Archaeology Magazine - September/October 1987 - 49

from the south transept of the Gothic
(Opposite) During excavation in 1985,
the eastern claustral range revealed
church by an armarium (a library/
the sacristy and armarium between the
treasury) and a sacristy (a storeroom
remains of the Gothic transept and
for vestments and liturgical vessels).
The sacristy still contains the base for chapter room.
an altar.
The interior perimeter of the
chapter room, except for the threshold,
contained a rose mortar walkway,
approximately one meter wide. This
mortar, found across the site and in
the extant façade towers, can be rea- i
I
sonably dated to the restoration of
the site following the sack of the abbey
by Protestant armies in 1567. Cut
into the mortar walkway were a series
of slots and postholes which are
undoubtedly the impressions of
wooden benches for the seating of the
canons. The remaining interior area
contained the intact impressions of
three separate tile floors or, more
exactly, the original tile floor pattern
and two substantial repairs to that
floor. Although very few tiles survive
from any of the three floors, their
impressions provide valuable information on the disposition of decorated
and non-decorated tiles, and the treat- mortar guided craftsmen in the laying
ment of panels and central designs.
of their designs. The highest and
All tile impressions and mortar joints latest repairs were set in a very thick
were individually measured and
and hard white mortar, which cordrawn to scale. Similarly, the dimenresponded to the laying of the rose
sions of all tiles recovered from the
mortar walkway in the late sixteenth century.
chapter room fill have been recorded
and drawn. For this reason it is
As our research into the documenoften possible to match areas of imtary sources develops, we hope to
be able to relate the sequence of physipressions with a surviving tile type.
While we can never know the
cal evidence- the floors, their enoriginal appearance of each floor, we
veloping structure and the burials- to
can reconstruct much of the patthe history of the use of the room.
tern and most of the sequence of floor We already know, for example, that
the Gothic chapter room received
surfaces. Analysis of floor sequence
an altar and served as the church durwas aided by areas in which floors
ing the restorations of the late sixoverlay one another and by the fact
that the tiles of each campaign
teenth and early seventeenth centuries
were set in mortar of different color
and that it also served as a barracks
room for the Garde Nationale in the
and hardness. The original floor
(set in mauve-colored mortar) featured 1790s.
a central panel in the bay between
The area east of the church and
the four column bases. The panel had claustral buildings formed the monasan x-shaped geometric design which
tic garden at least since the sevenmay well have included decorated tiles. teenth century. We explored this zone
The surrounding tile floor was divided with a deep stratigraphie trench
in 1983 and a series of smaller soundinto long "runners" and smaller
panels. Close parallels for this arrange- ings in 1985. The lowest levels of
ment are found in thirteenth-century
the 1983 trench revealed evidence of
French and English tile floors. In the Roman occupation on the abbey
hill. Upper strata revealed three major
repairs to the original floor, the
smaller panels proliferated, producing terracing levels, each probably cora "patchwork quilt" design. These
responding to one of the abbey's three
repairs were set in a relatively fragile
major construction phases. The area
east of the church turned out to be the
mortar, normally pink in hue, but
also in white and yellow. Border tiles
monastic cemetery for canons too
were most often laid in yellow mortar. poor or unimportant to be buried
It may be that a color coding of
within the abbey's church, cloister

(Below left) Gothic remains include a
fragment of tracery with its stained
glass still intact and (below right) a
Romanesque capital from the last bay of
the southern aisle in the Gothic cloister.

aisles or chapter room. A total of
14 burials were excavated during the
two field seasons. Some 1,000 or
more burials await our full excavation
of the cemetery and will provide a
more complete profile of the abbey's
population.
The Wesleyan-Brown research at
Saint- Jean-des-Vignes has already
yielded exciting results about life in
an Augustinián abbey. The plans
of two significant churches have been
added to the literature of architectural
history, as has a sequence of floors
to the study of Mediaeval tiles. In
every aspect of life and expressionfrom the conservative decoration of
its buildings to the ascetic aspects of
its burial practice- the abbey community adhered to the rigorous religious ideals first articulated in the
fervor of the Church Reform movement of the eleventh century. To
put it another way, we see a monastic
community willing to spend lavishly
for the glory of God, but not ostentatiously for its own pride. As our
excavations move to the kitchen area
in future seasons, we hope to learn
whether this same asceticism will
apply to the abbey's utensils and
dietary habits. Ultimately, we hope to
be able to study Saint-Jean-desVignes in comparison with other
Augustinián houses to learn whether
the quality of communal life there
was exceptional within that order or
typical of far wider practice.
1987 49
September/October

Archaeology Magazine - September/October 1987

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