The cathedral of Autun

The proud cathedral of Autun is dedicated to Saint Lazarus. Upon hearing the name “Lazarus”, we are obviously inclined to think of the man who was resurrected by Jesus Christ. The cathedral of Saint-Lazare is indeed dedicated to this Lazarus, but this is in fact based on a misconception. For a long time the diocese believed to be in possession of part of his remains, but these turned out to belong to a different Lazarus. The other Lazarus is Lazarus of Aix (died 441), the first known bishop of the town of Aix-en-Provence. I have not been able to establish when exactly the misconception was discovered, but it was certainly well after the impressive Romanesque pilgrim’s church for the Biblical Lazarus had been built. At the end of the twelfth century, that church became the new cathedral of the city.

History

The first known bishop of Autun (Augustodunum in Latin), was a certain Reticius. Of him we know that the emperor Constatine the Great requested him to participate in the 313 synod of Rome and then in 314 in the council of Arelate. In the late fifth century Autun got its first cathedral, dedicated to Saint Nazarius (Saint-Nazaire), a rather obscure saint from Milan who is usually accompanied by the no less obscure Celsus. Almost half a millennium later, in the year 972, the remains of Lazarus arrived in Autun from Marseille. These were given a place of honour in the cathedral.

As everyone assumed that the remains belonged to the Lazarus from the Bible, the relics drew hordes of pilgrims. Around 1120 bishop Étienne de Bâgé concluded that the cathedral was too small to accommodate these crowds and that it was best to build a separate pilgrim’s church. Work on this Romanesque church commenced the same year, and in 1146 the relics of Lazarus were translated to the new building. The sculptor Gislebertus had by that time already completed his famous tympanum of the Last Judgment above the main entrance (see below). The portal of the Saint-Lazare was then added in 1178.

As of 1146 there were basically twee cathedrals in Autun, operating side by side. However, in 1195 it was decided to make the new Saint-Lazare the sole cathedral of the city. Of the much older Saint-Nazaire virtually nothing survives today. Just east of the present cathedral only a chapel of the old cathedral still stands, called Ancienne chapelle latérale de l’ancienne cathédrale Saint-Nazaire on Google. The rest of the Saint-Nazaire was demolished in 1783. By that time the old cathedral had been almost forgotten, while the new cathedral of Saint-Lazare flourished like never before. In 1469 bishop Jean Rolin was responsible for the construction of the large central crossing tower with its imposing spire. This Jean Rolin was not just any bishop. He had been born in 1408 as the eldest son of Nicolas Rolin (1376-1462), trusted chancellor of Duke Philip the Good. In 1436 Jean Rolin was appointed bishop of Autun, an office he held until his death in 1483. Pope Nicholas V promoted him to cardinal in 1448.

The side chapels of the cathedral were added in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, interventions that were followed by drastic renovations in the second half of the eighteenth century. Architectural tastes had by now shifted. Baroque was in vogue, the Middle Ages were out of fashion. As a consequence, the Romanesque side portal was demolished in 1766 and a famous relief featuring the Temptation of Eve – also attributed to Gislebertus – was used as building material for a wall. The canons who administered the cathedral did not have a very high opinion of the tympanum of the Last Judgment either, which they considered a rather primitive work of art. They had the head of Christ removed (a gesture of reverence for his sacred face?) and covered the rest of the scene with a layer of plaster. It was an action that may very well have saved the tympanum from the destructive hands of the anticlerical French revolutionaries who took over the state a quarter of a century later. On the other hand, the canons themselves had destructive tendencies as well. Apart from the side portal they also remodelled the entire choir, demolishing the choir screen and the so-called “Tomb of Saint Lazarus” in the process.

Exterior

The area surrounding the cathedral is very interesting, and not just because one can find a number of excellent restaurants here! The Musée Rolin, an art museum on the spot where chancellor Nicolas Rolin had his house, will unfortunately be closed for large-scale renovations the next couple of years. It is likely that visitors will have to wait until 2028 for the museum to reopen. In the meantime, they have to content themselves with pictures of the Temptation of Eve and of statues of the Tomb of Saint Lazarus that can be found on the Internet. We would have loved to have visited the museum, but found some comfort in an outstanding dinner at Le Petit Rolin, one of the aforementioned excellent restaurants, which is situated just north of the cathedral.

The artistic highlight of the exterior of the Saint-Lazare is the aforementioned Romanesque tympanum by Gislebertus. It was rediscovered behind the plaster in 1837 and then carefully restored. The head of Christ remained lost for more than a century, but in the end it turned out to be in the Musée Rolin of all places. Apparently nobody had ever thought of trying to combine the Christ head that was kept there with the tympanum of the cathedral. When someone finally did try in 1948, it immediately became clear that the head and tympanum were a perfect match.

The attribution of the tympanum to Gislebertus is based on the text that has been chiselled below the feet of Christ: Gislebertus hoc fecit, “Gislebertus made this”. We know nothing about Gislebertus, although the Temptation of Eve, a lost relief of Adam and the capitals in the cathedral are also attributed to this sculptor (see below). There is even a theory that Gislebertus was not the name of the sculptor, but of the man who had commissioned and financed the tympanum. However, in that case I think he would have used the text hoc fecit fieri instead. I have found several examples of that text in Italy (here, here and here). If Gislebertus made the tympanum around 1130, then that would indeed be rather early for an artist’s signature, but not impossibly early (from Italy, I know of an example from 1187).

As was already state above, the tympanum depicts the Last Judgment. Christ is seated in a mandorla and returns to earth. In his right hand, on the left for the viewer, the righteous are admitted to Paradise. On this side we also find Saint Peter, with a large key in his hand. Above him the Virgin Mary has been sculpted. One might expect Hell on Christ’s left hand side, but here Gislebertus chiselled the weighing of the souls (psychostasia). The angel at the scales is presumably Saint Michael the Archangel. The soul that is being weighed fortunately turns out to be heavy enough. It is therefore not condemned to eternity in Hell.

On the architrave below the tympanum we see more souls. They rise from their coffins and will be judged. On the left we once again see the righteous and on the right the damned. One figure on the right is grabbed by two devils’ hands, a woman is bitten by snakes (symbol of lust) and we also see figures with a money pouch (avarice) and a wine barrel (inebriation). In the centre is an angel who separates the damned from the righteous. The figures holding staffs on the left side are bishops, while the figures who have satchels slung over their shoulders are pilgrims. The two arches above the tympanum were also provided with splendid sculptures. The first arch only has plant motifs, but the second has a series of 31 medallions containing signs of the zodiac and activities associated with certain months. In the middle the architrave is supported by a column that has been embellished with three statues. These represent Lazarus of Aix and his two sisters. They date from the nineteenth century.

On the edge of the mandorla we can see a Latin text, which reads:

OMNIA DISPONO SOLVS MERITOSQUE CORONO / QVOS SCELVS EXERCET ME IUDICE POENA COERCET
(“Only I control everything, I crown those with merits / the punishment that I impose as a judge keeps those who are tormented by their crime in check”)

It is of course anything but a coincidence that the positive text ended up on the side of the righteous and the negative text on the side of the damned. The same is the case with the text between the tympanum and the architrave:

QVISQVE RESVRGET ITA QVEM NON TRAHIT IMPIA VITA ET LVCEBIT EI SINE FINE LVCERNA DIEI
(“All will rise like this who have not led impious lives and for them the lamp of the day will shine without end”)

TERREAT HIC TERROR QVOS TERREVS ALLIGAT ERROR NAM FORE SIC VERVM NOTAT HIC HORROR SPECIERV(M)
(“Let this fear frighten those to whom an earthly fault sticks; for this horror in images shows what their fate will truly be”)

Interior

The interior of the cathedral has two highlights: the capitals and the statues of Pierre Jeannin (ca. 1540-1623) and his wife Anne Guénot. Like the tympanum, the capitals are attributed to Gislebertus and his studio. I have not counted them, but there must be over sixty of them. Half of them are now kept in the chapter room, which was unfortunately closed when I visited the cathedral. These capitals mostly come from places under the crossing tower, where they have been replaced with replicas. I did not get the impression that the capitals tell a continuous story. We see individual stories from the Old and New Testament, but also for instance the apocryphal story of Simon Magus with Saints Peter and Paul and a symbolic representation of the art of music. As with the tympanum outside we are looking at genuine highlights of French Romanesque sculpture here.

The statues of Pierre Jeannin and Anne Guénot once adorned their joint funerary monument. Pierre was an advocate, president of a chamber of the parliament of Burgundy and between 1607 and 1609 ambassador of France in the Republic of the Netherlands. He became especially famous for the way he saved the lives of many French Protestants. In August of 1572, after the notorious Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre, the governor of Burgundy was issued with written orders by King Charles IX to kill all the Protestants in his province. When the advocate Jeannin was asked for his opinion about these orders, he is said to have answered that orders issued by an enraged king should also be obeyed, but very slowly. On a proposal from Jeannin, the king was subsequently asked for a confirmation of his orders, which gave many Protestants a chance to escape.

After his death in 1623, Jeannin was granted a splendid funerary monument in the cathedral of Autun, which was unfortunately destroyed in the French revolution. An image of Jeannin nowadays also embellishes the Autun city hall. It is an honour the man certainly deserves.