox pilgrimage to the Eschau church was initiated. Sebö, “Sanctifying Virtues,” 28–29. Annecke B. Mulder-Bakker, Sanctity and Motherhood: Essays on Holy Mothers in the Middle Ages (New York and London: Garland, 1995). For the western hagiography of Saint Anne teaching her daughter to read, see Pamela Sheingorn, “The Wise Mother: The Image of St. Anne Teaching the Virgin Mary,” Gesta XXXII, no. 1 (1993): 69–80. Sebö, Sanctifying Virtues, 31. Sheingorn, The Book of Sainte Foy, 109. The biblical/allegorical virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity are from I Corinthians 13.13. H.-V. Beuer-Szlechter, “Sur un chapiteau roman de la cathédrale de Dublin: Sainte Foy et les Chevaliers Normands en Irelande,” in La Chanson de Geste et le Mythe Carolingien. Mélanges René Louis (Saint-Père-sous-Vézelay: Musée Archéologique Régional, 1982), 1118. Beuer-Szlechter, “Sur un chapiteau,” 1125. Beuer-Szlechter, “Sur un chapiteau,” 1126. Jacques de Voragine, La Légende Dorée, t. 1, trans. by J.-B.M. Roze and introd. by Rev. Père Hervé Savon (Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1967), 235–36. An image of the sculpture is shown in Auguste Bouillet and Louis Servières, Sainte Foy, vierge et martyre (Rodez: E. Carrère, 1900), 386. The Legenda Aurea version of Foy’s torture is more elaborate than earlier texts: Foy is first whipped by 36 soldiers; next her breasts are torn off; third she is placed on a hot grill; fourth she is placed in a cauldron of oil and wax; finally, she is decapitated. Auguste Bouillet, L’église Sainte-Foy de Conches et ses vitraux. Étude historique et archéologique (Caen: Henri Delesques 1889), 4, notes 3 and 4. Jill Caskey, “Whodunnit? Patronage, the Canon, and the Problematics of Agency in Romanesque and Gothic Art,” in A Companion to Medieval Art, ed. Conrad Rudolph (Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 196. See also Jill Caskey, “Medieval Patronage and its Potentialities,” in Patronage: Power & Agency in Medieval Art. The Index of Christian Art Occasional Papers 15, ed. Colum Hourihane (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013), 3–30 and the densely referenced article by Adam Kumler, “The Patron Function,” in the Patronage volume, 297–319. The first complete description of the windows was by Bouillet, L’église Sainte-Foy, who provides information about restorations of each window. See also Anne Granboulan, “L’église Sainte-Foy de Conches et ses vitraux,” Congrès archéologiques de France, 138e

184 The saint in popular piety

41 42 43

44

45 46

47 48 49

50

51

52 53 54 55 56

session 1980 Évrecin, Lieuvin, Pays d’Ouche (Paris: Société française d’archéologie, Musée des monuments français, 1984): 230–48. The French texts are given in Bouillet and Servières, Sainte Foy, 286–88. Robert Clark, Pamela Sheingorn and I collaborated on the English translations cited here. For the Foy choir windows, I have followed the numbering of Claire de Haas, Conches-enOuche, Vitraux de l’Église Sainte-Foy (Evreux: Information Touristiques, n.d.). Read left to right, A, B, C, D, E, F, G correspond to the Corpus Vitrearum numbers 5, 3, 1, 0, 2, 4, 6. Sheingorn, “The Wise Mother,” 69–70, discusses various scenes in art that show Mary learning in an institutional setting. At Chartres, a thirteenth-century window shows Mary and four other pupils before a teacher; in the Frauenkirche at Essalingen, a fourteenthcentury window shows Mary as the sole student at the Temple; and in a fourteenth-century Cistercian manuscript made for nuns in the diocese of Constance, Mary is shown in a class of girls with a schoolmaster. Sheingorn’s article is a rich exploration of the cultural functions of the iconographic motif of Saint Anne teaching her daughter Mary to read. For brief periods in the early church, women performed “clerical” roles such as preaching and hearing confessions, but from the thirteenth century onward those practices were suppressed; see Carolyn Walker Bynum, “Religious Women in the Later Middle Ages,” in Christian Spirituality: High Middle Ages and Reformation, ed. Jill Raitt et al. (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1987), 121–39. By the sixteenth century, St. Paul’s dictum that women should keep silent in churches (1 Cor. 14: 34–35, 1 Tim. 2: 11–14) was universally interpreted as prohibiting women from preaching. Claire de Haas, Conches-en-Ouche, 19, assumes the church is the Conques abbey, but it seems more likely that the window represents the Conches Foy church as an appropriate scene of pilgrimage and miracles. There is a substantial literature about the cults of Saint Anne. On the role of humanists in promoting Anne’s cult, see Ton Brandenbarg, “Saint Anne: A Holy Grandmother and Her Children,” in Sanctity and Motherhood: Essays on Holy Mothers in the Middle Ages, ed. Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker (New York and London: Garland, 1995), 39, 45–47. Brandenbarg points out that Johannes Trithemius’s influential tract praising Saint Anne emphasized her learnedness: “educatio, so highly valued by the humanists, which found practical expression in practical piety and morals” (46). Karin Tilmans, “Sancta Mater versus Sanctus Doctus? Saint Anne and the Humanists,” in Sanctity and Motherhood, 345. During the French Revolution, the abbey library was moved to the Conches Hôtel de Ville, where I examined it in the 1990s before it was moved to the Conches Musée de Verre. Philip Benedict, “The Catholic Response to Protestantism: Church Activity and Popular Piety in Rouen, 1560–1600,” in Religion and the People, 800–1700, ed. J. Obelkevich (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979), 176–77. Benedict’s point is part of his explanation of why the Catholic clergy in Normandy was so slow in responding to the new Protestant ideas before 1560. According to Alexandre Gardin, a notary’s contract of October 22, 1552 records Jean Levavasseur’s dedication of land near his monastery to build the school, with buildings for the instructors and others for instructional activities. The collège survived until the Revolution; Conches: Notice historique sur la ville (Paris: Res Universis, 1993; repr. of 1865), 89–90. Martine Callias Bey et al., Les vitraux de Haute-Normandie. Corpus Vitrearum, Recensement des Vitraux Ancien de la France, 6 (Paris: Éditions du patrimoine, 2001), 33. The authors note that Émile Mâle in 1911 had recognized the particular openness of Norman sixteenth-century glass-makers to a wide variety of influences from elsewhere (17, note 3). Bey et al., Les vitraux de Haute-Normandie, 33–35. See Jean Lafond, “Romain Buron et les vitraux de Conches: l’énigme de l’inscription ‘Aldegrevers,’” Annuaire normand (1940–41): 5–42. Bey et al., Les vitraux de Haute-Normandie, 50. Bouillet and Servières, Sainte Foy, 285; Dr. Semelaigne, Histoire de Conches-en-Ouche (Paris: Res Universis, 1989; repr. of 1867), 206. On these donor portraits in stained glass as a source of social information, see Martine Vasselin, “Les donateurs de vitraux au XVIe siècle en France: leurs marques et leur representation,” Rives nord-méditerranéennes. L’édifice religieux: lieu de pouvoir, pouvoir

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57

58 59

60 61

62 63

64 65 66 67 68

69

185

de lieu, 6 [En ligne], mis en ligne le 13 fevrier 2004. Retrieved July 26, 2001 from http:// rives.Revues.org/document 61.html. See also Haas, Conches-en-Ouche: Vitraux de l’Église Sainte-Foy, 6–12. Laurence Riviale, Le vitrail en Normandie entre Renaissance et Réforme (1517–1596). Corpus Vitrearum France – Études VII (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2007), 18. She is quoting Émile Mâle, L’art religieux de la fin du Moyen Âge en France (Paris: Picard, 1908, repr. 1931), 287. Riviale, Le vitrail, 21. Riviale, Le vitrail, 27, says it’s more difficult to trace the spread of Protestantism in the diocese of Evreux (the location of Conches) than in Rouen, given the lack of close historical study of Evreux. But she posits 1537 as the year that Evreux would certainly have been aware of Calvinist writings, with Lutheran ideas from Germany an even earlier influence in Haut-Normandie. Bey et al., Les vitraux de Haute-Normandie, say the choir windows cannot be earlier than 1535. Riviale, Le vitrail, 199–201. The nave windows glorify the Eucharist on the north side of the church and the Virgin Mary on the south. The Eucharist is featured in five windows with the following topics: The sacrament of the Eucharist, the Last Supper, the Mystic Winepress, the Descent of Manna, and Abraham and Melchisedech. The Virgin Mary is celebrated in six windows: Notre Dame de Bon Secours, the Nativity, the Immaculate Conception, the Annunciation, the Triumph of the Virgin, and the Presentation in the Temple. Bouillet and Servières, Sainte Foy. vierge et martyre, 361–67. “Goigs” are the Catalan version of a widespread Iberian devotional phenomenon, the “goses” – popular compositions praising the saints or the Virgin Mary during processions, pilgrimages, or other paraliturgical ceremonies. The term derives from Latin “gaudium” – “joy” or “delight.” Bouillet and Servières, Sainte Foy. vierge et martyre, 265–66. Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, IV.6, 187–89. Manuel du Pèlerin et Histoire de la vie, du martyre et du culte de Sainte Foy (Besançon: Imprimerie Catholique de l’Est, 1941), 91. Manuel du Pèlerin, 92. The name “Val-Suzon” is used both for the valley and for a village located in it. The eleventh- and twelfth-century history of this donation with those of other local aristocrats can be traced in Gustave Desjardins, Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Conques en Rouergue (Paris: Alphonse Picard, 1879; repr. 2017), cxi–cxii. For the original document see No. 445, 325: “In nomine Domini Ego Wido comes de Saltia gratia Dei, una cum consilio R. Linguonensium episcopi et clericorum ejus nec non et consilio nobilium virorum meorum, pro salute animae meae et omnium parentum meorum, dono locum illum qui dicitur Cavanni ad alodium, cum omnibus appenditiis, cum terris cultis et desertis, cum silvis et pratis, sancto Salvatori et sanctae Fidi de Conchas et abbati Stephano et monachis presentibus et futuris de Conchas … . Similitur dono alium locum qui dicitur Goies sancto Savatori et sancta Fidi de Conchas et predicto abbati suisque successoribus, cum omnibus appenditiis, cum terris ad me pertinentibus cultis et desertis, pratis, silvis, et terciam partem decimi que pertinet ad me et omne servitium meorum hominum qui infra hos terminos habitaverint vel laboraverint; et nihil ad meum opus retineo, sed totum hoc, pro peccatis meis, dono sanctae Fidi et habitatoribus de Conchas.” On this foundation, see J. D’Arbaumont, “Le Prieuré de Chevigny-Sainte-Foy et les origines de la Maison de Saulx,” Mémoires de l’Académie des sciences, arts et belles-lettres de Dijon 3e série, t. V (1879): 5–73. This document is also found in a cartulary of the Sainte-Chapelle now in the Archives départementales de la Côte d’Or, Dijon, G 1336, f. 1. Desjardins, Cartulaire, no. 488, 354–55; also Archives départementales de la Côte d’Or, G 1336. Ligiarde’s donation is briefly listed in the Côte d’Or archives G 1229, f. 81 as “undated.” Frédéric de Gournay in his meticulous analysis of the Conques cartulary calls attention to the donations by the Count de Saulx (no. 445) and then his wife (no. 488), suggesting that Guy’s donation (which had not mentioned his wife) was actually a gift of his wife’s property! “Étude du cartulaire de l’abbaye de Conques (Actes postérieurs à 1030),” Mémoire de maîtrise. U.E.R. D’Histoire. Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail, 1988, 356.

186 The saint in popular piety 70 Desjardins, Cartulaire, cxii and no. 539, 381–82. The document is dated by Desjardins 1163–79. 71 The document describing the move of the cult is discussed in a booklet by an unnamed author but authorized by the Dijon bishop and printed by the Imprimeur de l’Éveché, Sainte Foy, Vierge et Martyre. Son culte en France et en Bourgogne (Dijon: Pillu-Roland, 1900), 24. According to this church historian, the cult of Foy also flourished in Burgundy from the fifteenth through the seventeenth century in the churches of Langres, Chalon, Autun, and Besançon (27). 72 The cartulary of the Sainte-Chapelle, now in the Archives départementales Côte d’Or in Dijon, G1229 ff. 3, 6, 9 contains the official documentation. 73 Sainte Foy, Vierge et Martyre, Son culte En France et en Bourgogne, 26–27. 74 Côte d’Or archives, Dijon, G 1229. The lengthy negotiations are examined by J. D’Arbaumont, “Le Prieuré de Chevigny-Sainte-Foy,” 45–67. 75 E.L. Lory, Sainte-Foy, Ses Sources (pamphlet, 1863). 76 Sainte Foy, Vierge et Martyre, Son culte En France et en Bourgogne, 21–22. 77 Abbé J. Denizot, Hagiographie du diocese de Dijon (1876–87) Bibliothèque municipal de Dijon, Ms. 1656, 1657, p. 342. 78 Sylvain Milbach, Prêtres historiens et pèlerinages du diocese de Dijon (1860–1914) (Dijon: Éditions Universitaires de Dijon, 2000), 5, 8. 79 Milbach, Prêtres historiens, 8, 9. 80 Sainte Foy, Vierge et Martyre, Son culte en France et en Bourgogne, 21. The Foy pilgrimages to Val-Suzon were subsequently moved to Pentecost. 81 The photo is reproduced as frontispiece in the edition of the play Le Martyre de Sainte Foy, L’héroine d’Agen (Drame en trois actes en vers) written by poet A. Degré (Domois-Dijon: Imprimerie de l’Éveché, 1901). 82 See Martin de Framond, Sceaux rouergats du Moyen Âge: étude et corpus (Rodez: Archives départementales d’Aveyron, 1982), no. 492, 373. 83 “Pèlerinage de Sainte Foy” (flyer, 1907). 84 “Confrérie fondée avant le treizième siècle en l’honneur de Sainte Foy encouragée par les Souverains pontifes canoniquement établie dans l’église de Val-Suzon” (pamphlet, 1912). 85 Other churches in France also thank Sainte Foy for her protection of prisoners during the World Wars. Jean-Claude Fau notes a plaquette from 1941 in the church of BelmontSaint Foy (Lot) with the invocation “Protégez nos prisonniers.” “Essai sur l’iconographie de Sainte Foy,” Revue de l’Agennais 132, no. 1 (2005): 65. The church at Sainte-Foyde- Longueville (Normandy) has World War I plaques recognizing Foy’s saving of local prisoners. 86 Sainte Foy, Vierge et Martyre, Son culte en France et en Bourgogne, 5–6. 87 Sainte Foy, Vierge et Martyre, Son culte en France et en Bourgogne, 27. 88 See Revue Religieuse de Rodez et de Mende for November 10 1893, 710; in the celebration of Bourret’s cardinalship in Conques, the Foy figure in the parade is accompanied by her sister. Abbé Servières’ Histoire de Sainte Foy, written in 1896, provides a popular life of the saint for pious pilgrims to Conques (according to the prefatory letter). This “popular” legend of approximately the time of the Dijon play includes sister Alberte, the Christian nurse, a group of Christian neophytes, Foy’s charity to the poor, and the miracle of the roses. 89 Degré, Le Martyre, Act I, scene xi, 29. 90 Degré, Le Martyre, Act III, scene v, 92, 96–7. 91 Degré, Le Martyre, Act II, scene xv, 63. 92 Degré, Le Martyre, Act III, scene v, 96. 93 Degré, Le Martyre, Act III, scene v, 101. 94 Degré, Le Martyre, Act III, scene viii, 106. 95 Degré, Le Martyre, Act I, scene v, 12–13. 96 Degré, Le Martyre, Act II, scene ii, 36–37. 97 Degré, Le Martyre, Act II, scene xx, 70. 98 Degré, Le Martyre, Act III, scene ii, 76–78. 99 Degré, Le Martyre, Act II, scene xix, 67. 100 Degré, Le Martyre, Act III, scene viii, 105.

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Index

Abbotsford manuscript 110–11 Agen 20, 66, 67, 69, 152; martyrdom tradition 59–60, 63, 71, 74, 105, 106; in popular piety 153, 154, 156, 157, 163, 164 Alfonso VI, king of Castile and León 64 altars: Conques donations for embellishing 11, 13; dedicated to Foy 57, 73, 97, 101, 160; paintings 66–7, 82, 85; and popular piety 160, 162, 165; restoration and reliquary discovery 24, 25 Andouque, P. de, Bishop of Pamplona 65–6 angels: in Conques carvings 14, 15–16, 36, 39, 63, 76; in costume celebrations 25; in martyrdom scenes 152, 164, 165 Angers 57, 101, 102; see also Bernard, of Angers Anne, Saint 109, 153, 157–8 appropriation of the cult: from Agen 3, 7–8, 9; by art history 22, 152; by Bishop Bourret 22–6; concept 1–4; diachronic 6, 9, 150; ecclesiastical 58, 62, 64, 65, 68, 70, 74; in fashion 152, 153; multiple 72–3, 110–11, 122, 123, 160–65; and patronage 119, 126–33; in personal devotion 107, 108, 110, 111; by popular piety 153, 154, 155, 158–65 Armitage-Smith, S. 125 Arsinde (devotee) 150 Arundel manuscript 110–11 Association of Sainte Foy 24, 73 Augustinian order canonesses 108; Austin friars 108 Austrian libelli 131–3 autobiographies 18, 108–11, 132; spiritual 95–104 Babenberg family (Austria) 131–3 Bagnoli, M. 15–16 Bains (Haute-Loire) 120 Bal, M. 1 Bar-le-Régulier (Burgundy) 66, 79 Barthélemy, D. 58, 120

Bartlett, R. 11, 69, 126 Beatus Rhenanus 131 Beaumont, F.: The Knight of the Burning Pestle 70 Begon III, Abbot 13, 22, 65, 129 Bénazech, A. (canon) 20 Bénazech, M. (notary) 23 Benedict, P. 158 Benedictine order 7, 69–70, 120, 122, 124, 153, 159 Berlière, U. 120 Bernard, of Angers (Liber miraculorum sancte fidis): 6–7, 9, 11, 57–8, 60, 95, 121; description of iron fetters 17; early description of Conques church 7–8; on the influence of relics and donations 9, 11; on reliquaries 10, 12, 22, 27; representations of Foy 13, 128; spiritual autobiography 95–104, 107; on the use of Latin name of Faith 97, 154 Beuer-Szlechter, H.-V. 154 Binski, P. 69 Bond, F. 122 Boniface, Abbot 13, 66; Coffer 25, 47 Bonne, J.-C. 14, 15 Bouillet, A.: Sainte Foy, vierge et martyre 73, 133, 159, 160; L’Église et Le Trésor de Conques 74 Bourchier, Lady Isabel 109 Bourret, E., Bishop of Rodez: 3, 6, 20, 22–3, 67, 161, 163; cardinal appointment 25–6; discovery and restoration of reliquaries 24–5; dispersal of relics 67, 72, 74; installing the Premonstratensions 23, 73; re-establishment of the confraternity 24, 26, 162; re-establishment of the pilgrimage 23–4, 26; ultramontanism 22–3 Bousquet, J. 17 Boynton, S. 127 Brown, P. 6, 119 Bryson, N. 1 Bugslag, J. 151 Burgh, T. (friar) 108, 109, 110

Index Burgundy 4, 21, 66, 123, 150; popular piety 160–5 Burke, P. 1 Buron of Gisors R. 158 Bury St Edmunds (Suffolk) 104, 105, 107 Calmont-d’Olt family 121 Calonge (Spain) 160, 178 Campbell, E. 106 Campsey manuscript 107–8 capital carvings: Agen church 63; Conques abbey 6, 62–3, 75–7; Dublin cathedral 154; Santiago cathedral 64, 77–8 Caprais (martyr) 152, 153, 157, 160; in capital carvings 63, 64, 78, 154; in Dijon drama scenes 164, 165; in passio 59, 60, 71, 106 Caskey, J. 155 Castelli, E. 58 Castiñeiras, M. 64 Cavagnolo (Italy) 3 Caviness, M. 3 Cazelles, B. 71 Cecilia, Saint 25, 108, 158 Centulle V, Viscount 62 Cernay (Doubs) 155 Certeau, M. de 1, 149 Chanson de sainte Foi: 6, 59–62, 71, 104, 105, 107, 127, 151 Charlemagne 10, 17; “A of Charlemagne” relic 11, 22 Chartier, R. 1, 149, 150 Chartres Foy chapel 9, 57, 96, 112 Chevigny-Val Suzon priory (Burgundy) 123, 160, 161, 163, 181 Cheyney family 104, 123–5 Christ Church cathedral (Dublin) 154 Christina, of Markyate (St. Albans Psalter) 68–9 Chronicle of Conques 10 Cistercian order 70 Clark, R. 61–2 Cley (Norfolk) 67 Codex Calixtinus (Liber sancte Jacobi) 61–2 Coffer of Abbot Boniface 25, 47 Cohen, J. 125 Colvin, H. 119 Conches-en-Ouche (Normandy): 69, 122, 128, 150; good mother motif 155–8; stained-glass windows 155–7, 158, 159, 170–7; two martyr Foys 155–6, 159 confraternities 24, 26, 73, 74, 162 Conques: 11–12, 28, 33, 45–6, 58, 59–60, 62, 138, 149, 166–7; in Bernard of Angers narratives 96–104; capital carvings 6, 62–3, 75–7; conflict with Figeac 17; in contemporary culture 26–7; cult

205

appropriation from Agen 7–8; dispersal of relics 72–74, 133, 161; in the French Revolution 19–20; inaccessibility 7, 17, 21, 162–3; in the later Middle Ages 18–19; as model for Santiago cathedral 64; and noble patronage 119–22, 123, 127, 128, 129, 161; as a pilgrimage destination 6, 17–18, 45; and popular culture 150–2, 160, 166–7; pre-Foy 7; rebuilding 13, 20–6, 73; Romanesque setting 13–15; treasury 9–11, 29–32, 47, 106; tympanum 1, 13–17, 27, 33–44, 63 Conrad, son of Hildegard 129, 130 Coulommiers (Seine-et-Marne) 24, 72 Craig, K. 12 “cultural work”: i, x-xi, 2–3, 7; Conques as ritual center 6–7, 8, 11, 27, 57; and ecclesiastical agendas 58, 69–70; of miracle collections 11–12; and noble patronage 127–133; personal relationship with the saint 95, 107, 108, 109–10; and popular piety 149–50 Cunz, J. 73 Dacian: 64, 66, 71, 78, 106; in the Chanson de sainte Foi 60; in Dijon play 164–5; in Romanesque iconography 62–3, 75–6; in stained-glass scenes 156–7, 171–2; in wallpainting 151–2, 167 Dadon (Hermit) 7, 8, 17, 26, 41 De Fayet family 120–1 Degré, A. 163 Dekker, T.: The Shoemaker’s Holiday 70 Delabat de Savignac family 133 Delmas, J. 151 Denizot, J., Abbé 161 Deyres, M. 152 Dijon (Burgundy) 4, 160, 161; Foy play 164–5; pilgrimage promotion 161–3 Dominican order 70 Dom Marie-Bernard (curate of Conques) 161 drama 26 n147, 160; Dijon play 164–5; English 70 dreams, dream visions: Foy representations 13; monastic interpretations 130; in popular culture 150 dress 25, 67, 125, 152–3, 154, 159 Dublin (Ireland) 154 Duffy, E. 72, 95 Dugdale, W.: Monasticon Anglicanum 123 Dulcidius of Agen, Bishop 59, 60, 152 Durliat, M. 62, 63 Edwards, A.S.G. 110 Elizabeth, Saint 109, 151 Ermold, le Noir 7 Estaing, François de, Bishop 19

206

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Etienne I, Abbot 13 Etienne II, Abbot 13 eyesight healing 11, 96, 100, 101, 102, 104, 133, 150 Fabian, J.: Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object 98, 100 Farringdon Ward (London) 70 Fau, J.-C. 15, 63 Felician (martyr) 59, 63, 64, 71, 164 fertility rituals 150–1 fetters: in miracle narratives 123, 133; on tympanum 16–17 Figeac (Lot) 7, 17–18, 68, 121, 163, 183 Franciscan order 70 Frederick Barbarossa, Emperor 131 French Revolution 19–21, 72 Fricke, B. 10 Frotard, abbot 65 Fulbert, bishop of Chartres 96, 97, 100, 132 Gaillard, G. 65 Gallius (Foy’s father) 164, 165 Gaunt, S. 70–1, 149 Geary, P. 72, 130 Geddes, J. 68 Gibson, G. 109 Giffard, G., count of Longueville 123 Gilte Legende 67, 70 Girdle of Sainte Foy 150–1 Glastonbury Abbey 70 “goigs” 159–60, 178–9 Goteline miracle 121–2, 128 Gournay, F. de 60, 62 Grancey, G. de, Count of Saulx-Tavannes 123, 161 Grand Vabre (Aveyron) 7, 66, 80–1 Graye-et-Charney (Jura) 160 Green, J. 122 Gregory VII, pope 64 Gregory of Tours, Bishop ix Grémont, D. 61 grill (attribute): in carvings and engravings 63, 73, 79, 80, 81, 154, 155; in costumed celebrations 25; in drama 164, 165; in post-Romanesque iconography 66–7, 83, 84; in stained-glass windows 157, 173; in wall paintings 69, 85, 151 Guibert “the Illuminated” 9, 11, 96, 102–3, 104, 133, 150 hagiography: 101, 149; personal relationship of hagiographer with saint 95–110; and popular culture 153–4; rewritten 126–33; and sexuality 70–1 Hahn, C. 9 Halkin, F. 153

Hall, S. 1 Haney, K. 69 Head, T. 104 Heffernan, T. ix Heslop, T. 68 Hildegard, of Egisheim 128–9 Historia Compostelana 64 Hohenstaufen family 126–31 Horobin, S. 111 Horsham St Faith (Norfolk) 3, 67, 104, 120, 122–6, 128, 134–40 Howe, E. 69 Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (canoness) 153 Hubert of Angers, Bishop 57, 101 Hugues, Conques abbot 18 Jacobus, de Voragine: Legenda Aurea 67, 110–11, 154 jewels: Conques Treasury 10, 29–32; as a metaphor 106 John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster 125 Jones, P.M. 22–3 Karge, H. 64 Katherine, Saint 66, 80, 109 Kendall, C. 15 Kinoshita, S. 16 Knowles, D. 126 Kufic inscription 15–16 Lactantius: De mortibus persecutorum 60 La Doye-sur-Seille (Jura) 160 Lafont, R. 61 Lançon, N. 152 Leutadus 7 Levavasseur (abbot patrons) 155, 157, 158–9, 177 Liber miraculorum sancte fidis (Book of Sainte Foy’s Miracles): 6, 11–13, 14, 57, 60, 61, 128; Austrian libellus 131–3; Calonge miracle story 160; impact on Conques fame 9; monk-continuators work 13, 99, 103, 121, 127, 132; Sélestat libellus 127–8, 131–2; as a spiritual autobiography 95–104 Ligiarde, wife of Guy de Grancey 161 Linnell, C.L.S. 122 Lionnet, F. 2 liturgy: 4, 57; calendars 68; and Conques revival 24, 26; litany 17, 68–9; objects 9, 11, 13, 15, 36, 150; and patronage 120, 127–8, 129 Louis the Pious, Emperor 7 Macrobius 130 Maldradus, Abbot 7 Mâle, É. 159 Mandach, A. de 127

Index Maréchal, S.: Nouvelle legénde dorée 19–20 Margaret, Saint 109 martyrdom representation: 58–9, 74, 79, 82; in Agen 59, 63; in the Chanson de sainte Foi 59–62; in Conches 156, 157, 158, 172–6; in Conques 59, 62–3, 151, 166, 167; in Dijon play 164–5; postRomanesque 66–8; in Pujols 153; in Santiago de Compostela 64–5; two martyr Foys 153–5; in Vie de seinte Fey, 105–6 Martyre de Sainte Foy, L’heroine d’Agen (Dijon play) 164–5, 186n81 Martyrologium Hieronymianum 59 Mary Magdalen 61, 109 Masham (North Yorkshire) 67 Master Esteban (Etienne) 64 McLaughlin, M. 119 Melk and Klosterneuberg monasteries (Austria) 131–2 Mérimée, P. (Inspector General of Historical Monuments) 20–2, 26, 45, 46, 163 Milbach, S. 162 Milner, L. 69 miracles: healing 11, 13, 95, 96, 100, 101, 102, 104, 121–2, 133, 150, 156, 157, 162; prisoner liberation 12, 16–17, 95, 104, 123–4, 138; of Saint James 12, 61–2; of Saint Stephen 11; see also Liber miraculorum sancte fidis modes of appropriation: 2, 126–7; addition 164; bricolage 10, 58, 65; excision 131–3; layering 127, 131; legends 8, 17, 73, 129– 31; parody 20; reframing 126; translation 59, 62, 104, 105, 107, 126–7, 132 Moralejo, S. 64 Morlàas (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) 62, 81–2; martyrdom iconography 66 Musset, L. 122 Nautrey (Jura) 160 Nichols, A. 68 Nogent, C. de, Abbot 72 Noyon (Oise) 57 Odolric, Abbot 13 oraculum 130, 131 Osbern, of Bokenham: and the Abbotsford manuscript 110–11; Faith as his birth date saint 108; Legendys of Hooly Wummen 108–10, 127 “Other” cult as 97–100, 102–3 Otto, Bishop of Strasbourg 129–30 Oudéard, N. (painter) 66 palm (attribute) 66–7, 73, 81, 82, 83, 153, 154, 160, 169, 178, 179 Pamplona (Spain) 64, 65, 66

207

Park D. 69 Pascal II, pope 17 passio see martyrdom patronage 4, 136, 155; appropriations 119, 126–33; Burgundy 161; conflicts between secular and monastic authorities 120; cross-Pyrenean 65–6; definitions 149, 155; donations 120–3, 129, 131, 161; Horsham priory 122–6; humanist influence 157–9; privatization of the holy 119, 133; rival East Anglian cults 124–5; Sélestat 126–31; Spain (18th c.) 159–60 Perse (priory) 121 personal relationship with the saint: 4, 26, 70, 95; Bernard of Angers 95–104; Osbern of Bokenham 108–11; Simon of Walsingham 69, 104–7 Pfaff, R.W. 68 Pierre I, king of Aragon 65 pilgrimages: 6, 17–18, 22, 27, 73, 74, 96, 102, 123, 124, 136, 152; 19th c. revival of 23–4, 26; cross-Pyrenean 61, 65, 66; and donations 9; in Eastern France 160; requests and rituals 151, 157; to Val-Suzon 161–3 Pippin I, king of Aquitaine 7 plaques 25, 80–1; testimonial 162, 180 Plesch, V. 2 Pons of Polignac family 120 popular piety: in Burgundy 160–4; in Conques 96–7, 150–2; definition of popular culture 149–50; drama 164–5; in Pujols 152–3; role of the good mother, Conches 155–9; songs, and saintly patronage, Spain 159–60 Pratt, M. L. 98 prayers: to Foy 24, 69, 85, 98; Foy on tympanum 14, 16; by laity 119, 123, 133, 137, 138; litany practices 68–9; personal intercessions 101, 103, 104, 105; in popular piety 151, 160, 169 Premonstratension Order 23, 24, 26–7, 73 Prime (martyr) 59, 63, 64, 71, 152; in drama scenes 164, 165 Pujols (former Sainte Foy church) 152–3, 167–9 Raimond VII, Count of Toulouse 18 Raimundi, M. 158 Raouls, J. (Dean of chapter) 72 Raurich (Spain) 160, 179 rebuilding of Conques abbey: Bourret’s revival 22–6; Mérimée 20–2; in the Middle Ages 13 reception: ix, x 1, 3, 13, 62, 96; and the Abbotsford manuscript 110; and the Campsey manuscript 107; and popular piety 149–50

208

Index

Reilhac, Raymond de, Abbot 18–19 relics: acquisition 6, 7–8, 9, 119, 133, 153; “A of Charlemagne” 11, 22; lists 70; lists, of virgin martyrs 70; in Saint-FoyTarentaise 67; translation and dispersal 2, 59–60, 67, 72–4, 105, 152, 160, 161, 162; use and discovery of reliquaries 10, 24–5, 26, 98; wrapping 16, 150, 152 reliquaries: 9, 22, 32, 47, 74, 109; châsse de sainte Foy 133, 157; Coffer of Abbot Boniface 25, 47; description from Bernard of Angers 10, 27, 98; discovery and restoration 24–5; exhibition 152; and holy rivalry 12; jewelry assemblage 10–11; “Majesté” (L. “maiestas”) 9–10, 29–31; and popular piety 152; Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon 72; saving 20; statue 3, 6, 9, 12, 16, 27, 66, 106, 123 Remensnyder, A.G. 8, 17, 120 Remigius, Bishop of Strasbourg 153 representations and roles of Sainte Foy: allegory of faith 105–6, 159; birth date saint 105, 108; competitor with other saints 12; female virgin martyr 68, 69, 70–2, 153, 169; feudal noblewoman 61, 107; gifted student 156–7; glorious celestial virgin 13, 65, 103, 128; intercessor and patron, at Conques 6, 7, 8, 11, 14, 16, 35, 58; for individuals 105, 108, 109–10; in Burgundy 160–4; in Spain 159–60; martyr, at Agen 8, 59, 63; at Conches 155–8; at Conques 62, 75, 76, 77, 151–2; at Dijon 164–5; at Santiago 64 77, 78; post-Romanesque 66–8, 74, 133; miracle-worker 8, 11–13, 57, 58–9, 74, 121, 123, 138, 150–1, 160; multiple x, 13, 74, 107, 111; name saint 121, 131; patron of hagiographers 95–6, 104; proto-monk 69–70, 104–5, 107, 124; adult statue 13; treasure-collector 9–11; trickster 96, 103, 107, 111, 128, 132; young girl 9, 13, 60, 103 Revue Religieuse de Rodez et de Mende 23, 25 Richard II, duke of Normandy 122 Riviale, L. 159 Robertini, L. 153 Rodez diocese: Bishop Bourret’s revival 22–6; conflict with Conques 19; holy rivalry 12; relic translation 72, 133 Rosenthal, J.T. 119 Rosenwein, B.H. 26 Rosureux (Alsace) 74 Rousselet, Antoine de, Abbot 19 Rudolph, C. 27 Russell, D. 107 Sainte-Chapelle (Dijon) 160, 161, 163 Sainte-Foy-de-Longas (Dordogne) 74 Sainte-Foy-la-Grande (Gironde) 18 Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon (Auvergne-Rhône- Alpes) 72–3

Sainte Foy-Tarentaise (Savoie) 66–7, 82–4 Saint Pierre abbey (Chatillon/Castillon/ Castellion) 122 Sanok, C. 67 Santa Fede church (Cavagnolo) 3 Santiago de Compostela (Spain): 6, 17, 18, 26, 27, 61, 65, 66, 109; chapel iconography 64, 77–8; pilgrimage guide 61; St. James miracle collection 12 Saulx-Tavannes family 161 “Sauvetage du Trésor” (saving of the treasure) 20 Sélestat foundation 3; patronage and revision of the libellus 59, 120, 126–32 Servières, L.: Histoire de Sainte Foy 19, 73, 150–1; Sainte Foy, vierge et martyre 73, 74, 133, 159, 160 silk fabric: altar antependium 67, 83; girdle of Foy 150–1; relic wrapping 15–16, 72, 133 Simon, monk of Walsingham 71; and the Campsey manuscript 107–8; Life of Seinte Feye (Vie de seinte Fey) 69, 104, 105; metaphor of gems 106; puns on name of saint 105–6; relationship with the saint 95, 104–7 Snyder, J.E. 16 songs: Catalan “goigs” 159–60; in Dijon Foy play 165 Sophie (Foy’s mother): in Conches iconography 155–7, 158, 159, 170–1, 176; in Greek orthodox tradition 153; the two Foy martyrs 153–5 Southwell family 126 Spiegel, G. x Sponsler, C. 2–3 St. Albans Psalter: and the Benedictine order 69; Foy in liturgy 68–9 St. Augustine monastery (Canterbury) 68 St. Gall abbey (Switzerland) 73 stained-glass windows: Conches iconography xi, 155–9, 170–7; Sélestat donation 131 statues: Conques reliquary 3, 6, 9–10, 16, 25, 27, 66; cultural practices 98; post-Romanesque iconography 79, 82; processional 162, 180 St Peter Mancroft church (Norwich) 67 Sulpicius Severus 101 sword 25, 66–7, 160 Sybil, de Cheyney 123–4, 126, 128 Taussig, M.: Mimesis and Alterity 103 Thomas, of Monmouth: The Life and Passion of St. William, the Martyr of Norwich 124, 125 Tilmans, K. 158 Tompkins, J. x Tosny family 121–2, 155 tympanum: 6, 27, 33–4, 63, 152; accessibility 14–15; angels 15–16, 36, 39; Arabic

Index inscriptions 15–16; blessed figures 16–17, 38, 40–2; dating 14; devils 16, 43, 63; Foy as an intercessor 14, 35, 58; hands 16; Last Judgement carving 1, 13, 14, 35; Mérimée’s description 21; moral and theological messages 14–15; purpose 14; reflexive of abbey church 16–17 Ulrich III, of Epperstein (abbot of St. Gall) 73 Urban II, pope 66 Val-Suzon (Burgundy): 160, 161, 180; geographical attractions 163; pilgrimages 160, 162, 163 Vauchez, A. 67 Vergnolle, E. 14 Vignay, Jean de: Legende Dorée 67 Vincent of Pompejac, Saint 8 Vincent of Saragossa, Saint 8 virginity and martyrdom: associated with gems 106; Foy’s representation 67–8, 70–2, 124

209

wall paintings: in Conques 151–2, 166–7; in Horsham St Faith xi, 120, 122–3, 124, 125, 126, 135–40; in Pujols 152–3, 168–9; in Westminster Abbey 69 Walter of Tubelsheim 130, 131 Wands, F.T. 59 Ward, B. 12, 125 Westminster Abbey (London) 69, 85 White, H.: “Forms of Wilderness” 103 Winchester Cathedral 67 Winstead, K. 70, 71, 108, 109 Wogan-Browne, J. 106, 108 women as cult patrons: at Conques 121; at Conches 121–2, 128; in East Anglia 107–9; at Horsham St. Faith 123–4, 128; at Sélestat 128–9 Woodforde, C. 67 Wormald, F.: English Kalendars Before A.D. 1100 68 Yarrow, S. 124