Romanesque Art in Southern Manche: Album Part 3

045. Yquelon. The church plan. Regularly oriented from west to east, the rectangular building has a two-row nave followed by a two-row choir with a flat apse. The whole building has an external length of 21,75 meters and an external width of 7,6 meters (width of the front). The tower is adjacent to the first row of the north side of the choir.

Plan by Marie Lebert.

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046. Yquelon. The Romanesque church front. Its masonry is made from irregular blocks of schist and granite, that are local stones. The front wall is strengthened at each end by a flat b.u.t.tress resting on a stone wall. The three semi-circular bays above the portal were opened in 1896, to replace a large rectangular bay, that had itself replaced the two small original Romanesque bays. Photo by Alain Dermigny.

[Alain-025]

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047. Yquelon. The Romanesque church front. Its gable wall is topped by an antefix cross with bifid branches. Photo by Alain Dermigny.

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048. Yquelon. The Romanesque church front. The oculus in the gable wall is original. Its band is adorned with billets, with a stone carved with two human heads in high relief in its lower part. Photo by Alain Dermigny. [Alain-027]

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049. Yquelon. The Romanesque west gate. Its semi-circular arch is formed by a plain grain resting on plain abutments and surrounded by an archivolt. The archivolt is a prominent band adorned with saw-teeth in high relief carved with a hollow row of triangular sticks. Its two ends rest on a granite stone carved with a human head. The keystone of the arch is adorned with a human head in higher relief. The inside abutments are molded with a small column with a square abacus and base.

These abutments support a tympanum in granite, which was restored and carved with a cross In Romanesque style in 1897. Photo by Claude Rayon.

[Claude-13]

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050. Yquelon. Sketch of the Romanesque west gate. This gate has similarities with the south gate in the church of Breville, located a few kilometers north-west. Sketch by Marie Lebert.

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051. Yquelon. The Romanesque west gate. Detail of the semi-circular arch of the gate. Its archivolt rests at each end on a granite stone carved with a human head. These granite heads resisted more gracefully to the test of time than the limestone heads in the church of Breville.

Photo by Alain Dermigny. [Alain-029]

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052. Yquelon. The Romanesque south gate. His semi-circular arch is formed of a grain molded with a torus and topped by a chamfer carved with a row of slightly visible saw-teeth. The arch is surrounded by an archivolt formed by a thick band with chamfered edges. The lower chamfer is also adorned with a row of slightly visible saw-teeth. The inner grain rests on two attached columns through capitals. Their basket, topped by a square abacus, is adorned with small angle hooks.

The door certainly underwent an overhaul: both capitals, without an astragalus, are not well connected to the shaft of the columns and to the beginning of the arch, the torus of which is cut. The outer grain and archivolt disappear into the masonry of the nave to the left, whereas they rest on a slightly prominent and chamfered large stone on the right. Photo by Claude Rayon. [Claude-14]

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053. Yquelon. Sketch of the Romanesque south gate. This gate also has similarities with the south gate in the church of Breville, located a few kilometers north-west. Sketch by Marie Lebert.

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054. Yquelon. The Romanesque choir (inside). The nave opens on the choir with a very thick triumphal arch resting on two piers embedded into the thick wall. The two bays of the choir are separated by another very thick arch. Photo by Alain Dermigny. [Alain-030]

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055. Yquelon. The Romanesque choir (inside). Each row is topped by a ribbed vault. Photo by Alain Dermigny. [Alain-031]

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056. Yquelon. The Romanesque vault of the choir. The very large ribs are adorned with two thick angular tori surrounding a small triangular molding. This Romanesque ribbed vault was probably one of the first ribbed vaults in Normandy. Photo by Alain Dermigny. [Alain-032]

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057. Yquelon. The Romanesque vault of the choir. The ceiling arches and ribs rest on reversed pyramid-shaped bases. Topped with a square abacus slightly chamfered, the central base supports both the fallout of a ceiling arch and the one of two ribs. Photo by Alain Dermigny.

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058. Yquelon. The Romanesque vault of the choir. The vault keystones are carved with geometric designs in low relief within a circle. Photo by Claude Rayon. [Claude-16]

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059. Yquelon. The enfeu and its tombstone. In the north wall of the nave, an enfeu (recess for a tombstone) with a lowered centering houses a 12th-century tombstone in soft limestone depicting a knight. Mr Lomas described it in a journal named Bulletin of the Society of Antiquaries in Normandy (Bulletin de la Societe des Antiquaires de Normandie) dated 1886-1887: "The tombstone bears a knight in relief, depicted with his hands clasped, his head resting on a pillow, and his greyhound at his feet. (...) It bears no indication of his name or no indication of a year. It is therefore impossible to specify the person whose remains are covered. What we can say with certainty is that this person belongs to the powerful family of Yquelon, whose family member Roger Yquelon affixed his signature on two main charters of the Abbey of the Lucerne in 1162." Discovered in 1885 in the cemetery adjoining the north of the church, the tombstone was embedded in the enfeu in February 1893. At the length of the enfeu, 2.15 meters, is exactly the length of the tombstone, we can guess the tombstone was probably buried in the cemetery at the time of the French Revolution, before being discovered in 1885 and regaining its original location. Photo by Claude Rayon.

[Claude-17]

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