Jumping off a pont

Though I am far from completely comfortable in French, there are many words and phrases that I’ve picked up here that have infiltrated my English, as they are simply better, or more evocative than their English equivalents. Today, as I was out this morning taking photos for tomorrow’s post, another occurred to me.

Even though it was 9:00 AM on a Monday morning, the city was absolutely dead. This is because of a delightful French tradition called “le pont.” Tomorrow, of course, is La fête nationale, a.k.a. the Bastille Day holiday. As it is on a Tuesday, many French take Monday as a “bridge” (pont) between the weekend, thus creating a four week holiday.

The practice isn’t unheard of elsewhere, but France is the first place I encountered that has a special word for it (though I’m told Spaniards use the word “aqueduct” – with its multiple arches - for when one takes, say, a Wednesday, has a holiday on Thursday, then the last span of Friday vaulting one to the weekend.

The “pont” is not just for slackers, either. I’ve a friend who works for a company that makes laser-fabricated yo-yos here in Strasbourg (don’t ask). He is required to take the pont, even though it isn’t an official holiday.

I haven't abandoned the tour! The photo above isn't intended as a insult to the French: it's tucked into a high alcove on a building on Rue de l'Epine. Apparently, young maidens desiring a husband would rub it for luck. I like how they even painted the reeds of a little marsh behind it, to make it feel at home.

Notre Dame: You lookin' at me buddy?

As a general rule, the interior structure of NDS is not nearly so elaborately carved as the exterior. The Pillar of Angels is a major exception. It was carved in 1230 and is a masterwork of carving.

Unlike the depiction of Judgment Day outside, here there are no Elect and there are no Damned. Matthew, John, Luke and my buddy Mark stand on the bottom rung, faces serious but sympathetic. Above them a quartet of Angels, sounding the trumpet, above which are another three Angels. Sitting above this is the Star of the Show, JC himself, his throne positioned in such a way as to allow him a good view of the congregation in the cathedral’s nave.

The artist who carved this pillar knew that he had created something special. But it was not the custom, in the 13th century, for artists to sign their work. Nor would that be strictly appropriate in a church,

Nonetheless, he was proud. And so, on the balustrade that runs on the gallery behind the pillar, he carved a figure of a man leaning on the railing, gazing in wonder at his creation.

Now, I have a confession. For everyone I’ve taken on a tour of the Cathedral, I always point to this carving, claiming that the artist carved himself, admiring his own work. To tell you the truth, I don’t really know that for sure. But I want to believe it.

Last year, I went to an exhibition of Matthias Gunewald paintings in the German city of Karlsruhe. Grunewald was a regional painter of the Middle Ages, and his subjects were primarily religious, as was pretty much all art prior to the Renaissance. But the men and women –whether Saints, Angels or Allegorical characters – had a deep-rooted personality. They weren’t the bland-faced, interchangeable and characterless non-entities that populated much of the paintings of his contemporaries: they looked like real people.

That was because – I was surprised to discover – they were real people. There were a number of sketches from Grunewald’s papers, preliminary to his paintings, that were clearly still-lifes of living models. Meaning that the Christ in Grunewald’s depiction of the Passion may well have born the face of the local baker.

This revelation really struck me: all of this seemingly repetitive, otherwordly Gothic religious art actually represented real people. Suddenly, the scenes of St Sebastian being shot through with arrows became not some semi-mythical tall tale, but a portrait of a magistrate’s son, or a young farmer, who thus achieved immortality denied perhaps even the local princes.

Much of the art that decorates that Cathedral is wholly the work of a sculptor’s imagination. But not all – some of the faces, the figures, came from real life, just as in Gunewald’s paintings. They were local merchants, workers, wives and daughters.

The face on the balcony is definitely one of these. He has a pronounced squint, probably from years of fine chiseling in gloomy workshops forcing stone into shapes that it does not want to take. He looks at the Pillar of Angels with an appropriate expression of pious wonder, but an unmistakable hint of pride. And who can blame him?



Though my photos for this post are truly terrible, I saved this as my last Notre Dame posting because of this little guy who, for me at least, represents all of the people who made this amazing structure possible. When this man carved his pillar, and his cheeky self-portrait, Notre Dame’s completion was still two centuries away. The vast majority of the artisans and brute labour that designed and built this wonder had no hope of seeing it completed in their lifetime, their children’s lifetime, or their grandchildren’s lifetimes. Almost all of them – even some of the most talented of the artists – are lost to history forever. The Cathedral’s size, age and beauty are of a scale that are designed to make the beholder ponder eternity, but this man remains in his corner, slyly murmuring: “Don’t forget me!”

Next! The Strasbourg tour continues, with a completely church-free week! I promise!

Notre Dame: Preachers, puppets, puppies

_{Pulpit in NDS, organ behind}

The pulpit in NDS is an incredibly elaborate tangle of lace-like decorative carving. The curving, swooping lines are remarkably lively, and they create a miniature jungle inhabited by stone saints and prophets.

It was added to the Cathedral in the late 1400s/early 1500s, especially for Geiler de Kayserberg. Geiler was an extremely well-known and hard working preacher in his day, and is honoured in his adopted city in teasingly affectionate ways. It was the time of the Reformation, when much of Europe, sickened by the excesses of Papal indulgences and priestly corruption, turned to Luther and other Protestant faiths.



Protestantism caught on big in Alsace as well – more on that later – and Geiler was as vehement as anyone in condemning Rome. But he was a reformer, not a revolutionary: he only wanted to change the Church, not break it.

His sermons were extremely popular, and his scholarship widely known – he apparently was summoned several times to advise the Holy Roman Emperor on theological matters.

The Catholic Encyclopaedia sniffs that Geiler's sermons were apparently characterized by “yielding to the coarseness of his age” (translation: he acknowledged that people have sex). Despite this Earthiness, the preacher was a serious man, and had a high regard for his personal dignity.

He was therefore disinclined to take any lip from a marionette. It was Geiler who banned Rohraffe the Angry Puppet from speaking during the Mass, as it was offending to the solemnity of the service.

The people of Strasbourg forgave Geiler for the murder their wooden advocate, and they carved this magnificent pulpit in his honour. And while Geiler was against marionettes in the church, he had no such compulsion against dogs. In fact, he was always accompanied in NDS by his own hound, which would sleep at Geiler’s feet while his master preached.


_{Geiler's puppy napping through the ages}

Incidentally, though I’ve never seen this myself, the pulpit was designed as a clock, in its own way. Apparently, at noon on the summer solstice (or maybe dawn, I’m not sure) the sun will shine through a special blue glass in the windows on the south side of the Cathedral. It is placed in such a way so as to bathe the crucifix on the pulpit’s railing in a heavenly glow.

Notre Dame: Get off the stage, you bum!

The Heckler is the noblest and bravest among us, however lowly and despised he may appear. He is shunned – booed at music festivals, mocked in comedy clubs, shushed during poetry readings. We shift away from him in concerts, putting as much physical space between us and him, as if afraid of contamination from his boorishness. But he is the Unfettered Id of us all: crying out against pompousness, tedium, unfunniness. As children, we recognize this – the Class Clown was the hero of the playground, the one who knew how to speak Truth against the Tyranny of the Teacher. As adults, no matter how we purse our lips with disapproval, our souls sing with his cry for emancipation: “Why should you have our attention, and not I?”

Notre Dame heard our cry, and she answered. And so, the voice of the congregation was given its fullest expression in the Cathedral’s magnificent organ.



I don’t mean the organ itself – though it is an impressive thing, its pipes stretching up to disappear into the gloom of the arched ceiling. The music is directed to heaven, but the organ case dripped down to the floor, reaching like a stalactites to the sweating, stinking singing congregants below.

On the lowest part of the pendament is a carving of Daniel and the Lion. Higher up, behind Daniel and on our left is a town Herald, his bugle almost at his lips. To the right of Daniel is a figure called Rohraffe, dressed as a town merchant from 1385, the year the figures were carved.



These are not lifeless carvings, but puppets, designed to move via a series of levers in the organ casing. And so, when the organ would play one of its rumbling low chords, Daniel would open the mouth of the lion, as if it were roaring. For a high, triumphal “hallelujah” the herald would appear to blow on his trumpet.

And Rohraffe? His job was the most important of all. For he was us: the heckler, the “Screaming Monkey.” If a sermon went on too long, or the puppeteer didn’t like what was being said, Rohraffe would hurl abuse at the pulpit, or even at the congregation itself. In the years prior to the Reformation, when the Church banned such tomfoolery, Rohraffe the Angry Puppet was at least as popular an attraction in Notre Dame as the prospect of eternal salvation.

Next! The man who killed Rohraffe!

Notre Dame: Elle t'accuse!

Notre Dame de Strasbourg is an active place of worship, but it is also something of a museum. In the north arm of the transept (behind the St Lawrence Door) there are a number of Medieval and early Renaissance altarpieces on display, most of which come from other churches in the region.

The largest item in this section of the church is the carving of the scene at Gethsemane, where Jesus asked his Dad to get out of his chores. He got his answer shortly thereafter, when the Romans arrived to arrest him.

The statue used to be in the cemetery near St Thomas’s Church, but was brought into NDS for protection from the elements (also, I suspect, because St Thomas went Lutheran). It’s huge, as you can see.

It shows Jesus praying to an Angel, while his Apostle-posse get some shuteye. From behind, the soldiers pour through a gate, led by Judas carrying a sack with the 30 pieces of silver he was paid to betray the Big Guy.



In addition to its scale, this sculpture is particularly powerful not for the principals, all of whom are rendered pretty much as you would expect. It’s for the people in the mob trailing behind Judas.

Jesus and his Apostles are all dressed in robes, as per usual. But the soldiers and citizens coming to arrest, flay and crucify him are dressed as Strasbourg citizens, carrying 15th century weapons, wearing the hats of the local merchants and burghers, and the helmets of the local militia.

It would be easy to dismiss this as historical illiteracy on the sculptor’s part, but the opposite is true – it’s a mark of artistic sophistication. The contrast with the clothing of Jesus is deliberate. Remember, the belief at the time was that we sin every day, pretty much by breathing. The artist’s goal was to drive this home, and grab the viewer by the lapels and shout at them: “You too would be part of this mob, you too would call for his arrest. You would betray him then, just as you continue to betray him every day with your sin.” (Grim, I know, but look, it can't all be puppies and Robo-Jesuses around here).

Facing this rather depressing spectacle is a 14th century Baptismal font. Nowadays, babies in the Catholic church are baptized with a few drops of water on the forehead. Back then, however, they were dunked in their entirety into baths like this one.



Of course, the Cathedral is chilly even in summer, and water sitting in a stone tub – even one as elaborate as this one – would soon be freezing. Any baby submerged in it would have had a heck of an unpleasant introduction to the world: “Well, you survived! Welcome to the club!”

Next! I don't want to give away what comes next!

_{I apologize for the poor quality of the images here. This is what I get for attempting this with a steam-powered camera.}

Notre Dame, the Master of Glass, and the Disappearing Priest

Two years ago, I was showing visitors from Montreal around Notre Dame. As is my wont, I’d been talking non-stop for a couple of hours, and their eyes were starting to glaze over, so I figured I’d take a break and give them time to explore the interior at their own pace while I chatted with Amynah.

As we stood there, and old man came up to us.

“Can you guess how old I am?” he asked us in French.

“Errr, seventy?” hazarded Amynah, kindly.

His face lit up: “Eighty five! I’m eighty five!” he said.

“You look very young,” said Amynah.

“Yes, thank you. You know, I used to be the Maitre de vitrines here, after the war,” he said.

“Really? What was that?” asked Amynah.

Well, he explained, during the Second World War, the Germans occupied Alsace, and annexed the territory to the Reich. As a result, they saw the Cathedral of Notre Dame as their German cultural heritage and thus made sure to protect its treasures as best they could. So they removed all of the beautiful stained glass windows – most dating from the 12th and 13th centuries – and hid them in a salt mine on the other side of the Rhine.



This way, the irreplaceable glass was spared the Allied bombs that fell on the city in 1944. After the war, our new friend was in charge of returning each piece to its original place.

“See the Rosette?” he said, lifting a trembling arm to point to the enormous circular window on the western face. “I put each piece of that glass back in myself. They suspended my from a chair from the ceiling – more than 100 feet off the floor!”

I tried to imagine assembling a jigsaw puzzle of 800-year-old glass at those fatal heights. Best not to think about it.

“Do you see those yellow squares there?” continued our friend, pointing to the windows on the southern wall. There, I noticed that there were large patches of the original glass missing – they had been replaced with modern glass, clumsily painted over.

“Most people think those were broken. But they weren’t! We gave them to a Chapel in Paris, as a gift as they rebuilt it after the war. It’s near the Eiffel Tower.”



Prior to this discussion, all that I knew about the glass in the Cathedral was that it was old. I also had been tickled to learn that the glass on the northern face was strictly Old Testament scenes, as well as depictions of the various Holy Roman Emperors. On the south face was the New Testament – the reason being that it got more sun, and therefore enjoyed the Light of Jesus.

Our friend wasn’t done though: “A long time ago, it was possible to visit the crypt. I’ve been there! But it is closed now. There is a river that runs under this Cathedral – it’s true! But after the war, a young couple was married here. After the ceremony, the priest went into the crypt to store the documents. He was never seen again – he fell into the river, and was swept away, underground. So they sealed it off.”

This could well be true. The Church had been built on the former Roman Temple, which had apparently been built on a Pagan site that included a small pond. The church had been built right on top of it. Though I can’t imagine it made construction easy, I have from several good sources that it is true – and it’s led to some fascinating legends of subterranean creatures living under the crypt.

By now our friends were coming back, and our storyteller was getting visibly tired. Amynah and I began to make noises that we had to go, with an eye to ending the conversation.

“Ah yes,” our friend said, his eyes distracted. Then he brightened up: “Can you guess how old I am? Eighty-five!”

I’m not sure why this old man selected us, of all the people in the church that day, to share his stories. I think he realized his memory was going. As he walked through the Cathedral, enjoying the magnificence to which his contribution was so important, I think he heard me giving my tour to our friends. I like to think that he felt that he had found someone that would appreciate his story, and remember it, and share it with others.

Notre Dame and Robo-Jesus

Of all the wonders inside the Notre Dame de Strasbourg, by far the best known is the Astronomical Clock. It was originally built in the 1500s, but because the iron gears within had worn down over the centuries it broke down, and was rebuilt in the 19th century.

The clock is a mix of high-art and kitsch, mechanical spectacle and pious wonder, all assembled with awe-inspiringly meticulous, effort and inspired brilliance.

First, the kitsch. The main attraction of the clock happens every day at 12:30 PM: while impressive, it is in effect a Holy Cuckoo Clock.


_{The original clock cock, now in the Rohan museum}

I can’t narrate it much better than the video below, but in essence, a cherub and an old man strike their repective bells four times. The old man passes in front of the figure of death, to be replaced by an infant, to symbolize the new hour. Death strikes his bell twelve times. Above, the dozen apostles pass in front of Jesus, each bowing to take His Robotic Blessing, legs swinging to mimic walking. A rooster-automaton flaps its wings and crows three times. At the end of it all, Our Clockwork Saviour makes the sign of the cross to bless the assembled crowd.



It is surreal, sublime, and ridiculous. It occurs every day at 12:30, rather than on the hour, as the Priests were so sick of their congregations peering into the corner to watch the show that they changed the time so as to prevent the interruption.


_{A slightly closer, though blurry view of Death (lower level) and Robo-Jesus (upper level). On the bottom, the half-moon}

To modern eyes, this aspect of the clock seems more than a little ridiculous - meaningless razzamatazz, designed to entertain. Yet I can’t help but notice that inevitably, when the carved hand of Death strikes the hour, a chilled hush will fall over even the most cynical crowd of digital-camera-wielding 21st century travelers.

Very few of the hundreds of the visitors who see this show every day stick around to inspect the clock with any rigour, which is a shame, because they miss the true wonder of the device. Robo-Jesus is a mere ornament – the clock was designed to do no less than to describe the workings of the known universe.

All of the known heavens are here: the black globe in front show the positions of the stars from Strasbourg. The disk on the clock’s base show where the sun is relative to Strasbourg, while arrows demonstrate the relative positions of sunrise and sunset. A golden ring rotates throught the year – Apollo’s arrow points at today’s date, on which the day’s Saint is inscribed.

A rotating carousel spins through the week, the Norse Gods chasing each other on their chariots, each emblazoned with a day of the week. Above this, a ball – half black, half golden, describes the phases of the moon, spinning over 28 1/4 days.


_{Are we there yet?}

Above this, another massive disk. A golden metal sun adorns the middle, orbited by representations of the known planets, some completing their rounds every 88 days, others taking 11 years.


_{The solar system, or what was then known of it. Note the astrological symbols. Painting in the corners represent the four seasons}

The calculations to design the mechanics for any one of these time periods is impressive enough. But they weren’t done as one: the machines work together. The clock keeps track of the moving holidays, such as Easter. Easter happens on the first Sunday following the first full moon following the Spring equinox. That means that the mechanism that keeps track of the relative position of sunrise and sunset is correlated to the one that keeps track of the moon’s phases, which is correlated to the one that keeps track of the days of the week.

The calculations involved are mind boggling – each wheel in this machine has to be the right size, turning at the right time, meshing with thousands of other wheels, keeping track of units of time as short as one minute and as long as dozens of years, and yet be adaptable to measure moving dates.

Of course, that’s not all. The clock is decorated all over with paintings, all of which are on the theme of time – specifically on how nothing man does can withstand it. Creation is balanced with Judgement Day. The Great Empires of Persia, Assyria, Rome and Greece appear, largely to remind people that they all fell into history’s dustbin. Seemingly healthy people luxuriating with their wine and food are stalked by the shadow of death.

It all kind of puts your Timex to shame, doesn’t it?

Notre Dame and the Human Rights Complaint

The last major exterior door of the Cathedral is called the “Justice Door,” as it was directly across from the Cardinal’s Palace. As the titular head of Strasbourg, the Cardinal was the final court of appeal for the city. As the Justice Door was the Cardinal’s de facto private entrance to the Cathedral, it aimed to flatteringly reflect his role in the city’s life. Therefore, a statue of the Old Testament's notoriously Wise King Solomon, sits holding a sword between the two doors.

Beneath his throne is a carving of the King's most famous case – the two women fighting over the baby, which Solomon ordered cut in half.* Usually forgotten in that story was one of the woman’s own babies had died, presumably motivating her to claim the other woman’s child as her own. The artist doesn’t shy away from that aspect, so we see the two woman fighting, one with a dead infant slung over her arm like a towel.



Solomon has two lady-friends hanging out with him by this door. On his right (our left) is the Church, wearing a crown, chin jutting proudly, holding a staff with a cross and the cup of the Sacrament.



Over on the other side, we have the Synagogue. Her head is bowed, her spear broken, and she holds the Commandments of Moses, but carelessly. She wears a blindfold, as she has failed to see the Light of Christ.



While undeniably anti-Semititic, I feel the artist’s craft mitigated his inherent bigotry. Unlike the statues on the façade and the far end of the transept, this one is Renaissance Era. Her clothes hang naturally, and there is a human quality to her pose that radiates sorrow, rather than obstinancy. There’s an evocative sympathy to this portrayal that belies the Church’s treatment of the Jews in Europe at the time, as well as their precarious position in the city throughout its history (more on that later).

Incidentally, this door is also an excellent illustration of effect of the 300-year construction schedule had on the design of the church. The archways of the doors are semi-circles, typical of the Romanesque style that held sway when the transept was completed in the 1200s. The carvings over the door are Gothic (1300s) and the major statues Renaissance (1400s). A modern equivalent might be if the Empire State Building being made of exposed brick on the lower levels, garlanded with Victorian ironwork in the middle, passing through a few stories of Edwardian gingerbread, before finishing with 1930s-era art deco on top.

Next! Robo-Jesus!

*_{Everyone knows what happened after that, right?}

In which I get on my high horse to beat a dead one

The Halifax Chronicle Herald prints my latest ramblings, which are more or less on the same theme on which I fulminated here. Take that, dead horse!

_{NB: from what I understand, though it is listed as a "letter" on the Herald's website, it's actually presented in the paper as an opinion piece, thus marking me off as a special breed among the cranks that fill that page.}