In recent decades, scholars of Romanesque architecture and sculpture have suggested earlier dates for many monuments, in some remarkable cases by a matter of decades. In one way, we might situate Deborah Kahn's recent book on Selles-sur-Cher within that broader trend. Kahn makes a meticulous and compelling case that its sculpture, long regarded to be a monument from the mid-1100s of limited interest, dates, rather, to the 1030s. This consequential recalibration of the date is a major contribution, situating the relief sculpture among the earliest and most extensive cycles to survive from the early eleventh century, a period that witnessed the revival of monumental sculpture on a scale not seen in antiquity. Kahn has singlehandedly repositioned the sculpture of Selles-sur-Cher from the art historical margins to its center, taking a place alongside monuments such as Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire and Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The attentive and extensive analysis she dedicates to Selles-sur-Cher in a handsomely, well-illustrated volume is both warranted and welcome.
The book is divided into five chapters beyond its introduction and conclusion. Chapter 1 provides a general context for the genesis of this remarkable building. Situated in the diocese of Bourges, the abbey church was in a region contested by the Angevins and Capetians. The Peace of God movement that flourished in the 1020s and 1030s when churchmen cajoled laymen to embrace orthodox Christianity, including the adoration of saints, as a means to quell the violence that accompanied the ceaseless struggles among the nobility to increase their territorial holdings. The chapter ends with an examination of the resurgence of ashlar masonry in church building in the early eleventh century, briefly touching on its Roman and Solomonic associations.
Chapter 2 provides textual and art historical evidence for the early date of the church and its sculpture, for which, characteristically for the period, there are no surviving documents that yield insight into the patronage and builders. The writing of a new life of St. Eusice, episodes of which appear on the carved exterior frieze of the church, roughly coincided with the arrival of a new group of canons around 1020, both of which could have provided an impetus to promote the saint's cult through a building project. Details of the building and sculpture are convincingly likened to details of the eleventh-century porch at Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, also located in the Loire valley. The chapter ends with inferences, imminently reasonable, on three possible individuals who may have been instrumental to the project: Gauzlin, archbishop of Bourges, who was likely involved with construction at Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire; Letaldus de Micy, a celebrated hagiographer and author of Eusice's new vita; and Béatrix, wife of Geoffrey de Vierzon, lord of Selles.
Chapter 3 offers a detailed account of the Selles-sur-Cher's architecture and interior sculpture. After giving an account of the alterations to the structure in the post-medieval period, the author firmly aligns the plan of the building, as well as its ornaments, within eleventh-century norms. Following a recent proposal of Éliane Vergnolle that the contemporary east end of Beaulieu-lès-Loches was meant as an evocation, Kahn contemplates a similar allusion may have been intended at Selles-sur-Cher to evoke in the church's forms a path of salvation for visiting pilgrims.
The exterior friezes are the focus of Chapter 4, the lengthiest of the volume. Helpful drawings accompany photographs of the weathered sculptures that feature a scene of St. Gregory at his desk; various episodes from the life of Eusice, such as a miracle of cooling bread and healing a child; episodes from the Passion of Christ; and scenes of battle. In many instances, because of extreme deterioration or ambiguity in the images, the scenes are unknown, but, in one case, Kahn identifies a visualization of an incorrect rumor that Jews destroyed the Holy Sepulchre.
The final chapter considers a fundamental question, namely what mechanisms facilitated the revival of monumental stone sculpture in the early decades of the eleventh century. Kahn points to the fact that many monuments in the Loire valley from this period incorporate several motifs and suggests that pen-and-ink drawings may help explain this phenomenon. She points to a notebook at Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire that had drawings added around the year 1000 of various antique sculptures, including Roman capital forms. She then turns to another collection of sketches, assembled in Limoges by Adhémar de Chabannes between 1010 and 1028, that in many instances bear a striking resemblance to details at Selles-sur-Cher. Kahn's evidence is compelling and is likely to generate much discussion among art historians in years to come.
Appending this volume are Latin editions and English translations of the various texts of Eusice's life and miracles, including Gregory's and Letaldus's. A second appendix transcribes with English translation an important charter in Selles-sur-Cher that mentions Béatrix and her husband's release of any jurisdictional claims over the church of Saint Eusice.
In sum, this model study advances our understanding of not only an important monument but, more broadly, the early development of Romanesque sculpture. It is essential reading for anyone interested in that history.
