SUBTERRANEAN CHURCHES
When the periods of persecution of the early Christians had come to an
end, and they were able in security to assemble for worship, two
distinct types of Church contested for the supremacy--the Basilican and
the Catacumbal.
Even during the times before Constantine, when persecution was in
abeyance, Christians had been accustomed to gather together for the
Divine mysteries in private houses. But after that Christianity was
recognised and favoured, the wealthy and noble citizens of Rome, Italy,
and Africa, who had become Christians, made over their stately
reception halls, or basilicas, to be converted into churches. These
basilicas, attached to most palaces, were halls comprising usually a
nave with side aisles separated from the nave by ranges of columns, and
an apse at the extremity of the nave in which the master of the house
was wont to sit to receive his clients and his guests. This is the type
upon which cathedral and parish churches in east and west are modelled.
But the early Christians had become accustomed in times of danger to
resort to the subterranean chapels in the Catacombs. The poorer members
doubtless preferred these dingy meeting-places to the lordly halls of
the nobles, and the slaves could not feel their equality with their
masters under the same roof where they had served, and been whipped, as
in the Catacombs, where all were one in fear of their lives and in the
darkness that, buried distinction. Moreover, the cult of the martyrs
had grown to a passion, and it had become customary to commemorate
their nativities as it was called, _i.e._ the anniversaries of
their deaths, at their tombs in the Catacombs. It was there that the
faithful habitually prayed, it was near the bones of the Saints that it
was believed special sanctity dwelt, and that prayers were most
effectually answered through their intercession; and it was there,
_ad martyres_, that they themselves purposed to be laid in
expectation of the Resurrection.
In Rome, the tombs of the martyrs continued to enjoy popular favour,
and to attract crowds, till the incursion of the Lombards, when, to
save the relics of the Saints from profanation, they were transferred
to the basilicas within the walls, whereupon the Catacombs ceased to
interest the faithful, that were neglected and allowed to fall into
oblivion. Gaul rejoiced in having had its soil watered with the blood
of many witnesses to the Faith, consequently it had numerous hypogee
chapels, and when, to the Martyrs were added hermits, abbots, bishops,
devout women, and confessors of all descriptions, their underground
tombs became extraordinarily numerous, and were resorted to with great
devotion. Such was the origin of the crypts found in profusion in
France, not under cathedrals only, but under parish and monastic
churches as well. The whole population having become Christian, the
resort to these subterranean chapels became so great as to cause
inconvenience, and the bishops proceeded to "elevate" "illate" and
"translate" the bones of the saints from their original resting-places
to the basilicas above ground. Thereupon the crypts lost most of their
attraction, and the worshippers gathered about the altars in the upper
churches to which the bones had been transferred.
In Britain, where there were no early martyrs save Alban at Verulam,
and Julius and Aaron at Caerleon, the type of church from the beginning
was basilican, as we may see by that unearthed at Silchester, and that
of S. Martin at Canterbury.
It was the same in Germany and throughout Northern Europe.
John and Paul were chamberlains to the Princess Constantia. They had in
some way incurred the anger of the Emperor Julian, and he sent orders
for their despatch in their own house on the Coelian hill. They were
accordingly executed in their bath, and were buried in the cellar under
their mansion. At once a rush of the devout of Rome took place to the
Coelian to invoke the aid of these new martyrs. The visitors picked off
the plaster, scribbled their names on the walls, applied kerchiefs to
the tomb, and collected the dust, stained with the blood of the
chamberlains. Pope Hadrian IV., 1158, built a basilica on top of the
house, driving the foundations through it, and transferred to this
upper church the bones of SS. John and Paul. At once the stream of
devotion was deflected from the substructure to the superstructure, and
the former was filled up with earth and totally abandoned.
Herbert Spencer has established in his "Principles of Sociology" that
the mausoleum was the egg out of which the temple was evolved. The
first cave-dwellers buried their dead in the grottoes in which they had
lived, and themselves moved into others. They periodically revisited
the sepulchres to bring offerings to the dead. In time the deceased
ancestor became invested by the imagination of his descendants with
supernatural powers, and ascended from stage to stage till he was
exalted into a deity. Thenceforth his cave became a temple. Ferguson,
writing of the Chaldæan temples, and indicating their resemblance to
tombs says, "The most celebrated example of this form is as often
called (by ancient writers) the tomb or the temple of Belus, and among
a Turanian people the tomb and the temple may be considered as one and
the same thing." [Footnote: Clement of Alexandria (Exhort. to the
Heathen) had already said, "Temples were originally Tombs." _Cf_.
also Eusebius (Præp. Evangelica ii. 6) heads the chapter, "The Temples
of the Gods that are none other than Tombs."]
In the primitive Church there were, as we have seen, churches which had
no connection whatever with sepulchres, and chapels underground that
contained tombs. The current of popular feeling set so strongly towards
the latter that the Popes yielded to it, as did also the Bishops, and
converted every basilica into a mausoleum by the transfer to it of the
bones of a saint.
But that was not all. The Holy Mysteries had been celebrated in private
houses and basilicas on wooden tables, sometimes square, but often
round, and with three legs. An illustration is in the cemetery of S.
Calixtus, of the latter half of the second century, where a priest is
represented celebrating at what looks like a modern tea-table.
According to William of Malmesbury, S. Wulstan, Bishop of Worcester
(1062-1095), destroyed the wooden altars in his diocese, which had been
universal in England, _altarea lignea jam inde a priscis diebus in
Anglia_. But with the transformation of the basilica into a
mausoleum, the altar was also transformed into a sepulchre. If it did
not contain the entire body of a saint, it had a hole cut in it to
receive a box containing relics; and the Roman pontifical and liturgy
were altered in accordance with this. The Bishop on consecrating an
altar was to exact that it should contain relics, and the priest on
approaching it was required to invoke the saints whose bones were
stored in it. [Footnote: Pontifex accepta mitra, intigit policem dextræ
manus in sanctum Chrisma et cum eo signat confessionem, id est
sepulchrum altaris, in quo reliquiæ deponendæ. _Pont. Roman._ The
priest on ascending to the altar kisses it, and refers to the relics
contained in it. "Oramus te, Domine, per merita sanctorum tuorum quorum
reliquiæ hic sunt--ut indulgere digneris omnia peccata mea."] The
cavity in the slab to contain the relics was liturgically entitled
_sepulchrum_. The change from a table to a tomb involved a change
of material from wood to stone.
The dedication of a church to a saint in the Latin Church implies the
presence in the sepulchre of the altar of the relics of that saint.
From the Roman point of view, a dedication without the relic is
unmeaning. Among the Celts this was unknown, with them a church took
its name after its founder, and the founder of a church dedicated it by
a partial fast of forty days, and prayer and vigil on the spot. The
early basilicas of Rome also took their titles from the families that
surrendered their halls for Christian worship. The introduction of
dedication to deceased saints marks unmistakably the transformation of
a church from a basilica to a mausoleum.
It is certainly remarkable that whereas in Paganism the identification
of the tomb with the temple passed away, and the temple acquired
independence of such association, in the Latin Church the reverse took
place; there the church unassociated with a tomb--a basilica in fact--
was converted into a sepulchral monument.
The reverence of the early pontiffs shrank from dismembering the bodies
of the saints. To Queen Theodelinda Pope Gregory I. would accord only
oil that had burnt in the lamps at their tombs, or ribbons that had
touched them. Gregory V., in 594, wrote to Constantia Augusta, who had
built a church in honour of S. Paul, and craved a portion of his body:
"Dear lady, know that the Romans when they give relics of the saints
are not accustomed to parcel up their bodies, they send no more than a
veil that has touched them." [Footnote: Baronius, _Hiérothonie de J.
C._, Paris, 1630, p. 173.]
But when the Latin Church was constrained by the force of popular
prejudice to transform all her sacred temples into sepulchral churches,
there was no help for it; the bodies of the saints had to be torn in
pieces for distribution. A toe, a finger was taken off, legs and arms
were amputated, the vertebræ of the spine were dispersed over
Christendom, the teeth were wrenched out of the jaws, the hair plucked
from head and chin, moisture exuding from the body was carefully
cherished, and bones were rasped to furnish a little sacred phosphate
of lime to some church clamorous to be consecrated.
A plateau to the south of Poitiers had long borne the name of Chiron
Martyrs. Chiron means a heap of stones, but why the epithet of Martyrs
attached to the heaps of stones there nobody knew. The old Roman road
leading to and athwart it was named La Route des Martyrs, also for no
known reason. But in October 1878 the plateau was being levelled by the
military authorities, when it was discovered that the stones were
actually broken tombs, and that they were clearing a pagan Necropolis.
Soon they came on a portion where were sarcophagi orientated and
crowded thickly about a subterranean building. The distinguished
antiquary, Le Père de la Croix, now undertook the investigation, and
discovered that these latter were the tombs of Christians, and that
they surrounded a hypogee Martyrium. This was excavated and proved to
be a chapel erected over the bodies of certain martyrs of Poitiers, of
whom no records had been preserved, or at all events remained, whose
very existence was unknown; also, that it had been constructed by an
abbot Mellebaudes at the end of the sixth or beginning of the seventh
century. It contained an altar built up of stone, plastered over and
painted, measuring at the base 2 feet 8-1/2 inches by 2 feet 2 inches
and 3 feet 7 inches high. Also sarcophagi for the bodies of the martyrs
there found, also one that Mellebaudes had prepared for himself. In the
floor were many graves, possibly of his kinsfolk. Numerous inscriptions
in barbarous Latin, some paintings and carvings, were also found. Among
the latter a rude sculpture represented two of the martyrs, Hilarius
and Sosthenes, who had been crucified. A bracelet of amber and coloured
glass beads, amber ear-rings, and bronze ornaments were also
discovered.
[Illustration: Plan of the Martyrium.
1-4. Stone sarcophagi.
5, 6, 9, 10, 14. Graves sunk in the rock, covered with flat slabs,
containing bones.
8. Pit covered with a carved slab.
11, 13. Children's graves covered with carved slabs brought from
elsewhere.
12. Pit containing no bones.
A. Altar.
B. Arcosolium containing the sarcophagus with the bones of the
martyrs.
C. The sculpture of the crucified saints.
D. Doorway.
F.F. Pilasters.
O.O. Broken pilasters.
G.G. Benches.
H. Sarcophagus of Mellebaudes.
E. East window.]
Mellebaudes certainly built his mausoleum where there had been one
earlier, that had become completely ruinous, for he complains that he
had not been able to recover all the bones of the martyrs that had been
laid in it. This destruction had probably been effected by the
Visigoths, and the building by Mellebaudes took place some time after
the defeat and expulsion of these Arians in 507. The final ruin of the
Martyrium he raised may have been the work of the Saracens in 732.
[Footnote: For full account with plates see P. Camille de la Croix,
_S. J. Hypogée Martyrium de Poitiers, Paris, 1883._]
The hypogee was sunk nine feet in the rock, but the roof must have
shown above ground. A window was to the east. S. Avitus in the sixth
century speaks of the wondrous skill of architects in his day, who
contrived to introduce daylight into the crypts. It is evident that no
glass was inserted in the window, although the use of glass for windows
was becoming general in the sixth century; and Fortunatus, Bishop of
Poitiers, died 609, and Gregory, Bishop of Tours, died 595, both speak
in terms of admiration of the glazing of windows for churches. It may
well be understood that in the mind of the people long after the stream
of public devotion had been directed to the churches above ground, a
liking for those that are excavated underground should remain. Indeed,
it is not extinct yet, as any one may see who visits the church of Ste.
Croix at Poitiers, or S. Eutrope at Saintes, or S. Martin at Tours, to
mention but three out of many. In all these are mere empty tombs, yet
they are the resort of numerous devotees. The darkness, the mystery of
these subterranean sanctuaries, impressed the imagination. Accordingly
we find, especially in France, many cave-churches. Indeed they are so
numerous that I can afford space to describe but a couple of the
largest. Many are small, mere chapels, and shall be dealt with under
the heading of hermitages.
[ILLUSTRATION: INTERIOR OF THE MONOLITHIC CHURCH OF S. EMILION,
DORDOGNE. Height from the floor, sixty feet. It is no longer used for
divine worship.]
Few scenes of quiet landscape can surpass that of the valley of the
Dordogne from the road between Sauveterre and Libourne. It broke on me
upon a breezy spring morning. The Dordogne, broad and blue, swept
through the wide valley between banks dense with poplar and osier. The
whole country wore a smiling aspect; the houses, built of freestone,
looked fresh and comfortable, and were surrounded by their gardens. The
maize-fields were as a rippling green sea. The flax-fields in bloom
were sheets of the tenderest blue, and those of the _Trifolium
incarnatum_ red as blood, and the road was like a white ribbon
binding together a variegated wreath. To the north of the Dordogne rose
a grey cluster of buildings, the old town of S. Emilion, famous for its
wine. It occupies the edge of a plateau. The only business pursued
therein is the making of wine and of macaroons.
The entrance to S. Emilion is not striking. None of its buildings,
except the keep of its castle are visible. The road dives into a grove
of acacias, and then enters the town by a narrow street. The acacias
were a mass of pink and white blossom, exhaling a sweet fragrance.
In the middle of the eighth century lived a hermit named Emilian, born
of obscure parents at Vannes in Brittany. He became known to the Count
of that place, who took him into his service, where he showed himself
profusely charitable to the poor with his master's substance. This led
to his ignominious dismissal, and he wandered into the Saintonge,
entered the Benedictine Order, and became baker to the monastery. But
he proved so objectionable there that he was turned out. So he wandered
further south, and finding a rock in the forest above the Dordogne,
wherein was a small cave, out of which flowed a spring, he took up his
abode therein. His fame soon brought disciples to him, and gathered
admirers about him; and after his death in 767, a monastery of
Benedictine monks was settled there, and a town sprang up about it.
The cave of S. Emilion still remains. In face of it rises a mass of
rock with abrupt scarp towards the west and the market-place. Thence a
street slopes up to the platform on the top of the rock. The front of
the rock has an ambulatory before it pierced with windows and doors,
and through these latter access is obtained to the interior of the
rock, which is hollowed out into a stately church, dedicated to the
three kings, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar.
This monolithic church has for its base a parallelogram measuring 120
feet by 60 feet. It is composed of two portions of unequal height. The
anterior portion is a vestibule, narthex, or ambulatory to the church,
and is only 21 feet high. The windows in this are of the flamboyant
order, and the principal doorway is richly sculptured. The body of the
church into which this vestibule opens is 95 feet long and 60 feet
high. The body consists of a nave and side aisles, all excavated out of
the living rock. Six windows light the interior, the three in the
flamboyant style already mentioned, and above, set back the whole
length of the narthex under circular-headed arches, are three plain,
round-headed windows, like a clerestory, opening into the nave and
aisles, one window in each.
Looking from the market-place at the church the spectators would
suppose that the nave ran parallel with the vestibule, but this is not
the case, it is at right angles to it.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE MONOLITHIC CHURCH, AUBETERRE, CHARENTE.
Showing the gallery of communication to the Seigneural pew, seen in
face. The supports of the gallery vault have crumbled away within forty
years, through neglect.]
The small upper windows cast but a chill and feeble light into the vast
cavern, so that the choir and chapels are buried in perpetual twilight.
The windows in the vestibule do very little towards the illumination of
the interior. At the extremity of the nave, which is raised on steps to
form a choir, anciently stood the high altar, but this has been
removed. Above, where it was can be discerned faintly through the
obscurity, a bas-relief rudely sculptured, but very curious. It
occupies the entire width of the choir; on the right is an angel
playing upon a stringed instrument, with outspread wings, as if in the
attitude of soaring, and on the left, perched on a rock, is a monstrous
animal with gaping jaws, bristling mane, and raised paws. In the midst
of the group is a little old man armed with a stick, apparently
repelling this monster. It has been conjectured that this is intended
as a representation of the saint himself ready to deliver his votaries
from the jaws of Hell. But it is more probable that the whole subject
is allegorical of Death, armed with his scythe between the powers of
Light and of Darkness. The choir arch is one of the boldest and most
original conceptions in this marvellous temple. It consists of two
gigantic angels carved out of the sandstone, with their feet upon the
piers on each side, and their heads nearly meeting at the crown of the
vault. Each has four wings, the two smaller wings are raised about
their heads, forming a nimbus to each. The other two wings are
depressed. These mighty angels were formerly whitened and partially
gilt, and the effect of the great figures looming out of the dark vault
is most impressive.
On the right side of the nave, at the spring of the arches, between two
of the piers, is a centaur armed with a bow, cut in the stone, and on
the opposite spandril are two goats, disposed back to back, also cut in
the rock. On one of the piers is an inscription graven regarding the
dedication of the church, but unfortunately the date is illegible. The
exterior of the church is adorned with a noble portal, richly
sculptured, of much later date than the church within.
On entering the church through this rich portal a feeling of
astonishment comes over one. The exterior in no way corresponds with
the interior, which is void of ornament. The piers are massive
parallelograms without mouldings, the arches between them semicircular,
stilted, perfectly plain; a string alone marks the rise of the arch
from the pier.
In the floor of one of the aisles is a hole through which a descent was
anciently made into the crypt below the church; this crypt also is hewn
in the solid rock, and has a funnel-shaped dome, a spiral flight of
steps was cut in the rock round it descending from the church into the
crypt. The descent must have been hazardous in the extreme unless the
stairs were provided with a balustrade, of which at present no trace
remains.
Admittance into the crypt is also obtained through a door cut in the
face of the rock, but this was made in 1793 when the soil and the bones
of the old canons of the Church of the Three Kings were required for
saltpetre to make gunpowder for the armies of the Republic. Over the
door is a mask carved in the stone and a little window; above the
monolithic church, standing on the platform of rock, is the exquisite
flamboyant spire, not communicating with the church beneath, also a
modern _salle de danse_.
Another subterranean church as interesting but not as well preserved is
that of Aubeterre in Charente, on the Dronne. By the valley of the
Dronne all movement of troops from the Limousin and Perigord into the
Saintonge took place, and the rock of Aubeterre was considered of so
great military importance that a strong castle was constructed on the
summit, and its possession was contested repeatedly during the Hundred
Years' War and the wars of religion. Its position was peculiar in this
also, that it was in the seneschauté of the Angoumois, in the diocese
of Périgueux, and for the purpose of taxation in the Limousin.
[ILLUSTRATION: ROCAMADOUR. A cluster of chapels, some excavated in
the rock. Zacchæus is erroneously supposed to have lived and died in
one of them. A famous place of pilgrimage.]
The town is built in the form of an amphitheatre on a chalk hill that
commands the Dronne. The hill is precipitous in parts, and is
everywhere so steep that the roofs of the houses are below the gardens
of those above them, and the saying there is, "Mind that your cattle be
not found in your neighbour's stable by tumbling through the roof." The
castle occupied a height cut off from the town by a deep cleft, that
has its sides pierced with caverns, and its store chambers and cellars
are dug out of the rock. But the most curious feature of Aubeterre is
the monolithic church of S. John beneath the castle. The doorway
admitting into it is on the level of the street, and gives access to a
charnel-house with what would be termed _arcosolia_ in the
catacombs, on each side, and the floor is humpy with graves. This is 70
feet long by 16 feet wide. On the right hand it gives admission through
a doorway cut in the rock to the church itself, consisting of a nave
and side aisle divided from it by massive monolithic piers, very much
decayed at the top. It is lighted by three round-headed windows like a
clerestory without glass. At the further end is an arch admitting to an
apse, in the midst of which is an octagonal monolithic tomb of
Renaissance style, with columns at the angles, and surmounted by the
statue of Francois d'Esparbes de Lussac, Marshal of Aubeterre, and the
much mutilated figure of his wife in Carrara marble.
A gallery excavated in the rock above the arch into the apse is
continued the whole length of the aisle, and turns to admit into the
seigneural gallery or pew high up over the entrance whence he and his
family could hear Divine Service.
On the right-hand side of the nave opens a second charnel-house, called
by the people "the Old Church," also with its _arcosolia_; there
is also a door by which exit is obtained into a small cemetery
overgrown with briars and thorns, and with the head-crosses reeling in
all directions, and utterly neglected. For centuries not this yard
only, nor the two charnel-houses but also the floor of the church, have
served as the burial-place of the citizens of Aubeterre, and the floor
is raised four feet above that of the apse though frequent interments.
The last head cross I noted within the church bore the date 1860.
The height of the church is said to be fifty feet. The castle above was
sold about sixty years ago to a small tradesman of the town, who
straightway pulled it down and disposed of the stones for building
purposes, and out of the lead of the gutters, conduits, and windows
made sufficient to pay the purchase-money.
Then he converted the site into a cabbage garden and vineyard. Not
content with this he brought a stream of water in to nourish his
cabbages. This leaks through and is rapidly disintegrating and ruining
the church beneath, that was protected so long as the castle stood
above it. Seven years ago the arched gallery in the aisle was perfect,
now it has crumbled away. The piers were also intact, now they are
corroded at the top. A stream pours down through the vault continuously
by the monument of the Marshal. The church is classed as a _monument
historique_, nevertheless nothing was done to prevent the damage
effected by the destruction of the covering castle, and nothing is done
now to preserve it from utter disintegration.
In my opinion the apse was excavated to receive the monument, which
consists of a mass of chalk in position, with a hole on one side to
receive the coffins let down into the seigneural vault; and this could
not have been there with a high altar behind it. In a lateral chapel is
a hole in the vault, through which the ropes passed to pull the bells
that were hung in a tower above, but which has been destroyed.
[ILLUSTRATION: AUBETERRE, CHARENTE. Mausoleum of Francois Espartes in
the choir of the Subterranean Church.]
In 1450 Aubeterre was in the possession of the English, and they sold
it to the Count of Perigord. When the Huguenot troubles began, the Lord
of Aubeterre threw himself into the movement and appropriated the lands
and revenues of the ecclesiastical foundations in the town. François
d'Aubeterre was involved in the conspiracy of Amboise, and was
sentenced to death, but pardoned. He deemed it expedient, however, to
go to Geneva, where, as Brantôme informs us, he turned button-maker. In
1561 he was back again in Aubeterre, and converted the monolithic
church into a preaching "temple," sweeping away all Catholic symbols,
and it remains bare of them to this day. His brother, Guy Bonchard,
Bishop of Périgueux, was also an ardent Calvinist, and used his
position for introducing preachers of the sect into the churches.
Although disbelieving in Episcopacy, he did not see his way to
surrendering the emoluments of his see. He was deposed in 1561, and
Peter Fournier elected, whom the Huguenots murdered in his bed 14th
July 1575.
In 1568 Jeanne d'Albret issued orders to the gangs of men she sent
through the country to lay hold of the royal revenues, to sequestrate
and appropriate all ecclesiastical property, to raise taxes to pay
themselves, and to require all municipalities to furnish from four to
five soldiers apiece to replenish their corps.
Jeanne's power extended over Lower Navarre, Béarn, the land of Albret,
Foix, Armagnac, and other great seigneuries. Through her husband,
Antoine de Bourbon, she could rule and torture Perigord, the
Bourbonais, and the Vendomois. She had good cause to be offended with
the Pope, for in 1563, with incredible folly, he threatened her with
deposition from her throne, a threat he could not possibly execute. By
enrolling and sending forth over the south to ravage and confiscate,
she was a second Pandora letting loose the hurricane, slaughter, fire,
famine, and pestilence, leaving Hope locked up behind.
Aubeterre played a conspicuous part in the wars of religion, and the
Catholics in vain essayed to take it. The seigneur could always draw
from the bands of Calvinist soldiery to hold it, and it remained in
their power till the peace of La Rochelle.
I might include Rocamadour in the Department of Lot among the
interesting rock churches. It consists of a cluster of chapels clinging
to the rock or dug out of it, and looking like a range of swallows'
nests plastered against the face of the cliff. The people of the place
fondly hold that Zaccheus, who climbed up a sycamore tree to see Our
Lord pass by, came into Quercy, and having a natural propensity for
climbing, scrambled up the face of the precipice to a hole he perceived
in it, and there spent the remainder of his days, and changed his name
to Amator. No trace of such an identification occurs before 1427, when
Pope Martin V. affirmed it in a bull, although in the local breviary
there was no such identification. It is extremely doubtful whether any
saint of the name of Amator settled here, the story concerning him is
an appropriation from Lucca. [Footnote: _Analecta Bollandiana_, T.
xxviii., pp. 57 _et seq_.]
But I will not describe this, one of the most remarkable sites in
Europe, as I have done so already in my "Deserts of Southern France,"
and as of late years it has been visited by a good many English
tourists, and the French railway stations exhibit highly coloured views
of it, turning Rocamadour into a national show place.
At Lirac, in Gard, is La Sainte Baume, a small church or chapel,
excavated out of the rock, 60 feet long, 45 feet wide, and 30 feet
high. It is lighted by an aperture in the vault. Three other caves
behind the choir are almost as large.
At Mimet, in Bouches-du-Rhône, is the church of Our Lady of the Angels,
hewn out of limestone rock, with stalactites depending from the roof.
At Peyre, near Millau, in Tarn, is the church of S. Christophe, scooped
out of the living rock, with above it an old crenellated bell tower.
[Illustration: SUBTERRANEAN CHURCH, AUBETERRE. Looking east. In the
choir is the mausoleum. The floor of the church is raised four feet by
it having been made the parish cemetery. The process of degradation of
the pillars is noticeable at their heads.]
At Caudon, on the Dordogne, now in the parish of Domme, the old parish
church is monolithic, entirely excavated in the rock, but with a
structural bell-cot above it. As already mentioned, Caudon was a
parish, but as owing to the devastations of the Companies, all the
inhabitants had deserted it and fled to Spain, it was annexed to Domme.
What is curious is that before it had been carved out of the limestone
as a church there had been cave-dwellers in or about it, that have left
their traces in the sides of the church. The Marquis de Maleville, who
has his château near, has put the church in thorough repair, and it is
still occasionally used.
Natural caves have been employed as churches or places of worship. Thus
the Grotte des Fées, near Nimes, was used by the Calvinists for their
religious assemblies before 1567, when they obtained the mastery of the
town, sacked the bishop's palace, and filled up the well with the
Catholics, whom they precipitated into it, some dead and others half
alive.
The Grotte de Jouclas, near Rocamadour, served the villagers of La Cave
till the parish church was rebuilt. At Gurat, in Charente, the church
of S. George is hollowed out of the rock; it dates from the tenth
century, it is believed, and preceded the present parish church, which
was erected in the eleventh century, and is Romanesque. In the valley
of the Borrèze, near Souillac (Lot), is a cave in which bones of the
_ursus spelus_ have been found. It is used as a chapel to Notre
Dame de Ste. Esperance.
At Lanmeur, in Brittany, is the very early crypt of S. Melor, a Breton
prince put to death about the year 544. The legend concerning him is
rich in mythical particulars. His uncle, so as to incapacitate him from
attaining the crown of Léon, cut off his right hand and left foot. The
boy was then provided with a silver hand and a brazen foot. One day he
was seen to use his silver hand in plucking filberts off a tree,
whereupon his uncle had him murdered. The crypt is the most ancient
monument of Christian architecture in Brittany. It measures 25 feet by
15 feet 6 inches, and is divided into a nave and side aisles by two
ranges of columns hardly 4 feet high, sustaining depressed arches not
rising above 3 feet 6 inches, and decorated with rudely sculptured
trailing branches.
[Illustration: Section of the Dolmen Chapel of the Seven Sleepers near
Plouaret.]
A still more curious subterranean chapel is near Plouaret, in Côtes-du-
Nord. It is, in fact, a prehistoric dolmen under a tumulus, on top of
which a chapel was erected in 1702-4. The descent into the crypt is by
a flight of steps. The primitive monument consisted of two huge
capstones of granite supported by four or five vertically planted
uprights, but one, if not two of the latter have been removed. At the
east end is an altar to the Seven Sleepers, and the comical dolls
representing them stand in a niche above the altar.
In the north-west of Spain, at Cangas-de-Ones, near Oviedo, is a little
church of probably the tenth or eleventh century, built on top of a
cairn that covers a dolmen. This latter consists of a circular chamber
into which leads a gallery composed of fifteen upright slabs, covered
by four others. The dolmen served as a crypt to the church, and from it
have been recovered objects in stone and copper of a prehistoric
period. A writer in the seventeenth century says that in his time
devotees regarded the dolmen as the tomb of a saint, and scrabbled up
the soil, and carried it away as a remedy against sundry maladies.
[Footnote: _Revue mensuelle de l'ecole d'Anthropologie_, Paris,
1897.]
[Illustration: Plan of the Dolmen Chapel near Plouaret.]
The Bretons have a ballad, _Gwerz_, concerning the former
monument. It is a miraculous structure dating from the Creation of the
World: "Who will doubt that it was built by the hand of the Almighty?
You ask me when and how it was constructed. I reply that I believe that
when the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all were created, then was
this also made."
Although the dolmen is no longer underground, I must refer to that of
Confolens near S. Germain-sur-Vienne, because it was originally under a
tumulus. It is a dolmen, of which only the cover, a huge mass of
granite remains intact, in an island of the Vienne. Underneath the slab
are sculptured a stone axe with handle, and one without, also a cross.
The capstone rests on four pillars of the twelfth century. Mr. Ferguson
erroneously claimed the dolmen as evidence that rude stone monuments
continued to be erected till late in the Middle Ages. But, in fact, the
pillars are not of equal length, their capitals are not in line, nor
are their bases. What is obvious is that the rude stone supports were
removed one by one, and the Gothic pillars inserted in their place were
cut exactly to the length required. Thus altered, the dolmen served as
a baldachin or canopy over the stone Christian altar that is still in
place beneath it. About this monument a chapel had been erected with
apse to the east, measuring 36 feet by 15 feet. This has been
destroyed, but the foundations remained till recently. The cross on the
capstone was cut when the prehistoric monument was converted to use by
Christians. To descend to the floor of the chapel a flight of steps had
been constructed. The chapel was dedicated to S. Mary Magdalen.
In Egypt, in the Levant, cave-churches are common. The chapel of Agios
Niketos, in Crete, is now merely a smoke begrimed grotto beneath a huge
mass of rock on the mountain side. The roof is elaborately ornamented
with paintings representing incidents in the Gospel story, and the
legend of S. Nicolas. Though it is no longer employed as a church, an
event that is said to have happened some centuries ago invests it with
special regard by the natives. The church was crowded with worshippers
on the eve of the feast of the patron, when the fires which the
villagers who had assembled there had lighted near the entrance, where
they were bivouacking for the night, attracted the attention of a
Barbary corsair, then cruising off the island, and guided him to the
spot unobserved. Suddenly and unexpectedly he and his crew, having
stolen up the hill, burst upon the crowd of frightened Cretans. The
Corsairs thereupon built up the entrance, and waited for day, the
better to secure their captives for embarkation. But happily there was
another exit from the cavern behind the altar, and by this the whole
congregation escaped into another cave, and thence by a passage to a
further opening, through which they stole out unobserved by the
pirates.
The rock-hewn church of Dayn Aboo Hannes, "the convent of Father John,"
in Egypt, near Antinoe, has its walls painted with subjects from the
New Testament; the church is thought to date back to the time of
Constantine.
The passion for associating grottoes with sacred themes is shown in the
location of the site of the Nativity at Bethlehem. There is nothing in
the Gospel to lead us to suppose that the event took place in a cave,
though it is not improbable that it did so. The scene of the
Annunciation was also a rock-hewn cave, now occupied by a half-
underground church, out of which flows the Virgin's Fountain.
In Gethsemane, "the chapel of the Tomb of the Virgin, over the
traditional spot where the Mother of our Lord was buried by the
Apostles, is mostly underground. Three flights of steps lead down to
the space in front of it, so that nothing is seen above ground but the
porch. But even after you have gone down the three flights of steps you
are only at the entrance to the church, amidst marble pillars, flying
buttresses, and pointed arches. Forty-seven additional marble steps,
descending in a broad flight nineteen feet wide, lead down a further
depth of thirty-five feet, and here you are surrounded by monkish sites
and sacred spots. The whole place is, in fact, two distinct natural
caves, enlarged and turned to their present uses with infinite care.
Far below the ground you find a church thirty-one yards long and nearly
seven wide, lighted by many lamps, and are shown the tomb of the father
and mother of the Virgin, and that of Joseph and the Virgin herself.
And as if this were not enough, a long subterranean gallery leads down
six steps more to a cave eighteen yards long, half as broad, and about
twelve feet wide, which you are told is the Cavern of the Agony."
[Footnote: Geikie (C.), "The Holy Land and the Bible," Lond. 1887,
ii.p.8.]
Stanley says: [Footnote: "Sinai and Palestine," Lond. 1856, p.150.]
"The moment that the religion of Palestine fell into the hands of
Europeans, it is hardly too much to say that as far as sacred
traditions are concerned, it became 'a religion of caves,' of those
very caves which in earlier times had been unhallowed by any religious
influence whatever. Wherever a sacred association had to be fixed, a
cave was immediately selected or found as its home. First in antiquity
is the grotto of Bethlehem, already in the second century regarded by
popular belief as the scene of the Nativity. Next comes the grotto on
Mount Olivet, selected as the scene of our Lord's last conversation
before the Ascension. These two caves, Eusebius emphatically asserts,
were the first seats of the worship established by the Empress Helena,
to which was shortly afterwards added a third--the sacred cave of the
Sepulchre. To these were rapidly added the cave of the Invention of the
Cross, the cave of the Annunciation at Nazareth, the cave of the Agony
at Gethsemane, the cave of the Baptism in the Wilderness of S. John,
the cave of the Shepherds of Bethlehem. And then again, partly perhaps
the cause, partly the effect of the consecration of grottoes, began the
caves of the hermits. There were the cave of S. Pelagia on Mount
Olivet, the caves of S. Jerome, S. Paula, and S. Eustochium at
Bethlehem, the cave of S. Saba in the ravine of Kedron, the remarkable
cells hewn or found in the precipices of the Quarrantania or Mount of
the Temptation above Jericho. In some few instances this selection of
grottoes would coincide with the events thus intended to be
perpetuated, as for example, the hiding-place of the prophets on
Carmel, and the sepulchres of the patriarchs and of Our Lord. But in
most instances the choice is made without the sanction, in some
instances in defiance of, the sacred narrative."
It is questionable whether Dean Stanley is right in attributing the
identification of caves with sacred sites to Europeans, it is probable
enough that the local Christians had already fixed upon some if not all
of them. After the pilgrims or the Crusaders had come in their
thousands and visited the holy sites, they returned to their native
lands deeply impressed with the association of caves with everything
that was held sacred, and this, added to the dormant sense of reverence
for places underground consecrated to holy purposes that had come to
them from their parents, must have tended to the multiplication of
subterranean churches.
In some venerated caves and in certain crypts are springs of water that
are held to be invested with miraculous properties. The crypts of S.
Peter in the Vatican, S. Ponziana and S. Alessandro, have such flowing
springs. In the crypt of the church of Gorlitz is a well, and from that
of the cathedral of Paderborn issues one of the sources of the river
Pader. The Kilian spring rises in the crypt of the New Minster in
Würzburg. Out of the cave of the monastery of Brantôme, to be described
in another chapter, streams a magnificent source. Most of the water is
employed for the town and for the washerwomen, but one little rill from
it is conducted to an ornate fountain, that bears the name of S.
Sicarius (Little Cut-throat), one of the Innocents of Bethlehem slain
by order of Herod. It is explained that by some means or other
Charlemagne obtained his bones, but how the infant of a Hebrew mother
acquired a Latin name has not been attempted to be explained.