The Carolingian Frescoes of the Abbey of Saint Germain D'Auxerre

Abstract

BENEATH the plaster and seventeenth century frescoes covering the walls of the western crypt of the Abbey of St.-Germain at Auxerre MM. Louis and Yperman uncovered in 1927–1928 portions of a series of mural paintings of a greatly older date. It appears that these paintings are works of the ninth century; the only examples known in France from Carolingian times and thus the only paintings on a large scale we have to compare with the illuminated work of contemporary scriptoria. This notice has for its object the first published study of any length of these frescoes with a presentation of the archaeological probabilities surrounding them.² A complete account will be possible only after a new and thorough study of the crypts, including the removal of the later paintings, under which it is entirely possible that further Carolingian paintings may come to light. An analysis will also have to be made of the inscriptions of various dates now painted on the walls in order that the full story of the Carolingian period may be known.