ABSTRACT
The historiography of Romanesque sculpture in France holds that the most important creative centres are Burgundy and Languedoc. It has represented work in the former duchy of Aquitaine – namely Poitou, Saintonge, and Angoumois – as late, regional, largely ornamental, and unsympathetic to the paradigm for Romanesque portals, which should be provided with a tympanum. In order to restore this sculpture to a recognition of the importance it once commanded, the following paper will deal successively with the historiography, the chronology of Romanesque sculpture in Aquitaine and south-western France, the question of portals without tympana, along with their iconography and artistic quality. One of the most important points is that what is found elsewhere on tympana was largely located at the top of the façades – namely theophanies. Furthermore, the west portal at Aulnay was the most influential in all Romanesque France, inspiring a total of nineteen portals which survive between Bordeaux and Tournai.
