Days 19 to 20: Art, Pilgrimage, and the Crusade: The Romanesque Era I-II

Reliquary of St. Foy

artist unknown, 866-1000 CE, gold, silver, gems, cameos, wood

• one of the most famous Romanesque reliquaries: child martyr St. Foy

• constructed using spoliation

• adorned with jewels, expresses medieval belief that precious materials = holy honor

• major pilgrimage stop on the Route of Santiago de Compostela

• life-sized, reflecting both Byzantine imperial imagery and local devotional practices

• fusion of spiritual reverence + material splendor central to Romanesque reliquary culture

Church of St. Sernin

artist unknown, 1096-1118 CE, brick and limestone

• one of the largest and most important pilgrimage churches of the Santiago de Compostela route

• classic Romanesque pilgrimage-plan: long nave, side aisles, ambulatory, multiple radiating chapels for relic display

• barrel-vaulted nave with engaged buttresses demonstrated engineering advancements

• exteriors features Lombard bands, towers, and stone articulation typical or southern French Romanesque

• reflects the growing relic veneration and mass pilgrimage in the 11th-12th centuries

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