THE SAINT-LAURENT PRIORY

GENERAL PRESENTATION

Very few documents exist on the origin and history of this ancient priory, the main part of the archives of the Diocese having disappeared in the fire of Bourges's archbishopric during the 19th century.
The priory seems to date from the 11th century (crypt), its decoration was painted in the 12th century. The representation, in the bottom-de-four of the apse, of the Virgin in majesty, testifies of the initial consecration of the place to Our Lady.
In 1792 the priory is sold as a national property and was divided into 3 dwellings. Totally contained in the urban topography, it is strongly deformed but it's undoubtedly what allowed preserving what currently remains of it.
The murals, which are the main attraction, were found under the distempering which recovered them, by children of the village, before WWII. It was not before 1977 that a first operation of protection of the frescoes was begun.
Two other campaigns of restoration took place in 1979 and 1990, allowing the consolidation of the vaults of the nave and the discovery of the Christ in majesty.
Nowadays, the priory Saint Laurent is the property of the Town Council. 

DESCRIPTIVE VISIT

From the street, one can see the austere stony device of the north arm of the transept with its window of origin over a much more recent opening.
From across the street, one can perceive what remains of the collapsed bell tower and from a nearby lane (in the East or to the left by looking at the building), the elegant drawing of the roofs of the nave and the apse. 

THE CRYPT

One reaches it by a double stony stair, discovered in 1982. It is considered as a real jewel of Romanic art owing to the sober harmony of its reduced proportions, its arched vaults, the bottom-de-four with three small windows which are below the level of the ground today.
The presence of a foot of altar testifies of a function of Low Church. There are also a reliquary and objects of pilgrimage. Indeed, the monks of the convent of Estrées (municipality of Saint Genou) took refuge at Palluau with the relics of Saint Genou, fleeing the Hungarian during their second raid below Berry in the 10th century. 

THE FIGURE OF CHRIST IN MAJESTY

The arched vault, in the western part, is covered with a big and beautiful figure of the Christ in majesty in an oval glory. Several elements confirm that it's represents the last venue of the Christ: his right hand is blessing, he holds a book in his left hand and his nimbus is cruciform.
Moreover, it's a tétramorphe Christ. In three of the angles of the vault one can see: a lion winged and endowed with a nimbus, a symbol of the evangelist Saint Marc, the angel or the man for Saint Mathieu, a part of Saint Jean's eagle; the ox symbolizing Saint Luc definitively disappeared.
On the vault, one distinguishes on the north side, three people side by side and the head of a fourth one a little bit further. They wear square crowns and are haloed. Often interpreted as the representation of the apostles, it is in fact the twenty four old men of the Apocalypse.
Out of the twelve, that are supposed to be on the south side, there is only a fragment on which one distinguishes two of the arms of two of the men. One of them holds a zither. Indeed, the attributes of these persons are traditionally cups of flavor and musical instruments.
Furthermore, under the symbols of the "tétramorphe", four people, more or less mutilated, appear (certainly for one of them) to be carrying a book. They are more difficult to identify: are they the evangelists themselves? The specialists assert that the Romanic art never represented them under their symbols.
Wouldn't they then be the four seers of the Ancient Testament (Ezechiel, Isaïa, Daniel and Jeremy)? Indeed, they'd have all the reasons to represent them under the symbols of the evangelists, symbolic continuance between the Ancient and the New Testament, to which medieval spirituality was very attached.
This group of paintings represents the general subject of " Saint John's Apocalypse " (Apocalypse = word of Greek origin meaning "revelation"), one of the most famous texts of the Bible at the end of the New Testament:
“And there before me was a throne which was in heaven, and on the throne someone sitting on it, and the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and a rainbow encircling the throne, had the appearance of an emerald. And surrounding the throne, twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders invested with white clothes and crowns of gold on their heads… And around the throne, were four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind. And the first living creature was like a lion, and the second was like an ox, and the third had a face like a man, and the fourth was like a flying eagle…” 

THE VIRGIN IN MAJESTY

The most important place, the vault of the apse, is reserved for the Virgin in majesty. One finds this iconography in Montmorillon and in Poitiers (Our Lady the Great) where, like in Palluau, the Christ in "mandorle" is then on the full round arch vault of the choir.
The Virgin is here represented crowned, sat on a curious throne in the form of nave symbolising the Ark of the Covenant, the new alliance between God and his people. Even stranger, the throne has armrests ended with dragon heads. Surrounded by two holy women holding palms and glorifying her, the Virgin Mary presents the child Jesus, messiah announced by the seers. But the expression of pain on her face already anticipates the drama of the Passion:
“…And then the temple of God in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple… And a great sign appeared in heaven: a Woman invested with the sun and with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron sceptre…”
On the lower register, on both sides of the central window of the apse, a witch (Gabriel) and the Virgin Mary receiving the message, represent the classic scene of the Annunciation.
The superior register is less legible but it seems to juxtapose two scenes: an angel on one side, a holy woman on the other one, framing what could be, to the left, the empty grave, and to the right, the crib, these two scenes next to one another suggest the symbolic analogy between resurrection and birth often expressed in the prophetic texts.
On the left side wall there is a panel representing a holy bishop holding his butt, leaning against a beam, and deprived of his mitre replaced by the halo of martyr and with the face dirtied with blood. But it is not possible to identify the victim.
If the main part of the paintings dates from the first half of the 12th century, it is necessary to point out the presence, in the place of the north window of the apse, walled up in the 15th century, of a painting of the same time, representing the martyr of Saint Laurent, holy unfortunate being racked, tapped by the executioner while the assistant fanes the amber.
To the Roman emperor who, in the year 258, summoned him to give him the treasures of the Church, an agent of which he was, Saint Laurent presented a crowd of poor wretches by saying to him : " the treasures of the Church, here they are! " With heroic arrogance which sent him directly to be racked.

TECHNIQUE AND STYLE

Saint Laurent's murals are frescoes painted with the italian technique "a fresco". It consists in depositing colours on a still wet filler made of whitewash.
The colour appears only after the drying, it is the result of the detention in a sort of crust, pigments stemming from the carbonate which goes back up some filler when this last one dries. That is why Palluau needed a work of refixage, the crust of painting came loose of its support on vaults.
It is a technique which requires virtuosity on behalf of the artist because he is to paint before the drying. All the details and the effects of volume were thus obtained by the specifically Romanic technique of the superimposing of light, clearer lines and rings, applied to the tempera.
The frescoes of the priory are typically western by their membership to the group of paintings with a clear background and by the palette used. This palette consists of only four colours: white, probably on base of lead white, yellow ochre and the red ochre which are earth colours and green, clear or bored. All the backgrounds are white and wide red and yellow ochre strips separate the various registers and underline the architecture.