We slept in until our bodies woke us. Although normally the rooms have to be vacated by nine o’clock for the cleaner to come, she would not be coming today, being Sunday. It was a freezing day so I settled down in my sleeping bag to type and Keith studied the photos that he had taken of pages in a guide book. If we walked on we would not have a guide book and we would be relying on the red and white markers and these photos.
Suddenly remembering that the shops shut at lunch time, we quickly readied ourselves to buy some food for dinner. Katya was very low on funds, so we purchased her list of items from the supermarket for her, with the intent to sort the finances out at the next gite, after she had been to the bank. While we were waiting at the checkout at the supermarket, a lady indicated through the window that there was money on the floor and that I should pick it up. I knew it wasn’t ours, and the man beside us said it wasn’t his. It was no-one’s, so I said that we would give it to the church for the poor. There was great agreement to this suggestion from the queue members.
We were a long time returning with the shopping because the Sunday morning market was on. There were many clothing and jewellery stands as well as food for sale – sausages, cheeses, bread, cakes, fruit, vegetables, meat, nuts and legumes, plants – lots of bustle and colour. Watching the people was also interesting, with a mix of colours and languages, and lots of families out with their children.
Above: The garlic stall had many varieties
Below: The preserved meats appeared to be covered with a grey mould.
The pilgrim with the dog told me that he had been shopping, indicating a bag of goodies for him and some dog supplies. He was cheerful and was chatting to other people. In the square nearby a family of portly bronze people was sitting on the benches, in comfortable poses, with one perpetually working away at her knitting.
After lunch we walked up the hill behind our gite, to where a large statue of Mary gazed out over the town. Excellent information boards with pictures and photos from the past, told us about the sights below. The Abby of St Peter was founded in the 7th Century, and was added to over time. The old part of the town has many medieval buildings and the character of an ancient town, although many mansions date from the 18th century when trading was at its height. The French Revolution in 1879 ended the role of the church in the life of the city, and at that time the municipality of Moissac was created. It is lucky that the wanton destruction of church property, or alteration to meet new civilian demands, did not happen here. One change that did go ahead in more recent times was the siting of the railway lines just behind the cloisters. The judges who held court in the buildings off the cloisters at the time, up and left, saying that they would not be able to stand all the noisy interruptions that trains would bring. Disastrous floods led to much new building in the 1930s. The meandering river Tarn, with the elegant Napoleon bridge arching its way across, and the regimented straight canal, could be seen across town.
We were joined by a man out for a stroll, who grew up here and remembered the convent when it was running as one. The convent was built by some rich ladies who were called ‘the ladies of mystery’, and eighteen Carmelite nuns started there in 1858. Their numbers dropped to the point in 1950 that it was not viable to continue. The building was used as housing for the poor until 1975 when it was again a religious house, occupied by a community of the Opus Maria. They left in 1997 and in 1999 the Commune took it over to create a gite and an international conference centre. Keith had forgotten something, so we walked back down the hill together to our convent gite and the man stayed to chat to me when Keith went inside. I love these chance encounters that enable me to listen and to speak French with no English back up and to hear people’s stories.
It was time to visit the cloisters so we bought our tickets in the Tourist Office, where the pilgrim and his dog were browsing through the guides. It was toasty warm in there. We left to go to the St Pierre Church next door, where there is an elaborate carved portrayal of the Apocalypse, as described by St John. Christ is enthroned, with twenty-four crowned ancient men holding harps, and around him are four beasts – one like a lion, one like a bull, one with the face of a man and one like an eagle flying. There are other strange beasts and figures surrounding the portal, and some of the figures look like skeletons.
The church was part of the St Pierre great abbey which was said to have been founded by Clovis, the first Frankish Christian king. The abbey was one of the great Christian religious communities under the Benedictines in the Middle Ages. Both the church entrance and the sculpted columns in the cloisters are on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
While we were reading the information before entering the church, the pilgrim we kept seeing came over and asked me if I could give him one Euro because he needed to give one Euro to the Tourist Office. It seemed an odd request and Keith asked him if he was a beggar, in English. That question was ignored, since he was telling me in French and a couple of words of English that he came from the earth, and that he had moved beyond being a citizen of Brittany and was now a ‘citizen of the earth.’ He didn’t agree with the systems in France. He was now a pilgrim and slept out every night, even when it rained. I wasn’t sure what he wanted the money for the Tourist Office for, but maybe it was to purchase something or maybe they were charging him for heating if he was in there all day, or maybe it was for something else and he was a beggar. I searched my pocket for the five Euro note from the supermarket floor and told him that I was going to give it to the church, but that he could have it. He seemed overwhelmed and said that he could not take it, and then said that he would use one Euro of it and give the rest to the church for me. I was thinking of St Martin, and how he gave his cloak to a poor man who turned out to have been Jesus, with the message being that when you help the poor, it as if you have given to Jesus. I was under no illusions about this situation, and know that the money may or may not have been put to good use, also that it wasn’t a sacrifice for me since it wasn’t my money. Nevertheless, I would have given my money, as an act of humanity. The problem of beggars is a constant one for us, since they congregate around churches and tourist offices, where people with spare money may be, and also in the streets of the towns. It is difficult to give to all, and difficult to give to none, and impossible to tell who is a professional beggar and doing very well on it and who is a person in dire need.
The church has religious scenes in painted wood, carved in the fifteenth century, with almost naïve round faced characters and very fluid lines. The organist arrived and filled the building with a stream of beautiful sound, after some very strange fog horn type warming up moments.
We then started the longest, coldest tour of the cloisters in history. Our guide was incredibly enthusiastic, leaping about and highlighting details with a laser pointer. She spoke French, and although I could follow to some extent, the speed and content made it very difficult. Keith didn’t even try to understand the commentary and concentrated on taking photos that we hoped I would be able to make sense of later. The guide took a shine to me and pin pointed me with her gaze, repeating a key sentence to be sure that I had understood. I tried to look as if I did understand, even when I didn’t, in the interests of the tour finishing before we all had turned to ice statues. The cloister was completed around 1100, and is special, apart from the magnificent Romanesque carvings, because it is intact. There are seventy-six capitals and side pillars, all with carving, and forty-six of them depict scenes from the bible and the lives of the saints. On some capitals, the story is told in different scenes around each side. They are so detailed, with individual faces, clothing, hairstyles and equipment all there as the sculptors imagined and carved them.
Above: Limestone is great for sculptors but bad for posterity. If the capitals hadn't been under shelter all these years thei surfaces would look like this by now.
They also have inscriptions so that there can be no confusion over what they depict, and would have been a way to teach bible stories to the illiterate and also provided topics for meditation in this usually peaceful place. The organ music competed with our guide and a tour of students, taking about five minutes only, was noisy and lively.
The abbey became affiliated to the abbey in Cluny in 1048, and the abbey church was consecrated in 1063, in time to cash in on the great increase of English and Irish pilgrims on their way to Saint Jacques de Compostelle in Spain. There was often a rich offering made at churches along the way, particularly to abbeys which had provided accommodation and care. The cloister carvings added to the prestige of the abbey as a key religious stop over and, a generation later, the new porch carving set Moissac as a ‘must see’ point for any pilgrim.
We were grateful for the warming exercise as we climbed the stairs at one corner of the cloisters. They led up into the top of the church where you could look down over the body of the building, and held a large wooden arch frame. To warm us up even more, we did a little tour of the town, over to the Napoleon Bridge and back along the road to the convent.
There was a roaring fire in the gite kitchen, where two friendly Swiss pilgrims were cooking their dinner. A Belgian man who worked at the hostel told us about his four completed pilgrimages from different points, with his favourite being the one from Montpelier that passes through Lourdes. He was studying a guide book for his walking trip to Jerusalem next year. Another man was having a drink. Everyone spoke French so that was the language of most conversation, but the Swiss ladies spoke English with us and something else between themselves. The discussion turned to wild dogs, and the two men said that they it was not wild dogs, but domesticated dogs with a sense that their territory was being invaded, that were the problem in Spain. They said that dogs are more aggressive if they sense fear, so don’t be afraid and things will go better. The Swiss ladies did not find that very reassuring and doubted if they could fake fearlessness. They walked thirty kilometres a day for three weeks each year and had started from Geneva. They were used to high mountains and walked every weekend of the year so were very fit. Katya came down to join us all, and it was an enjoyable little taste of what being a pilgrim in warmer, more social times might be like.
We all planned to leave the next morning – the Swiss ladies at 7.30, us at 8.30 and Katya sometime after ten.
This sculpture is in the street is called 'A la gloire de Moissac' (to the Glory of Moissac) and it celebrates the pure water and golden grapes that the town is famous for. It appears to depict the god Bacchus encouraging the woman to indulge in yet more consumption of grapes Neither Bacchus nor the woman appear particularly happy! Are those flames leaping up around the woman?
Suddenly remembering that the shops shut at lunch time, we quickly readied ourselves to buy some food for dinner. Katya was very low on funds, so we purchased her list of items from the supermarket for her, with the intent to sort the finances out at the next gite, after she had been to the bank. While we were waiting at the checkout at the supermarket, a lady indicated through the window that there was money on the floor and that I should pick it up. I knew it wasn’t ours, and the man beside us said it wasn’t his. It was no-one’s, so I said that we would give it to the church for the poor. There was great agreement to this suggestion from the queue members.
We were a long time returning with the shopping because the Sunday morning market was on. There were many clothing and jewellery stands as well as food for sale – sausages, cheeses, bread, cakes, fruit, vegetables, meat, nuts and legumes, plants – lots of bustle and colour. Watching the people was also interesting, with a mix of colours and languages, and lots of families out with their children.
Above: The garlic stall had many varietiesBelow: The preserved meats appeared to be covered with a grey mould.
The pilgrim with the dog told me that he had been shopping, indicating a bag of goodies for him and some dog supplies. He was cheerful and was chatting to other people. In the square nearby a family of portly bronze people was sitting on the benches, in comfortable poses, with one perpetually working away at her knitting.
After lunch we walked up the hill behind our gite, to where a large statue of Mary gazed out over the town. Excellent information boards with pictures and photos from the past, told us about the sights below. The Abby of St Peter was founded in the 7th Century, and was added to over time. The old part of the town has many medieval buildings and the character of an ancient town, although many mansions date from the 18th century when trading was at its height. The French Revolution in 1879 ended the role of the church in the life of the city, and at that time the municipality of Moissac was created. It is lucky that the wanton destruction of church property, or alteration to meet new civilian demands, did not happen here. One change that did go ahead in more recent times was the siting of the railway lines just behind the cloisters. The judges who held court in the buildings off the cloisters at the time, up and left, saying that they would not be able to stand all the noisy interruptions that trains would bring. Disastrous floods led to much new building in the 1930s. The meandering river Tarn, with the elegant Napoleon bridge arching its way across, and the regimented straight canal, could be seen across town.
We were joined by a man out for a stroll, who grew up here and remembered the convent when it was running as one. The convent was built by some rich ladies who were called ‘the ladies of mystery’, and eighteen Carmelite nuns started there in 1858. Their numbers dropped to the point in 1950 that it was not viable to continue. The building was used as housing for the poor until 1975 when it was again a religious house, occupied by a community of the Opus Maria. They left in 1997 and in 1999 the Commune took it over to create a gite and an international conference centre. Keith had forgotten something, so we walked back down the hill together to our convent gite and the man stayed to chat to me when Keith went inside. I love these chance encounters that enable me to listen and to speak French with no English back up and to hear people’s stories.
It was time to visit the cloisters so we bought our tickets in the Tourist Office, where the pilgrim and his dog were browsing through the guides. It was toasty warm in there. We left to go to the St Pierre Church next door, where there is an elaborate carved portrayal of the Apocalypse, as described by St John. Christ is enthroned, with twenty-four crowned ancient men holding harps, and around him are four beasts – one like a lion, one like a bull, one with the face of a man and one like an eagle flying. There are other strange beasts and figures surrounding the portal, and some of the figures look like skeletons.
The church was part of the St Pierre great abbey which was said to have been founded by Clovis, the first Frankish Christian king. The abbey was one of the great Christian religious communities under the Benedictines in the Middle Ages. Both the church entrance and the sculpted columns in the cloisters are on the UNESCO World Heritage list.While we were reading the information before entering the church, the pilgrim we kept seeing came over and asked me if I could give him one Euro because he needed to give one Euro to the Tourist Office. It seemed an odd request and Keith asked him if he was a beggar, in English. That question was ignored, since he was telling me in French and a couple of words of English that he came from the earth, and that he had moved beyond being a citizen of Brittany and was now a ‘citizen of the earth.’ He didn’t agree with the systems in France. He was now a pilgrim and slept out every night, even when it rained. I wasn’t sure what he wanted the money for the Tourist Office for, but maybe it was to purchase something or maybe they were charging him for heating if he was in there all day, or maybe it was for something else and he was a beggar. I searched my pocket for the five Euro note from the supermarket floor and told him that I was going to give it to the church, but that he could have it. He seemed overwhelmed and said that he could not take it, and then said that he would use one Euro of it and give the rest to the church for me. I was thinking of St Martin, and how he gave his cloak to a poor man who turned out to have been Jesus, with the message being that when you help the poor, it as if you have given to Jesus. I was under no illusions about this situation, and know that the money may or may not have been put to good use, also that it wasn’t a sacrifice for me since it wasn’t my money. Nevertheless, I would have given my money, as an act of humanity. The problem of beggars is a constant one for us, since they congregate around churches and tourist offices, where people with spare money may be, and also in the streets of the towns. It is difficult to give to all, and difficult to give to none, and impossible to tell who is a professional beggar and doing very well on it and who is a person in dire need.
The church has religious scenes in painted wood, carved in the fifteenth century, with almost naïve round faced characters and very fluid lines. The organist arrived and filled the building with a stream of beautiful sound, after some very strange fog horn type warming up moments.
We then started the longest, coldest tour of the cloisters in history. Our guide was incredibly enthusiastic, leaping about and highlighting details with a laser pointer. She spoke French, and although I could follow to some extent, the speed and content made it very difficult. Keith didn’t even try to understand the commentary and concentrated on taking photos that we hoped I would be able to make sense of later. The guide took a shine to me and pin pointed me with her gaze, repeating a key sentence to be sure that I had understood. I tried to look as if I did understand, even when I didn’t, in the interests of the tour finishing before we all had turned to ice statues. The cloister was completed around 1100, and is special, apart from the magnificent Romanesque carvings, because it is intact. There are seventy-six capitals and side pillars, all with carving, and forty-six of them depict scenes from the bible and the lives of the saints. On some capitals, the story is told in different scenes around each side. They are so detailed, with individual faces, clothing, hairstyles and equipment all there as the sculptors imagined and carved them.
Above: Limestone is great for sculptors but bad for posterity. If the capitals hadn't been under shelter all these years thei surfaces would look like this by now.
They also have inscriptions so that there can be no confusion over what they depict, and would have been a way to teach bible stories to the illiterate and also provided topics for meditation in this usually peaceful place. The organ music competed with our guide and a tour of students, taking about five minutes only, was noisy and lively.The abbey became affiliated to the abbey in Cluny in 1048, and the abbey church was consecrated in 1063, in time to cash in on the great increase of English and Irish pilgrims on their way to Saint Jacques de Compostelle in Spain. There was often a rich offering made at churches along the way, particularly to abbeys which had provided accommodation and care. The cloister carvings added to the prestige of the abbey as a key religious stop over and, a generation later, the new porch carving set Moissac as a ‘must see’ point for any pilgrim.
We were grateful for the warming exercise as we climbed the stairs at one corner of the cloisters. They led up into the top of the church where you could look down over the body of the building, and held a large wooden arch frame. To warm us up even more, we did a little tour of the town, over to the Napoleon Bridge and back along the road to the convent.
There was a roaring fire in the gite kitchen, where two friendly Swiss pilgrims were cooking their dinner. A Belgian man who worked at the hostel told us about his four completed pilgrimages from different points, with his favourite being the one from Montpelier that passes through Lourdes. He was studying a guide book for his walking trip to Jerusalem next year. Another man was having a drink. Everyone spoke French so that was the language of most conversation, but the Swiss ladies spoke English with us and something else between themselves. The discussion turned to wild dogs, and the two men said that they it was not wild dogs, but domesticated dogs with a sense that their territory was being invaded, that were the problem in Spain. They said that dogs are more aggressive if they sense fear, so don’t be afraid and things will go better. The Swiss ladies did not find that very reassuring and doubted if they could fake fearlessness. They walked thirty kilometres a day for three weeks each year and had started from Geneva. They were used to high mountains and walked every weekend of the year so were very fit. Katya came down to join us all, and it was an enjoyable little taste of what being a pilgrim in warmer, more social times might be like.
We all planned to leave the next morning – the Swiss ladies at 7.30, us at 8.30 and Katya sometime after ten.
This sculpture is in the street is called 'A la gloire de Moissac' (to the Glory of Moissac) and it celebrates the pure water and golden grapes that the town is famous for. It appears to depict the god Bacchus encouraging the woman to indulge in yet more consumption of grapes Neither Bacchus nor the woman appear particularly happy! Are those flames leaping up around the woman?
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