Anglican in Burgundy

Bede at Cluny     Etant donné qu'il y a plein de choses à dire autour de l'influence de l'Abbaye de Cluny sur l'Angleterre, on peut constater qu'il y avait au moins un peu d'influence venant dans l'autre sens. Parmi les manuscrits clunisiens sauvés de la révolution française, il y en a un qui montre que les oeuvres du moine anglais Bede (672-735) étaient lues à Cluny pendant le XIe siècle. Cette version des homélies de Bede, copiée à Cluny entre 1067 et 1100, se trouve maintenant dans la Bibliothèque Nationale de France. /  While there is very much that could be said about the influence of Cluny Abbey upon England, there is evidence that the influence went, at least to some extent, in the other direction as well. One of the manuscripts saved at the abbey's destruction following the French Revolution, and preserved now in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, shows that the works of the Englishman the Venerable Bede ("Doctor Anglorum") were bein

  Saulieu      The basilica of St Andoche at Saulieu (Côte d'Or) has some English mediaeval connections. Though sacked by the Saracens in the 8th century, the basilica was subsequently rebuilt and added to, and took the form seen today substantially in the 12th c. In his  Description générale et particulière du duché de Bourgogne , the great 18th c historian of Burgundy, the Abbé Claude Courtépée, himself a native of Saulieu, describes the visit of the French Pope Callixtus II to Saulieu in December 1119, when he apparently presided over the translation of the relics of St Andoche. Courtépée says that the pope was accompanied by an "archevêque anglais." Curious to find out which archbishop exactly, I discover a whole story lies behind Courtépée's comment.     The Archbishop of Canterbury at the time was Ralph d'Escures, originally from Normandy. He spent his archiepiscopal career asserting the rights of the see of Canterbury both against Rome and over the other En

  Saint-Eusèbe      The English production designer Christopher Hobbs worked with Derek Jarman on films such as Sebastiane, Caravaggio and Edward II (the photo above shows one of the props Hobbs designed for Caravaggio, a shield, now in the V&A in London). He also designed for the 1999 film of Mansfield Park, and Gormenghast in 2000. As his obituary in today's Times outlines, he led a colourful life, the last two decades of which were spent in Burgundy, at Saint-Eusèbe (Saône-et-Loire).       Hobbs oversaw the restoration of Gervase Jackson-Stops' saloon at his house The Menagerie (which actually necessitated mostly new work in the shell of a building), and also designed a celebrated chimneypiece for Malplaquet House in Stepney Green in London, which was being restored by Tim Knox and Todd Longstaffe-Gowan.

  Château de Montjeu      Recent political history links a very private Burgundian château with Britain. Sir James Goldsmith (1933-97) was the son of a British former Conservative MP, but his mother was Burgundian, and so it was no surprise that Sir James chose to buy a château in Burgundy, Montjeu at Broye, near Autun (Saône-et-Loire), and to make it his main French home. Indeed, it was there that he spent most of his final illness.      The château is situated within a very large wooded park, and remains private, but there are some old postcard photographs of it, as well as recent drone images. It was built in the early 17th century, and is known to have hosted both Mme de Sévigné and Voltaire (though not at the same time, for obvious reasons!). Having fallen into some disrepair, it was restored by its mid-20th century owner, Roger Demon, who also sheltered a Jewish family there during the Nazi Occupation, for which he was declared Righteous among the Nations after the war.      Acco

  Berzé-la-Ville      La Chapelle des Moines, at Berzé-la-Ville (Saône-et-Loire), between Cluny and Mâcon, has a British connection which is rather recent.      The chapel was built by Hugues de Semur, the great Abbot of Cluny, as part of a monastic grange, in the 11th century. Raymond Oursel, in his Bourgogne Romane , speculates that it must have been one of Abbot Hugh's favourite places, as it is one of only three to be mentioned in his final testament, written at the end of his unusually long life (he was 84 when he died in 1109). It is famous for its frescoed apse, which was the product of the very best Cluniac artists:      Probably painted under Hugh's successor as Abbot, Ponce de Melgueil (1109-22), it shows Christ handing a no longer legible text to St Peter (who was the patron saint of the Abbey of Cluny), surrounded by the other apostles, and two smaller groups of saints with local connections below.      The chapel fell into a bad state of repair due to long-term neg

  Pontigny      The largest Cisterican abbey church in the world is that of Pontigny (Yonne), in north Burgundy. It was the Englishman St Stephen Harding who sent Hugues de Mâcon from Cîteaux to found the monastery, second of the four "first daughters of Cîteaux," in 1114.      The English connection was kept up through the centuries. As Burgundy was on the route for ecclesiastical travellers between England and Rome, many English clerics stopped off at Pontigny Abbey, sometimes for extended periods of time. St Thomas Becket, patron of the English clergy, spent part of his continental exile there; and  St Edmund of Abingdon, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had studied years before at both Oxford and Paris, died nearby in 1240. He had been staying at the abbey, then was taken sick and died just after continuing on his planned journey to Rome. His body was taken back to the abbey, and what is left of it is now in the reliquary behind the high altar.      There were soon reports o