24 May 2004
Pilgrimage
In the Middle Ages every church needed its relics. Stories grew up around these odd - sometimes gruesome - artifacts.
The church of Sainte-Foy at Conques held an important position on a pilgrimage route known as the Via Podense. In order to ensure that their establishment remained near the top of the pilgrimage hit parade, the monks of Conques raided a nearby monastery and stole the body that lay in its reliquary.
The body was that of Sainte-Foy, a young woman whose name meant 'faith'.
Faith - or Foy or Foi - suffered in the 3rd century persecutions of Christians ordered by Emperor Diocletian. Because she was a Christian, Faith was executed by being tortured to death on a red-hot brazier. Impressed by her fortitude and piety, some bystanders objected and were, in their turn, beheaded. It is this inspirational example - the ability in the most desperate circumstances to spread the word of God - that caused her to be sanctified.
The monks housed their purloined relic in an elaborate reliquary. Even today, on her feast day of 6 October, the reliquary is still carried through the streets of Conques.
The church itself is built on what has become known as the 'pilgrimage plan' and was finished around 1120.
There are 5 'pilgrimage plan' churches. They are to be found at Tours (St Martin), Limoges (St Martial), Conques (St Foy), Toulouse (St Sernin) and Santiago de Compostela (St James).
The first four of these five churches were located, one each, on the pilgrimage roads to the fifth, Santiago de Compostela, the second greatest of all Christian pilgrimage destinations after Jerusalem. Each was built to the same general plan as the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, with a barrel vaulted ceiling separated into bays by transverse arches and no clerestory.
My name is Kate Mosse, creator and writer in residence of www.mosselabyrinth.co.uk. I am writing a novel, not history. My places of pilgrimage in my imagined story are different - Chartres, Béziers, Carcassonne, Montségur.
But you can find every place in the Labyrinth.
