International Medieval Society, Paris
Société Internationale des Médiévistes, Paris

Symposium 2009 - Space/l'Espace
Abstract

In the Middle Ages, the social and economic life of towns revolved around the main square. Overlooking the square was the church, the pivotal center of the community. The church was seen as an allusion to the heavenly Jerusalem, which was open to the just. In this context, the church portal represented a transitional area that mediated the shift between sacred and secular community spaces. It connected the church to the square onto which it faced.

The church portal had the practical function of conducting the faithful into the sanctuary, and it symbolically represented the gates of paradise. Because gates often appeared as dividing barriers between the righteous and the damned in the Last Judgment iconography, the church portal represented a demand for penance and purification, and a promise of forgiveness and salvation. In John 10: 9, Christ says, “I am the door, ... who enters through me will be saved”.

Along with its use as a passageway, the church portal also had a crucial civic role. It served several functions: as a site for the celebration of religious rites, the proclamation of public sentences, and most important in this context, the practice of the law. Before the birth of the town hall with its chambers for legal hearings, the church portal often served as law court, where law was practiced and public sentences were proclaimed. This remarkable venue has been amply studied in terms of iconography, style, chronology, and historical context, but its social function has not been considered in sufficient depth.

It will be my intention here to demonstrate that the church portal was used as a performative space, where both sacred and civic courts of law were enacted. In Romanesque France, the worldly trial was often enhanced by huge portal reliefs of the Last Judgment, showing scenes of happiness and salvation juxtaposed with dramatic images of damnation and despair. In such reliefs, Christ appeared in human form as judge, surrounded by the ranks of apostles and saints, most certainly a visual reminder of the worldly court that gathered at the door.