Testimony (Dennis Aubrey)


It is important that this post begins by quoting in its entirety my short lament from 2013. I hope that this post is comprehensible, because for the first time I write to ask for an answer. ☀︎ ☀︎ ☀︎ ☀︎ ☀︎ The Crack-up (June 2013) “In a real dark night of the soul it is […]

Église Sainte-Croix in Quimperlé (Dennis Aubrey)


The town of Quimperlé fooled us completely. We went to the market town about 20 kilometers northwest of Lorient in order to see the Romanesque rotunda church, the Église Sainte-Croix. We immediately headed up the hill to the center of town towards the dominating spire of a church, knowing with certainty that we would find […]

Our Lady of the Lake (Dennis Aubrey)


Legend says that Notre Dame du Lac in the small Vaucluse town of Le Thor was built at the request of the Emperor Charlemagne in the ninth century to commemorate a miracle that occurred in the town. I have found two versions of the miracle. In the first, it appears that there was a local […]

New Podcast – Sainte Marie de Souillac


My favorite place in the world is on a small tributary of the river Dordogne  near the town of Lacave, about ten miles from the great pilgrimage site of Rocamadour.  It is the hotel Le Pont de l’Ouysse, which I have been visiting since 1986.  It is my omphalos, the navel of my world, where […]

Sculpted facades in the Aquitaine (Dennis Aubrey)


We have written many times about the devastation experienced by so many churches in this region. Three great convulsions did most of the damage – the Hundred Years War, the Wars of Religion, and the French Revolution. Sometimes it seems miraculous that anything survived, but survive these churches did. The architectural glories of the Charente-Maritime, […]

The Church of Saint Peter in Chains (Dennis Aubrey)


Following our post on the newly restored Notre Dame du Port in Clermont-Ferrand, PJ and I decided to feature an unrestored church in Burgundy. The 12th century Église Saint-Pierre-aux-Liens in Varenne-l’Arconce is quite beautiful but is unfortunately in poor condition and in need of restoration. The name of the church translates to “Saint Peter in […]

Unadorned Romanesque – Malay (Dennis Aubrey)


There are many examples of the wonderful adornment in Romanesque churches – the sculpture of the capitals, the tympana, the frescoes, and even the painted churches themselves. Particularly in the Cluniac churches, the adornment of churches was so prevalent that Bernard of Clairvaux felt constrained to rail against the practice. In his “Apologia” to William, […]

The Saint and the Simpleton (Dennis Aubrey)


There are so many wonderful stories and legends associated with the churches we photograph in France, but none is more pleasing than that of Saint Menulphe and his friend, the Simpleton of Mailly-sur-Rose, a town in the Allier. Menulphe was the son of an Irish king and very devout. He traveled to England, Brittany and […]