"The Third Oldest Tympanum " a Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne Travel Page by hquittner

Beaulieu is an old town (pop. 1.8K) built up around its 12-13C Benedictine church of St. Peter. The church is the main reason for visiting the town. It was built by the Cluniacs to provide shelter for pilgrims on their way to Compostela. Since the church was built during the development of sculture at the school of Toulouse and Moissac (See Our Tips on both sites), there must have been artisans and monks to spare as those creations wound down, A tympanum was created at each of those places and the idea of incorporating Christ's Word must have stirred up a great response at Moissac, so why not turn out another for Beaulieu? We did not know these details until after we visited Beaulieu. We found them when we read an abridged version in English of Emile Male's great early 20C masterpiece on the "Religious Art of 12-18C France". The Porch figures shown here are again a direct descendant of the forms first seen in the porch of Moissac. This work was so successful that further examples were created in nearby towns in the area.