Sainte-Foy, Conques
The abbey church in the small village of Conques was a stop on the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela. It has a typical pilgrimage plan with chapels around the choir. Over the door sits a Last Judgement in stone in which the blessed and the damned can still be seen in detail.
The abbey at Conques grew rich when the monks in the 9th century brought there the relics of St Faith, Sainte Foy, a young girl who according to legend had been martyred during the persecutions. The relics drew pilgrims, and Conques became a stop on the road to Santiago de Compostela. The present church was begun around 1050 and was largely complete in the early 12th century. It was built of yellow and grey local limestone and sandstone. The church lies on a steep valley side, and the building had to be adapted to the cramped terrain.
The church has a cruciform plan with a tall nave, aisles with galleries and an ambulatory behind the choir with projecting chapels. It is the same layout as in the other great pilgrimage churches, where pilgrims could walk around the choir and see the relics without disturbing Mass. The nave is covered by a barrel vault and is unusually tall in relation to its width. The west portal’s tympanum, from the early 12th century, shows the Last Judgement with about 120 figures. To Christ’s left wait the jaws of hell, to his right the heavenly Jerusalem. The church treasury holds the golden reliquary statue of Sainte Foy from the 10th century.
The abbey declined after the Wars of Religion in the 16th century and was almost forgotten. In the 1830s the writer Prosper Mérimée, then inspector of France’s historic monuments, visited the site and made sure the church was saved. Between 1987 and 1994 the painter Pierre Soulages installed 104 windows of a translucent glass he had developed, which lets in light without showing colour. The church is part of the World Heritage Site of the Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France. It shows how the pilgrimages shaped Romanesque church architecture.