Billom: Small Medieval Town Where Fr. Medaille Died and Was Buried

 

In 1669, when Fr. Medaille was ill and fragile, he was transferred to Billom where he lived in a senior care home for sick and elderly priests. He continued his ministry, however, by hearing confessions of the people in the town. He died on December 30, 1669, at the age of 59. Presumably he was buried in the cemetery next to the school but during the French Revolution, the cemetery was destroyed. There is no trace of Fr. Medaille's grave or remains, but the Jesuits do have a record of his death certificate. 

 

 

Billom is under 120 kilometers northwest of Le Puy. Fr. Medaille, the itinerant preacher, traversed the many miles of the Avergne region on horseback.

 

 

 

Fr. Medaille was known to live his life of mission with such a reputation of holiness that people often called him a saint. He was also known to be appreciated by the wealthy, the poor, and the bishops in dioceses where he worked. 

Click here for a video review of his life.

 

The open space next to the school may have been the site of the cemetery where Fr. Medaille was buried. The feeling of being there was desolate and a little sad, perhaps as a result of its history. Places sometimes retain sentiments of their past.

 

The Jesuits operated a school in Billom. In 1764, during the expulsion of Jesuits in France, the school was abandoned. From 1886-1963 the school became a military prep school for young people. Today, the building stands empty with some painted windows that look like a school project attempting to beautify the building. A newer lycée (high school) was built across the courtyard from the old building.

  The new lycée across the courtyard from the former Jesuit school.

Remnants from another time, a lion crest with a sword is displayed at the entrance to the school campus.

 

 

 

 

The Jesuit Expulsion

The Jesuit movement was founded by Ignatius de Loyola in August 1534. Under his charismatic leadership, the Society of Jesus grew quickly. The Jesuits’ ministries in education and charitable works spread all over the world during Ignatius’ lifetime, and eventually to the new European colonies in the Americas in the 17th century. The Jesuits played an important role in the Counter-Reformation in Europe and won back many people who had been lost to Protestantism. They also succeeded in converting millions of people around the world to Catholicism.  

However, with the rise of nationalism in the 18^th century the European monarchs felt threatened by the religious order. They began to suppress the Jesuits in what is known as the “Jesuit expulsion” from the Portuguese Empire (1759), France (1764), the Two Sicilies, Malta, Parma, the Spanish Empire (1767) and Austria and Hungary (1782). These moves were ultimately, albeit reluctantly, approved by The Holy See in 1773.

The Jesuit suppression was largely political in nature. As part of their mission and purpose, the Jesuits were closely aligned with the papacy as protectors, however, they were considered too autonomous for the monarchs who were trying to centralize and secularize their political power. Some historians also view the suppression as motivated by economics because by the mid-18th century, the Jesuits had acquired a reputation in Europe for their monetary successes. Monarchs in many European states saw the Jesuits as foreign entities encroaching upon their sovereignty.

In 1814, Pope Pius VII restored the Society of Jesus to its previous provinces, and Jesuits resumed their ministries in those countries.

The Medieval Town of Billom

Fr. Medaille would have been familiar with the old town of Billom that had been built in the Middle Ages. The narrow cobblestone streets, half-timbered buildings, sculpted doorways, and public squares are a common sight in French Medieval towns. People still reside in these towns although their buildings have been significantly updated with modern conveniences.

The Angaud River runs through Billom.

Interesting stone portals of houses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stone sculptures rest high above the street. Many were used as directional street signs for the people who lived in the town and were vastly illiterate. They oriented themselves on the street by turning to the left or right of a sculpture.

 

 

The people usually washed their clothes in a river or in a fountain like this one. Small towns in the southern half of France typically have such fountains.

 

 

 

 

 

Troughs provided water for the horses. Today, they stand as decorative vessels on their own or with flowers planted inside of them. It is interesting that a commonly-used utility sports such intricate carvings.

 

 

This half-timbered house was the former home of a prominent, rich family as indicated by the crest (see close-up below) etched onto the center of the house. The juxtaposition of this medieval house with modern cars is striking.

 

 

Here is another crest over the door of a home

Signs outside doorways used to indicate artisanal shops. Today, they are more decorative, but just as engaging.

 

 

Narrow cobblestone streets make-up the intricate, winding  network of the town. Many streets have been adapted to accommodate cars while others continue to be pedestrian pathways.

A variety of houses adjacent to each other line the town's streets.

 

 

 

City squares were gathering places for markets, festivals, and milling about. A tower gives the town some height and prestige. This one has a clock attached to it. 

Grotte Chauvet -- Discovery of a 35,000-Year-Old Cave

 

  

Imagine putting together a time capsule and having it discovered 35,000 years later. What would the items inside say about you and your life, your culture and society? 

 

That is what researchers have been trying to learn about the Aurignacians, a hunter-gatherer culture that lived 36,000 to 12,000 years ago in southeastern France by studying their artwork left on cave walls. Three French speleogists (cave explorers) discovered one of their caves on December 18, 1994. Known as the Grotte Chauvet, it is the site of the earliest-known Paleolithic artworks going back 35,000 years.

Jean-Marie Chauvet is from the Cévennes Region, He is an explorer and an expert in speleological diving, a dangerous discipline. As a photographer and filmmaker, he took an active part in sharing speleological knowledge.

 

Christian Hillaire fell in love with speleology while still a teenager. In 1985, he took part in the discovery of the grotte des Deux-Ouvertures, an exceptional archaeological site in Ardèche classified as Historical Monument. He met Eliette Brunel that same year.

 

Eliette Brunel is a native of Saint-Remèze (Ardèche), right along the Ardèche Gorges. Passionate about speleology, she has discovered a hundred of archaelogical sites in Ardèche.

 

 

Grotte Chauvet is located in the Department of Ardèche in southeastern France, 75 miles and about 2 hours southeast of Le Puy-en-Velay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grotte Chauvet is on a cliff. The entrance to the cave was blocked 20,000 years ago by a cliff collapse. This helped to preserve the cave until it was discovered by the three French speleogists.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cave is near the Vallon-Pont-d'Arc along the Ardèche River. The Aurignacians tended to designate such caves near prominent topographical markers like this arched bridge.

 

Entrance to the cave is not open to the public, and it is highly restricted to authorized persons only. Researchers enter the cave only at certain times of the year for only a couple hours at a time because toxic gases poison the cave's air supply.

 

A replica of the cave has been made for the public. Click here to learn more about the replica.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Aurignacians were a hunter-gatherer culture that lived during the glacial period in the southwestern Europe between 36,000 to 12,000 years ago. They include the caves at Chauvet (36,000 years ago), Lascaux (21,000 years ago), Altamira in northwestern Spain (20,000 years ago). 

 

The Aurignacians appear to exhibit one of the first mythological and religious systems that expresses their conception of the world through art. Their dark and silent caves were located apart from living areas and they contain both the people’s imaginations and sacred myths in the form of wall drawings and paintings, sculpted objects, geometric shapes, signs, and bone collections. Animals are depicted almost exclusively with only an occasional and partial representation of humans. When they do occur, they are mixed in with the animals like a man with a bird’s head (Lascaux) or a women’s lower body overlaid on a bison’s torso and the head of a lioness. Plants were not included in this menagerie of drawings. Click here to learn more about the art of the caves.  

 

The cave drawings were made with charcoal, torch marks, and red ochre. Through carbon dating analysis, scientists have determined the the first and most numerous cave paintings at Grotte Chauvet were done 35,000-36,000 years ago and the second 29,999 to 30,000 years ago.  

 

 

Upon seeing the "first message of our ancestors" in the cave, Eliette, the sole woman explorer said: "They were here."

 

 

 

 

Click on to this  VIDEO  to learn more about the Grotte Chauvet discovery. It is in French, but you don't have to understand the language in order to witness the speleologists' reactions. 

To enter this video, which was produced by Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication (2015), touch the screen with your cursor and click on the arrow at the bottom of your screen. Then click on to the box on the right that says "Vidéo -- 18 décembre 1994".

 

Famed German film director, screenwriter, and actor Werner Herzog produced the first and one of the few films on the cave in April 2011 entitled Cave of Forgotten Dreams. It is available for sale or rental on Amazon but here is a 2:30-minute preview.

Here's a 6-minute review of the film by Scientific American, which includes an interview with Herzog.

Here are 7 minutes of excerpts from the film.

Other Sources

Claude Pommereau, ed. Grotte Chauvet 2--Ardèche. Beaux Arts and Cie Éditions, Paris.

Grotte Chauvet -- The Art of the Cave and What It Tells Us

In France, one readily encounters the remnants of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the early modern era through its churches, towns, and buildings with many of these places still being used. Roman art and architecture have also been left behind, albeit in ruins. The Grotte Chauvet, however, provides the earliest-known human artworks going back 35,000 years--and they are in pristine condition thanks to a cave-in that shut off access 20,000 years ago!

 

The cave art of the Paleolithic period was an especially creative time in western Europe, as shown by the above map. There were actually about 280 sites of cave art locations in this region, according to the Royal Society of Chemistry.

 

People tend to view Stone Age art as primitive with the idea that artists became more advanced and sophisticated over the centuries. Actually, the concept of art did not exist before the 15th century, and there was no word for it in ancient Greek and Roman times let alone Paleolithic times. Consequently, the cave painters' purpose was not about decoration or even depicting the beauty that they saw around them. Cave painting in France and Spain has led anthropologists and archeologists to speculate that the images of animals, symbols, pictographs, engravings, and human hand prints were connected to some sort of ritual and/or belief system. They consider this a giant leap in the development of the modern human mind as illustrated by the differences between Neanderthal man and modern man. 

 

 

Neanderthal man lived 315,000 to 800,000 years ago in Eurasia. They became extinct about 40,000 years ago when early modern man emerged from Africa around 300,000 years ago. The Neanderthal brain indicates development in the sensory centers, especially vision and motor, located primarily in the rear half of the brain. Homo sapiens, which include the Aurignacians who lived 43,000 to 33,000 years ago, show brain  development primarily in the frontal lobes, which are the higher thinking centers of the brain and show ability in speech, imagination, sociality, culture, religion, and ethics through social learning. Neanderthals most likely went extinct due to competition with, or extermination by early modern man through  climate change, disease, or a combination of these factors. 

The paintings in France and Spain illustrate differences in development and style of representation, too. For example, the Lascaux paintings depict strange beasts, some of which are half-human and half-bird and others that are half-human and half-lion. The Niaux cave in the southeastern Pyrenees displays a huge frieze of bison, deer, ibex, and horse; carvings of salmon or trout; and bears claws. Grotte Chauvet, however, distinguishes itself with paintings of the more dangerous animals--lions, mammoths, and rhinoceroses--covering over 63% of the walls. Reindeer, horses, bison, aurochs, and ibex--likely food sources--are also present. There is very little representation of humans and none at all of plants. What is most interesting about all of these paintings is their spiritual quality. Although it is difficult to separate art from the spiritual, this article will focus on the art of Grotte Chauvet as discussed primarily by paleolithic art historian Diana McDonald of Boston University in her 32-minute video that follows. 

 

Quality of the art

From an artistic point of view, the Grotte Chauvet artists applied sophisticated techniques of drawing, shading, perspective, and composition on their murals. They used charcoal to produce black and gray colors and red ochre. Sometimes they prepared their "canvases" by scraping surfaces and painting on them. They also engraved softer stone with their fingers, a rock, or a bone, as shown with this owl figure. (Note that the owl is pictured from the back with its head turned 180 degrees.)

 

Grotte Chauvet is between 100-130 feet high and covered with stone columns, stalagmites, stalactites, and many other rock formations. The striking feature typical of this cave and many of the European cave paintings are the large caverns that could emit certain sound qualities. Since flutes and drums go back 42-40,000 years, singing and music were probably also a part of the cave experience.

 

Grotte Chauvet is composed of a series of chambers or galleries which get darker and darker as one penetrates the cave. This lack of light also leads researchers to believe that no one lived in the cave but rather that the people used it for spiritual purposes. 

Cave bears hibernated in the cave as evidenced by the bones, claw scratchings, and impressions of their bodies left on the cave floor. Handprints in red ochre tend to be closest to the entrance of the cave while more interesting figures are in the deepest parts of the cave--including an altar with a bear skull on top of it. The figures seem to be consciously grouped although it is not always evident as to the logic behind these groupings. The painters also used various rock formations and the cracks in the rock to make the animals appear to be alive and emerging from the rock, as with this rhino (above photo).

 

There is also some evidence to suggest that a significant quantity of the charcoal drawings were painted by a single master artist although scientists have determined through carbon dating of the charcoal, torch marks, and the drawings themselves that the first and most numerous cave paintings at Grotte Chauvet were done 35,000-36,000 years ago and the second 29,000-30,000 years ago. 

The 1000+ paintings and engravings seem to exhibit some kind of theme. For example, in the most accessible part of the cave, most images are drawn in red ochre, like this bison made with palm prints, while only a few are in black. In the deeper galleries of the cave, the animals are mostly drawn and/or shaded in blacks and grays, with far fewer rock engravings and red figures. 

 

Animals are also grouped into specific panels like the Horse Panel and the Panel of Lions and Rhinoceroses. What makes Chauvet such an important example of cave art is the sophistication of its paintings. No other Aurignacian cave contains compositions with the same degree of realism, naturalism and complexity.

 

On the Horse Panel, Paleolithic scientist Jean Clottes noted that the images were intended to be experienced in the same way we view movies, theater, or even religious ceremonies today—as a powerful, shared experience. Flickering lights from the artists' torches--and today's flashlights--make the figures appear to move.

 

 

 

The people lived near these dark and silent caves, not in them. Researchers believe that their art contains both their imaginations and their sacred myths in the form of wall drawings, sculpted objects, geometric shapes, signs, and bone collections. Plants were not included in this menagerie of drawings. However, what is unique to Grotte Chauvet from other Paleolithic caves are the depictions of carnivorous animals who once roamed the Earth thousands of years ago. Most other cave paintings feature sedentary animals. Only occasionally are humans represented and these are mostly in partial forms like hands, palms, and finger prints.

The rhinos were feared and admired for their skin, horns, menacing appearance, and wild behaviors. There are 17 rhinos in the end chamber.

This painting has the rhinos' swooping horns in repetition of several overlapping horns. The Egyptians and Mesopotamians used this technique to show multiples of animals. The artists here used it to show movement.   

 

The artists were remarkably skilled and sophisticated as their paintings reveal a sureness of sinous outline, the beauty of shading, and a realistic feel of the animals. They obviously put a lot of forethought into their paintings and were close observers of the animals’ behavior and their relationships with each other. These rhinos crash into each other as their front legs are splayed. Quick brush strokes further illustrate their ferocious action.

 

The Horses Panel below illustrates the artists' appreciation for the horses' beauty and agility. A different species from today, they had short heads, small eyes, and a brush-like mane. They were hunted for their meat and not tamed or domesticated.

  Mammoths (lower left) were huge animals and too dangerous to hunt. The horse and reindeer were the prey of choice. There are not many mammoths on the cave walls but when they appear, they are usually in charcoal or engraved in clay. They exhibit a lumbering movement due to their size.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lions, however, seemed to hold a particular fascination for the artists. (Visitors to the cave seem equally fascinated by them.) 

They are located primarily in the last chamber where a painting shows a whole pride closing in on a bison. This stunningly dramatic panel was prepared by scraping the background rock, which again indicates careful thought and planning before painting the figures. The lions have gaping mouths, erect ears, sharp eyes, stretched out bodies but no manes as today's male lions do. The lions work together as a team to attack and subdue their kill successfully. This is regarded as a lesson to humans who must cooperate with each other in order to survive.

 

The end chamber, the darkest and most remote of all the chambers takes advantage of the pendulum rock to illustrate attention to procreation and fertility. A woman's vagina is overlayed with the head of a bison and a lion, the most dangerous parts of those animals. Procreation and fertility seem to be a perpetual theme not only with Paleolithic man but among the ancient civilizations. Women and goddesses were often paired with dangerous and virile animals.

The cave paintings found in Grotte Chauvet provide insight into the Paleolithic Mind and its capabilities. These people closely observed the fauna around them and accurately depicted them and their behaviors from memory.     

To learn more about the spirituality of the cave, see: "Grotte Chauvet--Holy Ground, Sacred Space."

Grotte Chauvet -- Holy Ground, Sacred Space

  

The Chauvet cave was a bear cave. In it are bear bones, their claw scratch marks on the walls, and indented spaces on the red/orange floors where the bears hibernated. Only during the summer was it safe for humans to enter and not confront a dangerous, 1000+ pound bear. Ironically, the dark and mysterious underground cavern also became a place where the Aurignacians created another aspect of their lives, the spiritual, something entirely new in human history. The rock was the artists’ (both men and women artists) medium for expressing meaning of their lives and they did it with over 1,000 wall drawings, engravings, geometric shapes, signs, as well as sculpted objects and bone collections.

 

The images of the animals seem to come alive in the darkness once light (latter-day torches and today's flashlights) is cast upon them. They seep out of the cracks and curvatures of the rock and seem to become animated. What is present in the cave are the living, the dead, and the spirits says Paleolithic art historian Diana McDonald of Boston University. In the minds of the Aurignacians, the drawings were equivalent to creating life. 

 The animals on the walls were "power animals" from whom the people derived sustenance both for food and for the guidance of their lives in their communities. The horses move reverently together in unison (above photo) and the lions are focused on the hunt.

 

 

The feeling evoked from the paintings is that one is on a journey to another world, another time, and another reality, McDonald continues. Coming upon the animals painted on the rock walls, one can begin to understand that for the Aurignacians the animals were intercessors to the Spirit World captured in the outlines of their bodies on the walls. By drawing the figures, the artists were trying to create a bond with them. The animals served as the mediators for help with daily life, curing illnesses, and communicating with the dead. The images on the cave walls were their religious texts that told stories about their culture and survival.

The Aurignacians lived near these dark and silent caves, not in them. Researchers believe that the cave art contains both these ancient peoples' imaginations and sacred myths. Plants were not included in this menagerie of drawings. However, what is unique to Grotte Chauvet from other Paleolithic caves are the depictions of carnivorous animals who once roamed the Earth thousands of years ago. Most other cave paintings in western Europe feature sedentary animals.

Before entering the cave, communicants fell into a trance (through hunger, pain, alcohol, psychodrugs, or rhythmic dancing) in order to see the spirits on the walls and through cracks and bulges in the rock. As they looked at the paintings, which held a profound power, they felt a sense of belonging to a numinous presence. Myths developed from the drawings--and the act of drawing gave the artists spiritual meaning and purpose.

Paleolithic archeologists and anthropologists believe the artists were shamans invoking fertility and hunting rituals, initiation rituals and/or contact with the spirit world. Prayers and rituals entailed gratitude for survival and sustenance and the appeasement of the spirits. The Aurignacian hunter-gatherers had an animistic worldview, which is “the belief that a soul or spirit exists in every object, both animate and inanimate. In other words, everything is alive. In a future state, this soul or spirit would exist as part of an immaterial soul. The spirit, therefore, was thought to be universal” (Science and Philosophy). Thus, the Aurignacians paid intense attention to and had empathy for the animals they lived among beyond their dinner plate. They readily recognized their disadvantage between themselves and the ferocious beings they lived among, but couldn’t help but “admire the large mammals that dominate[d] them.” So they saw their drawings of the animals as “spirits of creation.”

Anthropologists also believe that such artwork is the first time in human history that “the symbolic [and the spiritual] permeates the entire culture.” Consequently, the Aurignacians’ clothes, objects, tools, and art reflect this symbolism. As French anthropologist Philippe Descola explains in his book, Beyond Nature and Culture, spirits are everywhere in everything and everyone (man, animal, rock, landscape). All are connected. The hunter not only captures the animal for sustenance, he captures the animal’s life as an exchange of lives.

 

Social anthropologists suggest other signs of the spiritual nature of Paleolithic societies 35,000 years ago:

·     - The living and the non-living were not separated nor were humans and animals;

·     - All sensitive beings had spirits;

·     - The art illustrates a closeness between humans and herbivorous and carnivorous mammals;

·     - The artists were hunters who risked their lives for the survival of their group and who intimately knew the habits of the animals;

·    -  The artists regarded the animals as food but also as spiritual partners who could nourish their imaginations.

 

A bear skull set on top of a rock  was deliberately placed on an altar.

 

 

The Spiritual Power of the Cave

The power of the cave still seems to affect various researchers, journalists, and artists who visit it. They report that not only is the cave "fresh and untouched" as if the paintings were made the day before, but that the cave has an unmistakable spiritual quality to it.

Werner Herzog in his film "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" declares that humans are not "homo sapiens"--those who can know things--but rather "homo spiritualis"--those who are spiritual beings. That means that we humans have an innate desire for the transcendent and the world beyond ourselves. Art allows us, says Herzog, to depict our lives and to connect with the spiritual. In this way we are like our Stone Age ancestors attracted to a spiritual existence as we try to convey its meaning in art about the nature of our existence, the nature of science, our relationship to the past, and our sense of where we come from. Herzog also claimed that he felt as though his presence in the cave "disturbed" the original artists. Others report this same experience.

Stephen Alvarez, a photographer of National Geographic magazine, had the privilege of shooting Grotte Chauvet and writing the article: "Shooting Chauvet: Photographing the World's Oldest Cave Art." As a visual artist, he was deeply moved by the pictures of the animals on the cave walls, as he writes below.

 

“The connection with the ancient artists is visceral. It is a magic that no other form of communication can manage. Entering Chauvet is like entering a time machine.”

 

“Some of the power of the paintings is derived from where they are, deep inside the cave, surrounded by darkness.” 

 

“It wasn’t until the second and third trips that I felt I was able to make photographs that said something about the relation of the art and the cave.”

 

“And although the artists’ message is lost, it clearly was something profound enough to take tremendous risks to say. That is the beauty of visual art. It is durable. It transcends time in a way that language cannot. How many of us can understand Sanskrit? Sumerian? On the timeline of human history those languages were spoken practically yesterday, yet they are lost to all but a few scholars. Visual art survives the gulf of time. As a photographer, that knowledge thrills me.”

 

One researcher said he had to take some time off from his work in the cave because he was so moved by the experience of the cave that he was having powerful nightmares about the lions of the cave.  

 

And seeing the replicated artwork in Grotte Chauvet 2 gave me an emotionally-charged response by realizing that images of living beings had been meticulously created by living beings of a time past. Just as the first speleologists of the cave declared "They were here," my response to the art was: "They are still alive."

 

What we can learn from Paleolithic art is that survival and reproduction are always important and not very far from our minds. For these early humans, the animals were their biggest threat and such fear and quest for survival has been imprinted on us in our modern times. Also imprinted on us today is the concept of dominance: predators over prey; the large over the small. Such status or rank became associated with the leadership of kings, who are often seen with fierce animals. To survive in such a world, the Aurignacians also offered supplication and appeasement by drawing the animals. To survive and overcome inherent weaknesses in our world, we have built armies, technology, and cities.

 

For a simulated experience of the cave, click on to the 27-minute film, The Final Passage. It was created from 3-D surveys of the cave to show the wonders of the underground's rock formations as it combines with the artwork of the Aurignacians. 

 

Sources:

https://www.missingmatter.info/tara-expo   

 

Shooting Chauvet : Photographing the World's Oldest Cave Art

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/proof/2015/01/05/shooting-chauvet-photographing-the-worlds-oldest-cave-art/