The Romanesque Tympanum of Moissac

The south porch tympanum at Moissac is one of the most sublime achievements of Romanesque art. A transcendental mysticism had entered Latin Western Christendom from the East in the ninth century.

At the centre was the Divine One, immobile and eternal, surrounded by a Celestial Hierarchy and Cosmos that was in a state of continuous movement.

Moissac and the Dionysian Metaphysics

That motion was one of ebb and flow, a progression towards the still centre and a corresponding regression away from it. The Divine was in a constant process of self-revelation.

An emanation of Its essence was in an unfolding dialectic with the rest of the Universe, which was in a corresponding process of contemplation of that essence.

Each being, containing elements of the Divine and the non-Divine, processed through an alternating recognition of their Divinity followed by its negation, ascending through the hierarchy until there was nothing left to negate and union was attained in the Godhead.

Taking the theophanic vision from chapter four to six of the Book of Revelation as a description of the highest level of the celestial hierarchy, the tympanum sculpture of the Cluniac abbey of Saint Pierre at Moissac was essentially a depiction of the Christian Neoplatonic metaphysical system.

This was derived largely from the writings of a Syrian monk of the sixth century who wrote pseudonomously under the name of Dionysius.

The contorted figures whose gazes are all directed at the central Divine figure, were intended to represent that process of movement back and forth between the Divine and the non-Divine.

According to the system presented by Pseudo-Dionysius there were three orders of angels each consisting of three ranks. The highest order was made up of the Cherubim, the Seraphim and the Thrones.

The Tetramorph of the Moissac tympanum which surround the central figure consist of the Living Creatures of Ezekiel’s Old Testament vision who reappear at the Apocalypse. These were the Cherubim who, according to Ezekiel were angels each with the head, respectively, of a man, a calf, an eagle and a lion. On each side there is a six winged Seraphim and below are the Thrones, represented by the Twenty-Four Elders.

 All are joined in contemplation and adoration of the Godhead, united in one continuous song of prayer.

The celestial hierarchy was further extended by three terrestrial orders which formed the basis and rationale for the medieval monastic system. This tripartite division of society was made up of those who labour, those who fight and those who pray.

The monastery of Moissac was the most important establishment in the Cluniac federation, after the mother abbey itself. Through the writings of the Pseudo-Dionysius and his successors, which were held at the library at Cluny, had emerged the idea that humanity partook in that celestial hierarchy and formed a tenth order of angels.

It was in the light of this transcendentalism that Cluny had refined the Rule of Saint Benedict into a constant round of liturgy.

By prayer and mystical contemplation, monks could access the same theophanic vision, which was the preserve of the angelic orders.

For the remaining two orders, those who fought might find redemption through martyrdom and those who laboured, through pilgrimage and the veneration of relics.

Moissac, on the banks of the broad river Tarn, was an important station on the pilgrim road to Compostela.

The Pilgrims Guide describes a choir of one hundred monks of the Cluniac priory of Saint Jean d’Angély, another station on the road to Compostela, who “worshipped day and night” the relic which they guarded: the head of Saint John the Baptist.

It was a description intended to echo that of the Living Creatures who, in the Book of Revelation, “rest not day and night, saying Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty”.

The Elders of the Apocalypse beckoned pilgrims from the tympanum above the entrance to the abbey church at Moissac with the vessels they held and which contained, according to the Book of Revelation, the accumulated essence of the prayers of the saints.

Biblio: Dale Coulter, Pseudo-Dionysius in the Twelfth Century Latin West, The ORB, 1997. Yves Christe. Les grands portails romans. Études sur l’iconologie des théophanies romanes, Genève, Librairie Droz, 1969. Paul Rorem, Eriugena’s Commentary on the Dionysian Celestial Hierarchy, ‪Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies‬, ‪1 Jan 2005‬