Varenne-l'Arconce - Saint-Pierre-aux-Liens

The church Saint-Pierre-aux-Liens ("St. Peter in Chains") seems huge in the center of a village with a population of well under 150. Cluny owned the place since 1045, and from 1095 on, the small community was administered by the priory of Marcigny. Already in the 1130s the little monastery was important enough to be an "indpendent" cluniacensic priory. This was probably the time, when the construction of the church, built from sandstone.

There are many corbels under the roof. Devils, demons - and this monkey. To see an ape or monkey depicted on a corbel is not that special, but this one may have ties to the strange ape on the centaur-capital inside.