GERMIGNY-L’EXEMPT: THE CHURCH X-RAYED!
The academic Emmanuel Legeard has devoted an entire volume to this 12th and 13th century building. The historian analyzes its architecture, its sculptures and places them in their historical and religious context. His six essays, which complement each other, first immerse the reader in the complex political intrigues between the great provincial houses and the French crown, which sought to consolidate its authority, using the spiritual authority conferred by the Church, under the pretext of establishing the peace of God.
These power games are at the origin of the construction of the church of Germigny, which seals the alliance between the Bourbons and Louis VI, and whose monumentality evokes the royal power. But the central part of the work is devoted to a slightly later bas-relief which constitutes another singularity of the church. It depicts the Magi and in particular Gaspard brandishing three gold coins. These three coins are very meaningful because they refer to the Eucharist and to the crusades, both those aiming at the reconquest of the holy places and those against the Cathar heresy in Languedoc.
After the politics of the lords, Emmanuel Legeard explores the politics of the Church, the Gregorian reform and the involvement of pious warriors such as the famous Simon de Montfort, who never stopped defending the Church by force of arms. Throughout this work, Emmanuel Legeard demonstrates a flawless erudition. As always for the Middle Ages, the sources being fragmentary (we do not know, for example, the exact date of the construction of the church of Germigny), the author puts forward hypotheses. But these are always perfectly supported and acquire under his pen the force of evidence, so much so that the reader has the impression of attending the final scene of a detective novel during which the detective connects all the clues which allowed him to have the final word of the enigma. A really, in-depth, knowledgeable but nevertheless exciting book.
- Recension by : Frédéric Merle
