A crowd piles up stones and rocks to hurl at St Stephen, the first Christian martyr: sculpted late-1100s Romanesque capital with remains of original colouring above pillar statue of the saint. North portal of the Basilica of Saint Just, consecrated in the year 1200 in the Pyrenean village of Valcabrère in Occitanie, southwest France.
Valcabrère, Occitanie, France: a crowd gathers and piles up rocks and stones to hurl at Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr, on this Romanesque capital, sculpted in the late 1100s, within the north portal of the Basilique Saint-Just-de-Valcabrère (Basilica of St Just), consecrated in 1200 AD on a former Roman site in the River Garonne valley. Both the capital and the austere pillar statue of St Stephen that supports it bear patches and traces of ancient paint or pigment. According to the New Testament Acts of the Apostles, Stephen was a deacon in the early church at Jerusalem whose teaching angered members of various synagogues. He was accused of blasphemy and was sentenced to death by stoning after denouncing his Jewish judges. Saul of Tarsus, later known as St Paul the Apostle, participated in Stephen's martyrdom. The north portal also includes pillar statues and sculpted capitals of St Helena of Constantinople and of St Pastor and St Just or Justus, two schoolboy brothers, martyred by the Romans in Spain, who became the basilica’s joint patron saints. According to legend, Pastor, 13, and Justus, seven, were arrested and beheaded after confessing to the Roman governor that they were Christians who would not sacrifice to idols. The basilica, a superb example of Romanesque architecture, stands apart from the village of Valcabrère, below and about 1 km east of the village of Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges with its Romanesque and Gothic former cathedral. The basilica was built on the burial ground of the ancient Roman settlement of Lugdunum Convenarum and many Gallo-Roman architectural fragments were re-used in its construction.
Size: 4256px × 2832px
Location: Valcabrère, Occitanie, France.
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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