Fiquefleur (canton of Beuzeville, Eure) Church of Saint-Georges

    The patronage belongs to the priory of Beaumont-en-Auge from the end of the 11th century.
The destruction of the western part in the 17th century, when a road was re-routed, scarcely affected the complex layout of this church which has evidence of numerous instances of re-working, which are not always easy to date and which would have been carried out over a period spanning the 11th to the 13th centuries. The oldest are generally held up as an example of the first tentative steps of the Romanesque style however recently it has been suggested that the building shows an archaistic style dating only from the end of the 11th century or beginning of the 12th.
Despite this vexing problem of a date, the traces of the decorative Romanesque programme remain one of the main interests of this edifice. This is a series of sculpted plaques inserted into the facings, a survival - or resurgence - of pre-Roman traditions. They were probably originally arranged in pairs. Seven survive which can be divided into two groups:
1 - two plaques in white limestone, in the breast walls of the chancel arch (a saddlery motif consisting of nailed interlacings reminiscent to that in the only Romanesque capital in the abbey church of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives, and yhe Holy Lamb, a classical theme in both Normandy and England);
2° - outside the building, five plaques in a yellower limestone, some of which are clearly inspired by the first: a lion (or bull?) and lamb on the side door of the north of the nave, two lambs walking in opposite directions in the upper part of the chevet gable, either side of the median buttress, and above them, what is probably a re-use of the interlacing decoration.

Bibliography

- Baylé, Maylis. - Les origines et les premiers développements de la sculpture romane en Normandie, Art de Basse-Normandie, n°100 bis, 1992, p. 30, 97-99, 101 et pl. 298-300
- Dictionnaire des églises de France, Belgique, Luxembourg, Suisse, IVB, Normandie, Paris : Robert Laffont, 1968, p. 75 (notice de M. Baudot)
- Musset, Lucien. " L'église Saint-Georges de Fiquefleur ", Annuaire des cinq départements de la Normandie, CXIX, 1961, p. 48-54
- Musset, Lucien. Normandie romane, 2. Haute-Normandie, La Pierre-qui-Vire : Zodiaque, 1974, p. 27, 272-273, pl. 141-143
- Les siècles romans en Basse-Normandie, Art de Basse-Normandie, n° 92, Printemps 1985, p.100