CONQUES : the tympanum of the last Judgement
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The tympanum of the last Judgement
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Details of the hell
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The door to hell
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The biblical monster, the Léviathan, with his mouth widely opened, gobbles up the damned
who are pushed in his mouth by a devil turning his head in order to look at the Chosen
Ones who escape from him.
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Four angels
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The two of them who are turned towards Christ carry the life book and a censer. The two
others turned towards the damned hold spears, shields and gonfalons. They move away the
damned as written on the shield :
"Angels will separate the wicked from the just".
Hell is the inversion world, each one is punished where he has sinned. The tortures
inflicted on the damned refer to the seven deadly sins
(pride,
miserliness,
impurity,
envy,
greed,
anger,
idleness).
The figures of this terrible scene was not imaginary beings but contemporary ones.
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Satan and idleness
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Satan sitting enthroned amid busy imps welcome the damned. Lying under his feet, the
idle one is sitting in the flames to all eternity. At the bottom of his feet, there is a
toad which is the symbol of idleness.
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Pride
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Pride is personified by a thrown knight who ambitiously coveted the fortune of the
neighbouring abbey. Pulled by a demon, he is mounted by another one. In his lifetime,
he had been excommunicated by the monastery's monks.
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Lust
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A man and a woman, chained and their hands bound, wait for the torture reserved for
lust. Which will be this torture ? Above them, a demon mischievously inquires about it
with
Satan.
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Miserliness
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What about this hanged man ? He is recognizable by its crowns-sack hanged from his neck
: he is the miser.
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Lie
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In Hell, no more scandal, no more slander, no more lie : spiteful gossips are pulled
out !
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Anger
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Here, anger is at its height ! In order to calm it, let's dive into a burning boiler !
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Poaching
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Here is the fate of the poachers who have hunted in the abbey's wood : they are
spit-roasted like a rabbit !
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Vanity
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A hunchbacked devil has just seized the harp of a damned and pulls out his gossip with a
hook. This poor wretch, therefore musician or singer, probably represents the ham, the
public entertainer, symbol of the vanity of life's pleasures.
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Power
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The mighty's pride is also chastised. Genuflexions are going on but what a mockery ! The
flatterer takes out with his teeth the crown of the Prince he honours.
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Greed
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Gourmands must return their greed with the help of effective means if necessary !
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Fornication
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What these two figures have done, one demon shows it conspicuously written on a
parchment to their great shame !
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The Forger
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Behind him, there are his instruments which remind him the motive for his sentence. For
this forger sat in the flames, the torture consists in forcibly swallowing the molten
metal poured by a demon.
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Heretics
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They are recognizable by the parchment and the book of sacrileges they hold in their
hands. One of them is humbled. A demon shuts his mouth with one foot. Bad messages are
finished.
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The treasure's plundering by the bishop Etienne of Clermont
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Trapped in a net which is pulled by a paunchy devil with an effort, there are three
monks and one of them holds a crook. It is Etienne, bishop of Clermont and
administrator of the abbey of Conques in the Xth century who plundered the treasure in
connivance with his two nephews. Behind them, humbled and humiliated, we can see Bégon
II, also abbot of the monastery. He owed his responsibilities as an abbot to fraudulent
intrigues and he had also squandered the abbey's goods.
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Texts from Jean-Claude FAU
Editions of Beffroi - Regional Council of Aveyron
Photographs d'André KUMURDJIAN
Translation from
Valérie FABRE
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