Brass of the month
January 2007: Hugues des Hazards, bishop of Toul, Blénod-
January's brass of the month is part of a larger monument at Blénod-
Blénod-
The village of Blénod-
Hugues himself consecrated the church in 1512. It was an example of a new conception
of church building as a Renaissance église-
At the entrance to Blénod church an inscription records his patronage of the building,
and inside the stained glass repeatedly incorporates his heraldry, together with
a window showing him kneeling before St Stephen, the patron saint of Toul. It is
no surprise that in his will Hugues wished to be buried by the high altar of the
rebuilt church of Blénod in the tomb that he had had made there, and where his ancestors
lay buried. The monument remains in its original location occupying the north wall
of the choir. It is an enormous structure, 4 metres high by 3.5 metres wide, and
is magnificently sculpted in an Italian fashion, totally different from the late-
The tomb can conveniently be divided into three parts framed by decorated pilasters supporting a plain entablature with a shield to either side. At the base is a line of ten gowned and cowled weepers under paired niches, and all strung together holding a long banderol in front of them. It is inscribed ‘NASCI . LABORE . MORI’, the phrase preceded by the letter ‘V’ with a barb (for vita?) and terminates with an ‘O’ with a transverse bar (for obit?).
Above these figures is the effigy of the bishop represented uncomfortably in three-
The whole tomb is a curious mixture of medieval and Renaissance: the traditional weepers ranged along the side of the supposed sarcophagus are mimicked sculpturally by the figures of the Liberal Arts above; equally, there is the characteristically recumbent effigy of the deceased prelate vested in all his glory, but he is presented in profile and makes up just the central layer in an otherwise contiguous sculptural mélange.
Whilst all this is noteworthy, of greater brass interest is the tomb’s Latin inscription, which is on a series of four large plates of brass all skilfully joined together within a thin brass frame. It stretches across the entire width of the monument, just below the bishop’s effigy and is unrecorded by H.K. Cameron in his List of Monumental Brasses on the Continent of Europe. The brass is beautifully worked in Gothic minuscules – again a medieval throwback – with the lettering in relief, and provides a very long and detailed résumé of the bishop’s upbringing and his links with Blénod, leading into his religious training, his service for the Duchy of Lorraine and finally his leadership of the church at Toul. The date of his death is correctly recorded as ‘M CCCCC xvii’ yet it is poorly spaced within the gap presumably left for it, as it is inconceivable that the tomb with its brass was not in place by 1512 when the church was finally consecrated by Hugues.
Recent research has targeted the strange letters at either end of the banderol held by the weepers. Jacques Baudoin associates these with the sculptor Pierre Wiriot, who was active in the area until 1530. At Neufchâteau (Vosges) his tombslab is dated ‘153Ǿ’ and his funeral chapel there ‘15Ǿ5’; moreover, his shield of arms incorporates three bags of gold and a monogram of an interlaced ‘P’ and ‘V’. The device at the start of the Blénod inscription could perhaps be this monogram; and Baudoin also suggests that the ‘Ǿ’ represents the heraldic charge of a bag of gold crossed with a burin, the tool of the engraver – though this is speculative.
The Blénod mausoleum itself has been convincingly attributed to one Mansuy Gauvain,
an imagier ducal, who in 1512 was also commissioned by Hugues to produce a tomb to
Saint Mansuy (now in the Toul museum). Perhaps the Blénod tomb demonstrates the use
of a specialist epigraphist, with Wiriot carving the inscription on the stone scroll
and engraving the brass. The fact that Hugues’ tomb was crudely imitated by a ?c.1520
monument to a priest at Pagny-
Whilst Hugues’ monument is one of the glories of the church at Blénod, the little
incised slab to Anthoine de Lespine (late-
Sources:
Jacques Baudoin, La sculpture flamboyante en Champagne Lorraine (Nonette, 1991).
Abbé G. Clanché, ‘Le tombeau de Hugues des Hazards, évêque de Toul …’, Bulletin Monumental
69 (1905), pp.47-
M. l’abbé Guillaume, Histoire du Diocèse de Toul et de celui de Nancy (5 vols, Nancy,
1866-
Pierre Marot, ‘Blénod-
Annales de l’Est, 2005/2, published in 2006, is devoted to Blénod (single copy in the British Library); it is reviewed in Société Française d’Archéologie SFActualités 23 (2006), p.11.
Copyright: Paul Cockerham
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Page last updated 02 January 2007
