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Updated: September 21, 2025
There be who hold that the deeper tragedy were a Prometheus Bound not after but before he had well got the celestial fire into the narthex whereby it might be conveyed to mortals: thrust by the Kratos and Bia of instituted methods into a solitude of despised ideas, fastened in throbbing helplessness by the fatal pressure of poverty and disease a solitude where many pass by, but none regard.
All interested in ecclesiastical architecture should visit the abbey church of Vezelay, which possesses a magnificent narthex of two storeys, restored by the late Viollet le Duc. Vezelay, by the way, may be easily reached from La Charite.
The church is lit by very small windows which are indeed mere slits, and by a small round opening in the gable above the narthex. The narthex is entered by a perfectly plain round-headed door with strong impost and drip-mould, while above the corbels which once carried the roof of a lean-to porch, a small circle enclosing a rude unglazed quatrefoil serves as the only window.
I hardly know what is best there: the strange and impressive little collegial church, with its romanesque atrium or narthex, its doorways covered with primitive sculpture of the richest kind, its treasure of a so-called pagan altar, embossed with fighting warriors, its three pyramidal domes, so unexpected, so sinister, which I have not met elsewhere, in church architecture; or the huge square keep, of the eleventh century, the most cliff-like tower I remember, whose immeasurable thick- ness I did not penetrate; or the subterranean mysteries of two other less striking but not less historic dungeons, into which a terribly imperative little cicerone intro- duced us, with the aid of downward ladders, ropes, torches, warnings, extended hands; and, many, fearful anecdotes, all in impervious darkness.
How could it be otherwise, when the bishop Don Diego, who sat on the chair, was a great friend and a continual visitor of that other Don Diego in Santiago who erected the primate cathedral of Galicia? This influence is above all to be seen in the Portico del Paraiso, an interior narthex leading from the western front to the body of the church.
The narthex itself has central and side aisles, all of the same height, is two bays in length and is covered by a fine strong vault resting on short clustered piers. The doorway itself, which is not acutely pointed, stands under a gable which reaches up to the plain battlemented parapet of the flat narthex roof.
Access is obtained to San Clemente through a forecourt to which the name of the atrium is given. This is very much like the atrium of a Roman house, being covered with a shed roof round all four sides and open in the centre, and so resembling a cloister. The side next the church was called the narthex or porch; and when an atrium did not exist, a narthex at least was usually provided.
The church was a small basilica with nave and aisles, and an apse in the thickness of the eastern wall, with three piers and corresponding pilasters in the side walls. It was about 36 ft. long, with a width of ii ft. 6 in. the nave, and 7 ft. 4 in. the aisles. There was one west door, a narthex of two bays, and an atrium.
Signs of a conflagration fragments of charcoal, &c. were also found on this pavement. The colours used in the mosaics are white, blue, grey, palish green-grey, yellow, brown, black, several blues and reds, and two greens. The finest fragment has a figure of a peacock with tail displayed, which was in the narthex in front of the door to the church, and is now in the museum.
Again, the guide books inform us that the open space between this tower and the church was occupied by the narthex, a vast outer portico of ancient Burgundian churches used for the reception of penitents, catechumens, and strangers.
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