ABSTRACT
The carvings of St Eusice at Selles-sur-Cher in the diocese of Bourges provide a lens through which to examine the re-emergence of narrative sculpture in the decades after the millennium. The early depiction in stone of the life of a saint at Selles has been overlooked because of its dating more than a century too late and the heavy-handed restoration of the interior of the church. But the style of the sculpture, alongside the historical evidence, provides a date in the first half of the 11th century, perhaps as early as the 1030s. The depiction of the now obscure St Eusice is based on a roughly contemporary life of the saint, the Vita et miracula sancti Eusicii confessoris, written by a local monk. This hagiography was commissioned with the aim of shoring up the immunity of the church against thieving local lords, who included Fulk Nerra (987–1040), Count of Anjou. The miracles of the saint may have been translated into monumental architectural sculpture with a similar protective function in mind. In addition, the frieze depicting the life and miracle of St Eusice transforms the east end of the church into a shrine in memory of the saint.
