Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Bebenhausen - Jan 10

Another Cistercian monastery, just up the road from Tubingen. Well preserved: there doesn't seem to have been the episodes of iconoclasm (image smashing) which destroyed so much of British churches and abbeys, and which occurred in France just prior to WW1. There is a great deal of painted stone left: something very common then but most old stone we have seen up till now has been cleaned back. Lots of botanical images, and the rising sun emblem (for Christ, we think) on celing bosses in the vaults everywhere. And more humour: a painted pulpit with a stone figure holding it up. A great afternoon, all round. Dinner with local and French wines in the evening.

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