About

The cloister of the Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame-en-Vaux housed a unique collection of finely crafted column-statues depicting scenes from the Old and New Testaments. Erected around 1170–1180, these sculptures served the canons as aids for contemplation and instruction. Although emblematic of the early Gothic style, this artistic trend was short-lived and soon abandoned in the wake of subsequent liturgical reforms.

The Middle Ages saw the development of a social class of nobility tied to warfare: the knights. Indirect heirs of the Roman aristocracy of the Equites who fought on horseback, knighthood established itself as an institution in Christian Western Europe, embodying a set of martial values, but also moral ones. They held an important position within feudalism, with an oath of loyalty binding them to their lord. To pay for the often costly equipment of a knight, lands and revenues were made available to him.

In the 11th century, the Crusades took a prominent place in the imagery of the knight, at the crossroads of piety, the submission of this warrior class to the imperatives of the Church, and the figure of the protector of Christian Western Europe. The Crusades saw the emergence of powerful orders of soldier-monks, such as the Templars and the Hospitallers.

On the shaft of the column, a knight is depicted in armor, armed with a sword and protected by a large shield in the shape of a escutcheon. His chainmail is finely crafted, and his shield bears an emblematic rose, a motif found almost identically on other contemporary works. It is likely that this represents one of the warrior companions of the canons who went on the Crusades. The significant presence of sculptures representing allegories of knighthood in the cloister, rare for the period, demonstrates the importance of this order to the city of Châlons-en-Champagne.

Historical Background

Severely lacking funds for the upkeep of their cloister in the 18th century, the monks proceeded with the demolition of the cloister between 1759 and 1766. The cloister was destroyed, and the grounds were rebuilt using the debris for the foundations. The cloister and its sculptures would fall into obscurity for two centuries, escaping the destruction of the Revolutionary period. Rediscovered in fragments during excavations by Léon Pressouyre between 1963 and 1976, it was reassembled and supplemented with plaster reinforcements.

State of Preservation

The statue is fragmented, with parts such as the tip of the sword missing. Nevertheless, the column-statue and its simple capital with a foliated motif remain relatively complete overall.