Une poésie à l’échelle monumentale : les inscriptions des médaillons des apôtres à l’abbaye de La Sauve-Majeure

International audienceA small but significant part of the epigraphic production used verses in the Middle Ages. These verse inscriptions brought something else to the medieval poetry: a monumental scale. La Sauve-Majeure abbey gives an example of it. For the dedication of the church in 1231, twelve medallions which focused on the apostles were embedded in the columns of the nave. One hexameter distich has been inscribed around each apostolic figure and reminds of the conditions of his martyrdom. Instead of considering solitarily each couple of verses, this study will examine these twenty four hexameters as a unique poem at the scale of the church. The reading of the poem could lead the reader from the entry to the choir, from far-off lands to Rome. It proposed then a real progression throughout the church and across the cartography of the Church. Between the lines, these verses gave the image of the development of the abbey whom founder, Gérard of Corbie, has been canonized a few decades earlier. As the Vitae and the main cartulary, this epigraphic poem enhanced the tutelary role of La Sauve-Majeure in Christendom