12 nov

All roads lead to Rome, they say. This might be true, but what we are finding out on this trip is that all roads also lead to Santiago de Compostella. The list of towns that claim to be on the Camino is almost endless.
Officially there are four routes through France to Santiago. One through Paris, Tours and Bordeaux, one through Vezelay and Limoges, one through Cluny and Le Puy-en-Velay and one south through Arles, Perpignan and Northern Spain.
But pilgrims walked from everywhere and stopped on every spot where they could find a relic, which is basically any church in the medieval world – one had to have a relic in order to build a church, papal decree – so it is possible for many places, not on one of the official routes, to claim it is a Camino town.
Like St Michel de Cuxa, the monastery close to Prada that we visited. It is kind of an odd place to even consider walking through, being right in the middle of the Pyrennees. The official routes take a kinder pass through this impressive mountain stretch, but for the people who really wanted to suffer, or had lots of sins to be forgiven, this monastery was probably ideally located.
Like so many monasteries this one suffered badly after the French Revolution. In the days of the Terror-movement under Robespierre the church was state enemy number one. The king had been kiled, most of the nobility also, the others had fled, but churches have more problems to hide. The knocked-off heads of saints in countless churches are proof of that inflexibility.
Those were not the only crimes against culture that happened in France, we are finding out. I think I already told about the remarkable story of the stolen frescoes from the churches in the Spanish Boi valley. Some Americans robbed one of the frescoed ceilings – taking it apart in pieces one yard at the time- and sold it to the Boston museum.
Come to find out that the same thing happened with most of the capitals in this monastery. At the beginning of last century St Michel was a ruin. The capitals were stolen left and right, including a substantial amount by some Americans who sold or donated it to the Cloisters museum in New York, a museum I have never heard of.
With the restoration of the abbey in the fifties, most of the capitals that were still in France were traced and returned to the monastery. They can be seen now in their full glory. The Americans refuse to give back their capitals, I am not sure why. I guess museums worldwide are still full of these kinds of stolen treasures. The British Museum could probably close if they had to give back these stolen possesions.
Ah well, what is left is well worthwhile in St. Michel and there are good copies of the American ones. I am puzzled about the function of all these animals though.
In what way were they inspiring the monks on their routine rounds through the cloisters? Beats me, and although beautifully carved I prefer the Ghislebertus capitals with nice stories on them.
The story of the capitals here makes me wonder though why hardly any of the capitals of the Cluny ruins have been traced. There were hundreds of them. The destroyers of that church used dynamite, it seems, to break down the church efficiently, which might explain the fact that so few capitals have been found later. They had just fallen to pieces. Which made me wonder that is a pity rich Americans weren’t available to steal these treasures. Better in a museum which is not on the route to Santiago de Compostella, than nowhere at all.