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What is more, the landscape is rendered more exotic or African by the Oriental appearance of the whole town, its castle, and its cathedral. The latter was begun and ended in the twelfth century; the first stone was laid in 1151, and the vaults were closed twenty-three years later, in 1174; consequently it is one of the unique twelfth-century churches in Spain completed before the year 1200.
In the second and third bays part of the twelfth-century top to the aisle walls remains. The roof may have had eaves originally, but now there is a parapet of about the same date as the present buttresses; and the projection of this parapet is carried upon the corbels that were carved and built in before the second fire occurred.
And, worse than all, if they pause, dismayed, to mark the flight of the agile fugitive safe on the arc of a flying buttress, or taking the place of the fallen mosaics and coloured tiles of a twelfth-century tower, and in any case inaccessible, the grass grows under their discomfited feet.
An arm reliquary bears the inscription in raised Lombardic letters: "Ego Chacia usor Dimitrii feci fieri hoc opus." It is of plain metal enriched with filigree, and set with stones and patterned cloisonné enamels, and stands upon a triangular cast base with three feet; on each side is a winged figure with sceptre and orb amid twelfth-century scroll-work.
The east wall of the north arm of the #Transept# has a buttress, as is the case with the south arm. But early thirteenth-century pointed windows take the place of the round-headed ones. There are, however, three string-courses on this wall of the north arm which do not appear on the south. One is the old twelfth-century string which evidently once ran along above the old round-headed windows.
Projecting northwards, but attached to the north-west angle, is a vertical buttress of the same date as the flying one close to it. On the west side, this part of the transept almost repeats what is to be observed on the east; but the parapet here is the same as that on the north end, and near the ground is one of the twelfth-century windows.
We may, however, suggest that any one who visits Val-ès-dunes, will not do amiss if he extends his ramble as far as the churches of Cintheaux and Quilly. Cintheaux is one of the best of the small but rich twelfth-century churches which are so common in the district.
If Irish boys and girls got into the way of thinking of twelfth-century priors as gay dogs, the step onward to actual disrespect for contemporary bishops would be quite a short one. He said that this mixing of the sexes would destroy the beautiful modesty of demeanour which distinguishes Irish girls from those of other nations. Lalage poked fun at this man for a page and a half.
A good general view on the north-east may also be obtained from a bridge over the Avon. From this point of view the great length of the church is apparent; on the right-hand side may be seen the ruins of the Norman keep of the castle on its artificial mound, and nearer to the bridge the remains of a twelfth-century Norman house.
Any one who reads to much purpose in De Mably, or Guizot, or Henri Martin, knows that this part of Richelieu's statesmanship was but a masterful continuation of all great French statesmanship since the twelfth-century league of king and commons against nobles, and that Richelieu stood in the heirship of all great French statesmen since Suger.
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