GOOD Class Bungalows (GCBs), as defined by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), are bungalows that sit on at least 1,400 sq m of land and are located within one of URA's 39 designated GCB areas. The more popular GCB addresses are located within Nassim, Cluny, Bishopsgate and White House Park estates. They are widely viewed as a barometer of the overall health of the economy.

These bungalows are homes to the upper echelon of Singapore society - successful businessmen, high flying professionals and captains of industries. This housing segment does not have a high concentration of foreign buyers as they are generally not allowed to acquire any landed properties, except on Sentosa Cove.

The recent slew of bad economic news on global economic conditions has slowed down the sentiment-sensitive property market, as seen by the lower sales volume and fewer development launches. Together with the rest of the market, the GCB segment is feeling the impact of an economic slowdown, although from a price point, it has been relatively unscathed to-date.

The first eight months of 2008 saw a total of just 31 GCBs worth some $550 million changing hands, down from the 84 transactions worth $1.1 billion in the same period last year. The first six months accounted for 27 of the 31 transactions in the review period, signalling a significant slowdown in activity after June. Transaction volume has declined to its lowest since 1998.

On the other hand, the transacted value of each GCB this year has averaged around $16 million, with eight GCBs transacted remarkably above the $20 million quantum.

Consequently, the average price of a GCB stands at around $836 per sq ft (psf) as at end-August 2008, more than twice the average price of $365 psf transacted in 2005. The highest price paid this year in terms of psf is for a property located at Leedon Road, sold in May for $1,303 psf. It is observed that for GCBs transacted this year at over $1,000 psf on land area, most were sold with a new or relatively new bungalow, or a bungalow that had undergone some recent refurbishment and hence been able to command the price premium.

In spite of the much hyped pessimism overhanging the property market, the underlying fundamentals of the GCBs remain fairly sound.

Firstly, the inherent scarcity of land in Singapore should continue to lend support to the landed housing segment, especially GCBs, given there are only about 2,400 of such homes in Singapore. It is little wonder then that these prestigious homes are much sought after and justifiably more expensive over time.

We also note that there is growing accumulated wealth in Singapore, as backed by a recent World Wealth 2007 Report by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini. The report said that the number of millionaires in Singapore with net assets of at least US$1 million has grown by 15.3 per cent per annum to 77,000 (or 1.7 per cent of the population) in tandem with recent strong economic performance of the Asian region. The new and more accumulated wealth among Singaporeans creates new demand for the limited number of GCBs, which will then lend support to the current prices.

Government initiatives like the integrated resorts, Formula One (F1) race, the revamp of the Orchard Road shopping belt and the growing stature of Singapore as a financial hub should also lend more support to the property market in the longer term. The economy will receive its much-needed jab in the arm once these initiatives are up and running successfully.

The integrated resorts at Marina Bay and Sentosa, scheduled to be ready by 2009 and 2010 respectively, are expected to create an additional 75,000 jobs island-wide and generate millions of revenue for the government - and hence boost the economy. The same spillover effects are expected from the F1 and other government initiatives.

GCBs tend to be bought and kept as a long term investment. A GCB owner's average hold of the property is for well over 10 years. Drawing from past performance, GCBs have proven to be a very stable and secure investment.

For example, a GCB located along Second Avenue, which was transacted at a price of $4 million, or $142 psf, in 1990, was sold again in 2003 at around $8 million, or $280 psf, according to the URA's lodged caveats. Similarly, a unit located along Mount Echo Park bought for $9.3 million, or $501 psf, in 1996 was sold at $13.3 million, or $714 psf, this year.

The high construction cost is another factor shoring up the current GCB prices. According to Rider Levett Bucknall's May 2008 report, construction cost for landed detached homes has risen by more than 20 per cent year-on-year to about $311-$525 psf of construction floor area. Therefore, given today's higher replacement cost as a result of the higher construction cost, buyers would prefer GCBs that are reasonably well-maintained and priced with minimal refurbishment required.

Outlook

The extent of the impact of the US crisis on Singapore property market is as good as anyone's guess. However, if history were anything to go by, where a major crisis like the 1997 Asian Crisis led to a plunge in property prices, GCB prices should also come under significant downward pressures once the US credit crisis fully blows out.

The 1997 Asian Crisis then saw average prices of GCBs reaching a high of $637 psf before sliding by more than 70 per cent to $359 psf in the following year.

With US recession imminent, it should be no surprise if history replays itself with a free fall in asset prices especially since given that the current US sub-prime is widely seen as a crisis with a magnitude stronger than the 1997 Asian Crisis.

However, there are no strong indications yet to subscribe to such a pessimistic view, especially after taking the above mentioned factors into consideration. Barring a greater-than-expected slowdown in US economy and sudden changes in macroeconomic conditions, GCB prices are expected to hold steady at least for the remainder of the year.

Steven Ming is director of Savills Prestige Homes; Avin Seow is analyst, research & consultancy, at Savills Singapore

Source : Business Times - 26 Sep 2008

Comunque, ho intenzione di visitare il più possibile, saturarmi gli occhi e i polmoni di storia e bellezza.
Chi mi conosce bene, sa quanto io non veda l'ora di vedere l'antico sito di Cluny, in Borgogna. La maggiorparte delle persone non lo ha mai neanche sentito nominare, ma per chi non lo sapesse, Cluny è un caposaldo della storia e dell'architettura medievale. So di essere sconsolatamente incompresa dai più...ma che ci volete fare?

Mi dispiace solo di non poter salutare Enrico, che tornerà lunedì da Maiorca, mentre io starò vagando tra saloni affrescati e antiche abbazie. Potrei approfittare di questa sua assenza per postare qualche sua foto compromettente o rivelare qualche suo segreto inconfessabile, ma sono buona, gli voglio troppo bene! :P
Vado a fare gli ultimi preparativi...........Cluny, arrivo!!!

Francesca

Der Konservative ist von der Existenz ewiger, unveränderlicher Wahrheiten überzeugt. Er erkennt in allen Epochen und Geistesströmungen dieselben wirkenden Prinzipien und abstrahiert diese von ihrer konkreten Form, ihrer historischen oder gegenwärtigen Realisation. Dieses Herangehen erfordert profunde Kenntnisse der Geistesgeschichte, von denen nach 40 Jahren Reformpädagogik nicht mehr viel übrig geblieben ist.

Konservatismus ist geschichtlich die Gegenbewegung zur Aufklärung, die Antwort auf die unermesslichen Verheerungen die nach 1789 über Europa und die Welt hereinbrachen. Nicht der Sturm auf die Bastille, sondern die Zerstörung von Cluny und das grausige Massenorden in der Vendeé verbindet er als Menetekel für die Zukunft mit der Französischen Revolution.

Die Ablehnung der Moderne ist der „Grund-Impetus“, die Wurzel alles konservativen Denkens. Die Moderne propagiert der Autonomie: die des Menschen von Gott, die der Kultur von der Natur. Der Konservative will Autarkie und es ist hier auch der grundlegende Unterschied der Freiheitsauffassung festzumachen. Die Autonomie, verstanden als Selbstgesetzgebung im Sinne Kants, duldet keine äußeren Eingriffe, keine höhere Ethik, sondern ist vielmehr dazu verdammt, die selbst gegebenen Gesetze anderen aufzuzwingen. Menschenrechts-Imperialismus ist zwar ein linker Begriff, doch trifft er den Kern moderner Gleichmacherei, indem sich Kommunismus und Amerikanismus verblüffend ähneln.

Die Autarkie hingegen neigt zur Askese, zur Selbstbescheidung und die Betonung eines bewirtschafteten Eigentums als Grundlage unabhängiger, selbstbestimmter Existenz. Der Konservative vertritt das Naturrecht gegen den Positivismus, genauso wie die Existenz und Autorität einer übermenschlichen (göttlichen) Ethik, deren Grundlagen seit Aristoteles unverändert gelten, gegen den Subjektivismus. Das sind die geistigen Basics des Konservatismus, wer diese nicht teilt, so Pater Pfluger, ist vielleicht sogar ein netter Mensch, nur eben konservativ ist er mit Sicherheit nicht. Konservatives Denken beginnt mit Juan Donoso Cortés, wird fortgeführt bei Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss und Nicolás Gómez Dávila.

Der Konservatismus braucht Institutionen, um die er sich formieren und reproduzieren kann. In Deutschland war konservatives Denken immer zwischen den katholisch-europäisch-abendländischen Ansatz und dem protestantisch-preußisch-deutschnationalen geteilt.

„Bei aller Sympathie für die kulturellen Leistungen des Preußentums wird ein neuer deutscher Konservatismus nicht umhinkönnen zu akzeptieren, dass der 8. Mai 1945 das Ende des kulturellen deutschen Sonderwegs gewesen ist. Es war das Finis Germaniae. Man kann dem nachtrauern, man kann es leugnen, ändern kann man es nicht.“
Quelle: ebenda

Die Reformation, eine historische Besonderheit Deutschlands, ist praktisch und geistig beendet.

Ein neuer Konservatismus, will er die linke Dominanz des Denkens brechen, muss sich folgerichtig der katholischen Kirche (nicht unbedingt im Glauben) öffnen, die geschichtlichen Leistungen Preußens und Deutschlands würdigen und den Staat zugunsten der Familie auf seine Kernkompetenzen zurückschneiden wollen. Er muss sich wohl transatlantisch absichern und partiell verbünden, sich aber zugleich auf jene Wurzeln und Werte besinnen, die das Abendland bis zum 14. Juli 1789 so unverwechselbar prägten.

Déjà, à Tournus, entre autres dans le cloître de l'abbaye,

Puis dans les vignes...

Un bon bol d'air pour oublier le rythme et le climat parisien ! Le retour à la réalité de la ville a été très violent... Pour les autres photos de calme et de vacances, c'est ici !

Après donc ce silence de presque un mois sur ce blog, voilà enfin de nouvelles photos, prises le 22 Juillet dernier dans le Farinier des moines de l'Abbaye de Cluny (en Bourgogne, pour changer...).
Il s'agit du concert d'ouverture de la 23ème édition des Grandes Heures de Cluny, le Festival Musical des Grands Crus de Bourgogne, donné par l'ensemble "le Concert de Philomèle".
Pourquoi des photos celui-là plutôt qu'un autre ? surtout parce que je connais le claveciniste. Et oui, c'est de la musique baroque que je vous propose cette fois ! Vous n'aurez ici que l'image, il vous manquera donc vraiment quelque chose pour comprendre l'ambiance de cette soirée !

Ils sont donc 6 sur scène, à nous faire découvrir les cantates françaises telles qu'on les jouait au temps de Louis XV. Une mise en scène assez poussée et plutôt inattendue, qui a fait son effet ! Tout le monde a beaucoup apprécié !

Bravo donc à ces artistes Isabelle Gorsse, Caroline Gerber, Hélène Fouchères, Annabelle Hes, Guy Deluz et Sylvain Cornic, et merci pour la superbe soirée !

Toutes les autres photos sont ici.

This is germane, you see, because there really is very little sign of slavery in the Catalan stuff. A few rich men give away slaves in their wills, a few rich women too, and Bishop Sal·la of whom I have spoken before bequeathed four Sarraceni to his cathedral, and there is an assumption, which seems fair, that captives taken in border warfare were enslaved which is presumably where those Sarraceni had come from.² And if you read up about this stuff, you'll find that Barcelona really ought to have been a heaving slave market, because the Slavs from whom our word for a living chattel comes were supposedly being ferried overland from, for example, Verdun, down to the south along the old via augusta and eventually to Zaragoza and other Muslim markets, which does very much involve travelling through Catalonia. But written evidence for trade of any kind is notoriously late, and laws that might help are ambiguous because Catalonia's legal text of resort is the Visigothic Forum Iudicum and thus somewhat anachronistic three centuries after its compilation.³

This has meant that the third thing has been something of a culture shock to your humble blogger: slaves are all through the material from Cluny. Most of the big land-grants also transfer mancipia, that oh-so-usefully neuter term that makes the human being concerned even more of an object; and while some might argue that these are serfs, not slaves—I see the difference as whether he or she can be sold without land, a serf is tied to land and changes ownership with it and a slave can be disposed of at market as genuinely movable property—and that here we're seeing sitting tenants staying with the estates, they're not listed with the land, but separately afterwards.⁴ And sometimes, there is no land, so it's pretty inarguable. Burgundy seems to have either been much less chary of mentioning slave sales, or, what is vastly more likely, however many slaves Catalonia did have, the Mâconnais had a lot more. And I will confess, being confronted with what I, as modern moralist, think is an inhuman practice this much is making it harder for me to think my way into this society, though arguably for what I'm actually doing here I don't need to go beyond document use anyway.

There are two cases which have caught my imagination, though, and they are two of those where there's no land at issue.⁵ The two documents are both exchanges, and they are exchanges where the price on both sides is a slave. That is, both parties give away a manicipium to get one. Firstly I like these because the idea that slaves are not of fixed value, but have qualities that presumably differentiate them, seems more humane again: someone had to look at this person someone else owned and like them for something. But secondly, I wonder what they were actually trading for? The only scenario I've thought of so far, for the swap that involved female slaves (ancillae) that isn't as trivial as 'blonde for brunette' is one where, perhaps one was a really good cook, but the other was young enough to wet-nurse, so the family with young children to look after swapped cuisine for lactation. But there must be other possible explanations. Any suggestions, anyone?

2. For example, the act by which dear Emma, future abbess of Sant Joan de les Abadesses, was given to the nunnery, sees her accompanied with three slaves, one of whom may later work for her as an estate manager, in as much as no-one else of the same name (Gualter) occurs in the abbey's documents; the endowment is Federico Udina Martorell (ed.), El Archivo Condal de Barcelona en los Siglos IX-X: estudio crítico de sus fondos, Textos 18/Publicaciones de le Sección de Barcelona 15 (Madrid 1951), doc. 3; someone called Gualter also crops up in docs 21 & 87. See for the argument Jonathan Jarrett, "Pathways of Power in late-Carolingian Catalonia", unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London 2005, p. 134 n. 246. Sal·la's will, meanwhile, is Cebrià Baraut (ed.), "Els documents, dels segles IX i X, conservats a l'Arxiu Capitular de la Seu d'Urgell" in Urgellia: anuari d'estudis històrics dels antics comtats de Cerdanya, Urgell i Pallars, d'Andorra i la Vall d'Aran Vol. 2 (Montserrat 1979), pp. 78-143, doc. 287, eventually actually carried out in doc. 314; see Jarrett, "Pathways", pp. 290-308.

3. The historiography on slavery is huge, and it's not much use citing Catalan stuff for it because as I say here, Catalonia is a bit unusual; instead, one can get the general picture of the field from Wendy Davies, "Servile Status in the Early Middle Ages" in M. Bush (ed.), Serfdom and Slavery: studies in legal bondage (Harlow 1996), pp. 225-246, and the latest news from Alice Rio, "Freedom and Unfreedom in Early Medieval Francia: the evidence of the legal formulae" in Past and Present no. 193 (Oxford 2006), pp. 7-40. For specific stuff about the Catalan trade, however, see Josep María Salrach, "Servi i mancipia" in B. de Riquer i Permanyer (ed.), Història Política, Societat i Cultura dels Països Catalans volum 2: la formació de la societat feudal, segles VI-XII, ed. J. M. Salrach i Marès (Barcelona 1998), pp. 78-79.

4. Auguste Bernard & Alexandre Bruel (edd.), Recueil des Chartes de l’Abbaye de Cluny (Paris 1876-1903), Vol. I, doc. nos 18, 44 or 75. For someone else using this serf/slave distinction, see Davies, "Servile Status", pp. 245-246, cited by Rio, "Freedom and Unfreedom", p. 9 & n. 6. There are some sitting tenants on some of the other transfers, so we can see that that is referred to differently ("manentes"): Bernard & Bruel, Cluny, I doc. 55.

5. Ibid. doc. 30 is the first with no land involved. Doc. 74 is one of the exchanges, this one a man for a man, the other being doc. 108.

The Leeds sessions that I and my collaborators run hit their third year this year; they're called 'Problems and Possibilities of Early Medieval Diplomatic'. The idea is to show firstly that charter evidence is subtle and complicated to interpret, and secondly what you can learn when you do interpret it carefully: the first bit is problems, and the second possibilities. Everyone else's papers seem to be about the possibilities, and mine much more about the problems. It's not that I don't have stuff to say on the basis of my charters, as you know, but for Leeds, when I have a charter-savvy group to work in, I get much more interested in the basic questions we often forget to ask, of why we have the evidence, why it looks the way it does, whether what they were recording was real or just formulae, and so on, the basic text criticism and the methodology of it. And this leads me this year, heavens help me, to be messing with the charters of Cluny.

You see, last year when I was putting together this proposal, there obviously seemed to be all the time in the world, and so I cast about for diplomatic ideas, and came up with this. We know, and if we didn't the work from the Lay Archives project would make it clear,¹ that many charters exist in archives that appear to have had no interest in preserving them. By and large, of course, a Church archive preserves documents that relate to that church's lands and donors, and this is most of what we have, but wherever the sample opens up a bit, things leak into preservation that don't easily fit that scheme. Traditionally, these have been explained as background for donations that occurred later but whose documents have been lost, and that obviously has problems: why did they lose the important one and not the legacy one, why didn't anyone throw out the useless one? Recently a couple of the people in the Lay Archives group, Warren Brown from his work on Bavaria and Adam Kosto from the Catalan stuff, have been suggesting that actually churches were functioning as kind of depositories, substituting in this way for the old Roman gesta municipalia but also just because the charters in question would often have been written by the local clerics anyway and might as well stay where they could be read. Adam also argues that whole lay dossiers of parchments were sometimes given into the care of the church in difficult times, and that does seem to be what's necessary to explain the wealth of Church-irrelevant documents in Catalonia, where we know (because some of them still exist) that lay archives were kept.²

For some time this has seemed problematic to me. As with a lot that Adam writes, it's so close to what I think that I find it hard to articulate my difference, but it seems to me that when a body of charters reaches a Church archive, it often does so because someone who has inherited or acquired the land to which they relate is now giving it to the Church. That is, both explanations were sometimes true at once: there are lay dossiers, and they're given to the Church with land. But sometimes these dossiers include documents that are nothing to do with the land. So, for example, the first case of this I came across: there are in the Arxiu Capitular d'Urgell six charters from the late ninth century that feature a judge called Goltred. Five of them are purchases of land that eventually come to the cathedral, classic transmission if you will. The sixth however is a trial over which he presided, in which one man was set to pay compensation for breaking into another man's house, beating him with a cudgel (the document makes it clear that part of why this was so bad is that it was the victim's own cudgel) and then kidnapping and keeping him prisoner in a neighbour's house for a week. Frustratingly, why the perpetrator did this is never explained, though the document does say he claimed it was done in self-defence! But anyway: the compensation is monetary, though paid in produce; no land is involved, and neither does the cathedral of Urgell feature.³ So I think the only reason that we have this is that one of the documents that came out of this trial went to the judge, by way of record, and when he finally gave his lands to the cathedral, they shunted all his parchments into the cathedral archive and no-one looked at them for about 1,800 years. Preservation by neglect, I call this, and I think there's a lot of it.

Anyway, we have paradigms, they need testing, and this is where Cluny comes in. There are certain places where the charters preserved predate the actual archive institution's existence. In Catalonia most places have one or two from 'before', and pinning the reason they're there down is very hard because the string is so short. Four charters at Vic feature an extraordinarily long-lived Viscount called Franco, who seems to have ruled the mini-county of Berguedà in apparent independence. All of the charters are purchases, he doesn't appear anywhere else, two of them predate Vic's refoundation in about 885, two of them don't.⁴ The lands didn't identifiably come to Vic, and the only explanation that I can think of is that they were stored at some church in Berguedà of which the cathedral of Vic later acquired control. There's no proof though. So I wanted to look elsewhere and see what the trends of this preservation are where we've got more of it. And there's nowhere with more than Cluny.

Cluny is a desperately important abbey for most of the High Middle Ages, but in early medieval terms it's a latecomer, being founded only in 910. Its charter corpus, however, starts in 813, almost a century before, which obviously needs some explanation. I don't have one, except that so much exists from Cluny, many thousands of charters (almost all of which now exist only in scholarly copies, but that's the Franco-Prussian war for you), that it seems unlikely they ever really went through weeding the archive: once something came there it stayed. There is a classic edition of Cluny's charters, but it never reached the index volume, so up till now really working with them has been difficult.⁵ Now, however, the various projects on Cluny being run from the University of Münster have resulted in a digital transcription of that edition, if you know where to look. So I have been steadily databasing this early stuff, and searching through the files trying to find out why they wind up with Cluny. ("Stand back! I know regular expressions!")

It's extremely frustrating. Sometimes they're just singletons, neither place nor recipient ever seem to turn up again. They may well do, of course, because places change names and landholders bequeath stuff without writing it down but a broken trail is little better than no trail in this particular inquiry. As one advances towards foundation date, the trails get easier to follow, but even so one is often left going: "there's the land in 880; here's land in the same villa in 910 that seems to be bounded by the same geography in a couple of edges, but it's bigger, and if it contains the same estate, if, how it got from Adalramn to this Ardeo geezer is just impossible to say". They don't name their parents, they don't say how they got the land, you're just stuck with this magic lantern now-you-see-and-now-you-don't situation when you can see it at all. I've got some good cases where it does work out, and especially the royal ones are almost always really simple; this precept is here because the relevant estate is in the hands of the monastery via this person one generation later, sorted. But I've also got quite a lot just marked "no clues!"

All the same, I've got enough to work with; and I also have the monastery of Beaulieu, whose early preservation is basically one neat example piece of an aristocratic personal archive – but if you want to know more about that you should come and hear the paper.⁶ I have to leave something in the bag :-)

P. S. Here we see an instance of the phenomenon I realised while leaving a comment at The Rebel Letter; I never seem to doubt that someone will be interested in this stuff. After all, I'm interested; I can hardly be alone in this in a net population of however many numbers-with-many-zeroes...

2. Warren Brown, "When documents are destroyed or lost: lay people and archives in the early Middle Ages" in Early Medieval Europe Vol. 11 (Oxford 2002), pp. 337-366; Adam J. Kosto, "Laymen, Clerics and Documentary Practices in the Early Middle Ages: the example of Catalonia" in Speculum Vol. 80 (Cambridge MA 2005), pp. 44-74. Professor Brown's work makes the more careful case that actually this only happened with big families storing their documents at their own foundations, but in areas that were more 'document-minded', as Julia Smith would have it (Europe After Rome: a new cultural history, 400-1000 (Oxford 2005), pp. 13-50, concept introduced pp. 45-46) it's much lower-level than that, as I think this paper will partly show.

3. Cebrià Baraut (ed.), "Els documents, dels segles IX i X, conservats a l'Arxiu Capitular de la Seu d'Urgell" in Urgellia: anuari d'estudis històrics dels antics comtats de Cerdanya, Urgell i Pallars, d'Andorra i la Vall d'Aran Vol. 2 (Montserrat 1979), pp. 78-143, doc. nos 19, 22, 24, 25, 26 & 27; the hearing is doc. no. 24.

4. Eduard Junyent i Subirà (ed.), Diplomatari de la Catedral de Vic (Segles IX-X), ed. Ramon Ordeig i Mata (Vic 1980-1996), doc. nos 1, 5, 7 & 138.

5. This difficulty has not prevented some genuinely important work being done from them, most obviously Georges Duby, La Société aux XI^e et XII^e siècles dans le region mâconnaise, Bibliothèque de l'École Pratique des Hauts Études, VI^e section (Paris 1953, 2^nd edn. 1971), repr. in Qu'est-ce que c'est la Féodalisme (Paris 2001) (of which pp. 155, 170-172, 185-195, 230-245 transl. Frederick L. Cheyette as "The Nobility in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Mâconnais" in idem (ed.), Lordship and Community in Medieval Europe: selected readings (New York 1968), pp. 137-155) and Barbara H. Rosenwein, To Be The Neighbor of Saint Peter: the social meaning of Cluny’s property, 909-1049 (Ithaca 1989). The charters are edited in Auguste Bernard & Alexandre Bruel (edd.), Recueil des chartes de l'abbaye de Cluny (Paris 1876-1900), 6 vols, of which all the material I'm using is in vol. I.

6. Or just have at the charters yourself I suppose: the relevant edition is Maximin Deloche (ed.), Cartulaire de l'Abbaye de Beaulieu (en Limousin) (Paris 1859) and it's free to download on Google Books.

Pour ma part j'ouvre les listes d'inscription pour le "dégommage" des salopards qui se livrent à ce genre d'exactions.

Inscrivez-vous nombreux, si nécessaire on affrètera des cars!

Two contemporary texts nicely introduced this group of objects.  First, we read prayer 59 in the Liber Ordinum for the blessing of the crown with the aim of understanding both the general purpose of a votive offering and the particular meaning of a votive crown:

Ihesu Domine, qui es corona sanctorum, hanc coronam benedicendo sanctifica: ut pro decore domus tue et tui honore ac ornamento altaris, accepta hec munera feras, et de manibus offerentium respect hilari et pia benignitate suscipias.  Amen.

Jesus, Lord, you who are the crown of the saints, sanctify this crown with your blessing: so that for the decoration of your house and for your honor and as an ornament of the altar, may you take up this gift, having been accepted, and may you receive it from the hands of offering with joyful respect and pious kindness.  Amen. (my translation)

The second text comes from Julian of Toledo's Historia Wambae regis, newly translated by Joaquin Martinez Pizarro.  A discussion in chapter 26 of the return of sacred objects to the churches includes a brief reference to the usurper Paul placing on his head a crown that King Reccaredhad once dedicated to Felix.  This aside permits a glimpse into the life of this class of objects, in particular, into their intentional and meaningful misuse.

These texts bring to life the objects of the Treasure of Guarrazar, of which we examined the votive crown with pendant crossat the Musee du Moyen Age in Paris, especially its inscription, and the votive crown of Recceswinth at the archaeological museum in Madrid, both of which appear in the catalogue, The Art of Medieval Spain, a.d. 500-1200. 

The cross held by Bishop Maximianus in the Justinian panel at San Vitale in Ravenna provides a comparison for the votive cross.   Bishop Maximianus puts the cross to a second function within a liturgical context, and the similar placement of the cabochons suggests a Byzantine model for the Visigothic metalwork.

Seltsam - so wenige Leute kennen das Burgund (ausser vom Wein) und dennoch war dieses Gebiet in den letzten Jahrhunderten immer wieder Schauplatz großer Geschichte:

Niederlage von Vercingetorix - Kloster Cluny - Wallfahrtskirche Vezelay - Abtei Fontenay - Chateau Sully - Jugende in Taizè - Senf in Dijon - Weinversteigerung in Beaune - Kir, das ist Weisswein und Cassis

(Liste ist natürlich nicht vollständig)

Vercingetorix: Im Jahr 52 v. Chr. schlugen die Römer, wiederum unter Caesar, bei Alesia, dem heutigen Alise-Sainte-Reine, den gallischen Aufstand unter Vercingetorix nieder (siehe auch Asterix und der Avernerschild). Es folgte die Eingliederung Galliens in das Römische Reich und die langsame sprachliche und kulturelle Romanisierung seiner Einwohner.

Die Abtei von Cluny war als Ausgangspunkt bedeutender Klosterreformen eines der einflussreichsten religiösen Zentren des Mittelalters. Ihre Kirche war zeitweise das größte Gotteshaus des Christentums. Mehrere Gebäude der Benediktinerabtei sind erhalten.

Auch Vézelay gilt als bedeutender Wallfahrtsort Burgunds und wurde sogar als Weltkulturgut eingestuft. Die Basilika Ste. Madeleine, in der Revolution verwüstet, ist inzwischen wieder sehr schön restauriert.

Die ehemalige Abtei Fontenay, die ebenfalls zum Weltkulturerbe der UNESCO gehört, liegt idyllisch in einem Wald. Sie wurde 1118 von Bernhard von Clairvaux gegründet. Die Einheit von Architektur und umgebender Landschaft ist eindrucksvoll. Die schlichte Schönheit der Bauten zeugt vom Armutsideal der Mönche. (www.abbayedefontenay-pro.com.)

Das Château Sully umfasst einen riesigen Gebäudekomplex, zu dem ein vierflügeliger, rechteckiger Wohntrakt mit vier Ecktürmen und Innenhof gehören. Es liegt inmitten eines Landschaftsparks mit einer Anlage von Wassergräben (www.chateaudesully.com). Berühmt natürlich der 1. Herzog von Magenta, Mac Mahon, Präsident der Republik Frankreich. Heute führt die Herzogin das Schloss und den Weinbau - der aktuelle 6. Herzog Maurice ist 16 Jahre.  

Die Communauté de Taizé (Gemeinschaft von Taizé) ist ein internationaler ökumenischer Männerorden in der Nähe (ca. 10 km nördlich) von Cluny. Bekannt ist sie vor allem durch die in Taizé ausgerichteten ökumenischen Jugendtreffen, zu denen allein nach Taizé jährlich etwa 200.000 Besucher aller Nationalitäten und Konfessionen kommen.

Die Stadt Dijon erhielt im 13. Jahrhundert ein Monopol auf die Senfherstellung. Dijon-Senf muss nach dem europäischen Codex aus braunen Senfkörnern hergestellt werden. Die Senfkörner werden dazu durch eine Siebschleuder mit feinen Löchern gekratzt, wobei die Schalen im Inneren zurückbleiben und nur der Senfkern weiterverarbeitet wird. Traditionell werden die Senfkörner bei Dijon-Senf nicht entölt, was ihm ein besonders volles Aroma verleiht. Klassischer Dijon-Senf ist scharf und fein gemahlen. Eine der bekanntesten Varianten ist Estragonsenf.

Die Weinversteigerung in Beaune findet am dritten Wochenende im November statt  - "Les Trois Glorieuses", die drei glorreichen Tage statt. Höhepunkt neben dem Dîner der Weinbruderschaft und der Paulée in Meursault, dem üppigen Abschlußmittagessen, ist die Weinversteigerung am Sonntag. Fassweise (228 Liter) ersteigern Händler aus der ganzen Welt die Weine des Hôtel-Dieu. Die dabei erzielten Preise gelten als Marktbarometer.

 Kir ist ein Mischgetränk aus Weißwein und Crème de Cassis, einem Johannisbeerlikör. Wenn statt Wein Champagner verwendet wird, spricht man von Kir Royal. Er wird vor allem als Aperitif getrunken. Félix Kir (1876-1968), ein Kanoniker und Bürgermeister von Dijon, machte das bei den Weinbauern in der Region beliebte Getränk Blanc-Cassis zum offiziellen Getränk der Region, das bei Empfängen im Rathaus ausgeschenkt wurde, denn die Côte d’Or ist ein wichtiges Anbaugebiet für die Schwarze Johannisbeere, die Grundlage für den Cassis.

Für Kir wird zu einem Glas trockenen Weißweins – klassisch wird Aligoté, ein trockener und meist minderer Wein der Côte d’Or, verwendet – etwa ein Zehntel Crème de Cassis gegeben. Wenn man den Likör vorsichtig in das Glas gleiten lässt, hat er am Boden eine höhere Konzentration, so dass sich ein ansprechender Farbverlauf ergibt und das Getränk umso süßer wird, je weiter man es austrinkt

Für Kir Royal wird ein Teil Crème de Cassis in ein Sektglas bzw. Champagnerschale gegeben und mit neun Teilen Sekt aufgefüllt.

et dans le froid !

Malgré tout, les auteurs et le public sont toujours au rendez-vous depuis 10 ans, pour une série de dédicaces, toutes plus belles les unes que les autres

Avec Christophe Alliel comme parrain cette année :)

qui avait fait l'affiche du festival (avec Sébastien Brunet, son coloriste) :

Allez visiter son blog : http://chrisfire.canalblog.com/
toutes mes photos sont ici : http://larzen118.jimdo.com/080322-festbd.php
et sur le site du festival là : http://bdcluny.gadz.org/

A l'année prochaine pour de nouvelles aventures BD-èsques !

Merci à tous les auteurs pour leur bonne humeur et leur sympathie. :-)

When we finally made it back to the chateau we figured the line must have wound down a bit, but nope it was still huge. Instead of wait in line, we decided to wander around the town of Versailles in search of a snack. After eating, we walked past the chateau again and still the line was outrageous so we decided to call it a day and head back.

Once we were back in Paris, Corey and I grabbed a real meal at my favorite cafe across from the Orsay. I was still cold from our day in the gardens so I decided to get onion soup (I know how touristy of me :)) and Corey had steak-frites. I took a photo to immortalize our very French meal.

After what can only be described as a very late lunch, we headed into the Orsay for it's free/reduced night. I took lots of pictures of pictures ;-). Completely exhausted, we headed back home and roasted a chicken for dinner with a baguette.

To tell this next story, I need to give a little background. The night of graduation, a bunch of us headed to this creperie and as we were leaving we noticed the restaurant across the street was named Cosi, but it definitely wasn't a part of the chain of restaurants. After a little internet research, Corey and I found out that the Paris Cosi was the inspiration for the chain of Cosi restaurants in the U.S. So today, when Corey and I were deciding what to do, we thought we might as well try out the "original Cosi." Well everything, including the architecture of the building, was eerily similar to the chain. The sandwiches were delicious and reasonably priced, so I'm definitely coming back!

After lunch, Corey and I headed to Sainte-Chappelle but the line was too long so we decided to save it for an early morning visit. As we walked on Ile de la Cite, I realized that this was the first day I had ever been to Notre Dame when the sun was shining and there were blue skies. Therefore, please excuse my gratuitous Notre Dame/sky photos.

Continuing with our free museum tour, we headed to the Cluny, the Medieval museum. There were a lot of cool exhibits in the museum but my favorite had to be the heads of the kings of Judah that were cut off the facade of Notre Dame during the revolution. Check out the story here. Nearby to Cluny, Corey and I saw a bistro named Karl (Corey has a friend from UPenn with the same name who speaks French), so Corey took his picture in front of it. The day was so sunny, it took 3 shots to get the lighting right and I included all of them because the bright sun on Corey's face makes me smile and think of spring. Hopefully it will do the same for you!

On our way back home I stopped at the butcher and picked up some steaks for dinner, at the fromagerie to buy cheese to make sanwiches, the boulangerie for our baguette, and the vegetable stand for potatoes for dinner. A couple of those places were a bit difficult for a non-French speaker to handle, but judging on how dinner came out, I did just fine :)

One non-French note, I'd like to note that never again will I fill in my bracket using my heart. Good effort UConn, get well A.J. :(

Photos from March 20 !!!

Photos from March 21 !!!

I read this quote on Monday over at Baxter Kruger's blog and highly recommend you read his post "Who is God?"

Rahner is absolutely right, not only about Christian literature (devotionals, Sunday school material, church training, etc.) but also about Christian worship music.

How many songs do we have that really speak of humanity's adoption and inclusion in the Triune Life through the incarnation of the Son? How many even speak of the Father, Son and Spirit? A few do, here and there, but the bulk of Christian literature and music is decidedly unitarian.

Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth sings and knowledge of the Triune Life is not really planted in our hearts!  (The Triune Life is in our hearts, through the Son's connection to our humanity, but we are ignorant about it.)

Issues like this are why I have named this blog "neo-reformation". It is my personal belief (unprovable of  course) that the Holy Spirit is starting a new reformation in Christianity, just as he has done before - for example, at Nicea in the 4th century, Cluny in the 10th century and at Wittenberg in 16th century.

I think the Holy Spirit is leading the Church to rediscover the vital necessity that we be immersed in Jesus' revelation of God as Father, Son and Spirit and the teaching of the apostles that Jesus is our inclusion in that life.

The plan of God we celebrate this Easter season is the plan of the Father to adopt humanity in his Son through the Spirit (Eph. 1:5.) The Father's passionate desire is to make us his own children. When the awesome vision of that reality springs to new life within the Church our songs - and our literature - will change forever.

Use that 5 Euro for a crepe sucre and an Orangina, as the Cluny (MNdMA) along with the Musee des Arts et Metiers (Museum of Arts and Sciences) have joined the ranks of the free museums in Paris. So far, they've announced that they won't charge admission through June 2008 but could extend indefinitely. Let's hope that they opt for indefinitely. In that time, you'll get to check out a really cool exhibition on Benjamin Franklin (yes, I used cool and Ben Franklin in the same sentence and it wasn't related to an old episode of The Office). Celebrate both President's Day and the man who had one foot in the US and one foot in France with artifacts and inventions from Franklin's life.

Now's a great time to kick the Louvre and Musee d'Orsay (although I do have a soft-spot for the latter) habit and get in touch with the other museums that make Paris a capital of art and design. And who thought the French could be so lovable?

Thanks, ChaosAndAdventure!

Musee des Arts et Metiers
60, rue Réaumur
75003 Paris
Metro to Arts et Metiers or Reaumur-Sebastopol
http://www.arts-et-metiers.net/

that we should treat others as we would wish to be treated ourselves, that just as kindness, tolerance, compassion and understanding are the virtues most prized by the Almighty, so they are by all good men and women.

A time, especially, for Christians to show we unbelievers the shining, tolerant, inclusive face of their religion.

And how the Christians of Cluny Primary School, a council-run school in Banffshire, Scotland have come through for their non-believing brethren!

Teachers banned a nine-year-old boy from his class Christmas party because his parents had barred him from RE lessons. Douglas Stewart was forced to stay at home while his friends received presents from Santa and tucked into ice cream and jelly.

His parents were told he was not welcome at the celebration because they had pulled him out of religious education classes earlier in the year. (Daily Mail)

Religious Education and "Religious Observance" is mandatory in Scottish schools, except in those cases where parents exercise their right to withdraw. The rationale given in a Scottish Government policy document is as follows:

Each individual within a school community should be enabled to develop as a successful learner, confident individual, responsible citizen and effective contributor. Religious observance should have an important part to play in this development.

Why religious observance should have any part whatsoever to play in the education of schoolchildren is explained by means of an appeal to tradition--"In recognition of Scotland's Christian heritage, schools are encouraged to use the rich resources of this tradition when planning religious observance"--as well as the notion that it is the role of schools to promote the "spiritual development" (whatever that means) of students.

The document acknowledges that contemporary Scotland is a far more multicultural society than the days in which William Wallace routed the English at Stirling Bridge, and emphasises the need to accommodate the beliefs of students from different faith backgrounds. On the other hand, parents who exercise their right not to play along with this ridiculously anti-democratic charade are to be reminded that:

Scottish Ministers consider that religious observance complements religious education and is an important contribution to pupils' development. It should also have a role in promoting the ethos of a school by bringing pupils together and creating a sense of community.

And if that doesn't convince them, why, just have their children shunned! Heartwarming stuff via NoBeliefs.com.

- Conseil, expertise et évaluation du patrimoine forestier, (achat, vente, succession ou sinistre),
- Gestion avec maîtrise d'œuvre (reboisement),
- Diagnostic d'arbre de parc et d'ornement,
- Audit en environnement, gestion des chasses et des étangs,
- Etudes sociales et techniques diverses.

Je suis à votre disposition pour toute information supplémentaire.

Jean-Pierre Leroy

Dinner
Friday 12/21 - Holder???
Saturday 12/22 - Brunoise???
Sunday 12/23 - Anise???
Christmas Eve 12/24 - Gandhi
Christmas Night 12/25 - Niu Kee
Wednesday 12/26 - Au Pied du Cochon

Montreal Bagels
Tokyo Sushi on St. Paul

Lunch
Olive et Gourmando
Pho Bang New York
Au Petit Express
Cluny
Titanic

* One lunch plus one dinner in Chinatown