BEAUTY FOR THOSE WHO SERVE — SALVATION FOR THE JUST

CATHERINE PRIETO-HUGOT — SOEUR CONSTANCE — FRÈRE JEAN D’ÉPHÈSE — LA TENTURE DE CHŒUR DE LA CHAISE-DIEU — ÉDITIONS DU SIGNE — 2021

This book, La Tenture de Chœur de La Chaise-Dieu, was written and published on the occasion of the opening of the specially rebuilt small chapel in the cloister where the thirteen tapestries are on display at eye level, the twelve long rectangular tapestries plus the central one showing the crucifixion of Jesus and that was hung over the Rood Screen that separated the Monk’s choir from the public nave. These tapestries were ordered at the end of the 15th century and delivered in the next century. They are the perfect continuation of two books that were rather popular at the end of the Middle Ages, the Biblia Pauperum and Speculum Humanae Salvationis, two rather “popular” books of the 12th-13th centuries. These were essentially pictures constructed in a very particular way and reproduced as imprints of carved wooden plates, this technique explaining the rather large number of copies available in Europe. The text, when some text was included, was in Latin. The main source of the tapestries is the first book whose systematic construction in triptychs with one prefiguration from the Ancient Testament on the left of the central theme on Jesus’ life…