Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: August 11, 2024
A marriage between Eleanor and Louis the Young, already sharing his father's throne, was soon concluded; and a brilliant embassy, composed of more than five hundred lords and noble knights, to whom the king had added his intimate adviser, Suger, set out for Aquitaine, where the ceremony was to take place.
Already in the beginning of the twelfth century the church of St. Denis was in urgent need of extension. On festival days so great were the crowds pressing to view the relics, that many people had been trodden under foot, and Abbot Suger determined to build a larger and nobler church. Great was the enthusiasm of the people as the new temple rose.
Denis, enthroned in 1108, was the pioneer of the great French Monarchy, ever on the move, hewing his way, sword in hand, through his domains, subduing the violence, and burning and razing the castles of his insolent and disobedient vassals. The famous Suger, abbot of St. Denis, was his wise and firm counsellor, who led the Church to make common cause with him and lend her diocesan militia.
The inscription on this Ampula of Suger is: "As it is our duty to present unto God oblations of gems and gold, I, Suger, offer this vase unto the Lord." Suger stood always for the ideal in art and character. He had the courage of his convictions in spite of the fulminations of St. Bernard.
"He was animated," says Suger, "by a strong sense of equity; to air his courage was his delight; he scorned inaction; he opened his eyes to see the way of discretion; he broke his rest and was unwearied in his solicitude." Suger has recounted in detail sixteen of the numerous expeditions which Louis undertook into the interior, to accomplish his work of repression or of exemplary chastisement.
Abbot Suger lamented when he lacked a sufficient supply of stones; but he did not complain when there occurred a deficiency in workmen. It was comparatively easy to train artists who could make settings and bind stones together with soldered straps! In 1352 a royal silversmith of France, Etienne La Fontaine, made a "fauteuil of silver and crystal decorated with precious stones," for the king.
Not only was the question seriously discussed, but extremely diverse opinions were expressed, both amongst the rank and file of these assemblies, and amongst their most illustrious members. There were two men whose talents and fame made them conspicuous above all; Suger, Abbot of St. Denis, the intimate and able adviser of the wise king, Louis the Fat, and St.
The most judicious of the historians and statesmen of the twelfth century, the Abby Suger, that faithful minister of Louis the Fat, who cannot be suspected of favoring Bertrade, expresses himself about her in these terms: "This sprightly and rarely accomplished woman, well versed in the art, familiar to her sex, of holding captive the husbands they have outraged, had acquired such an empire over her first husband, the count of Anjou, in spite of the affront she had put upon him by deserting him, that he treated her with homage as his sovereign, often sat upon a stool at her feet, and obeyed her wishes by a sort of enchantment."
From 1127 to 1137 Suger devoted most of his time to the reorganization and reform of the monastery of St. Denis. If we are to believe Abélard, such reform was sorely needed, but other contemporary evidence by no means fully sustains Abélard in his condemnation of Adam and his fellow monks.
France summoned the flower of her chivalry; and when the army had assembled from every quarter of the kingdom at Rheims, there was seen, says Suger, "so great a host of knights and men a-foot, that they might have been compared to swarms of grasshoppers covering the face of the earth, not only on the banks of the rivers, but on the mountains and over the plains."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking