Boscherville - Abbaye Saint-Georges

This is the entrance to the chapter house of the former "Abbaye Saint-Georges de Boscherville", founded by a chamberlain of William the Conqueror, and in existence upto the French Revolution.

The abbey church serves the parish since then. Most buildings of the abbey got demolished after the Revolution, but the chapter house survived. I had been here about 10 years ago, when this part of the abbey was closed. This time I had more luck - and was surprised by originality and quality of the carvings.

On the left the "Binding of Isaac".

Genesis 22:9-13

"They arrived at the place God had described to him. Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He tied up his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Then Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to kill his son as a sacrifice. But the Lord’s messenger called out to Abraham from heaven, "Abraham? Abraham?"

Abraham said, "I’m here."

The messenger said, "Don’t stretch out your hand against the young man, and don´t do anything to him. I now know that you revere God and didn`t hold back your son, your only son, from me." Abraham looked up and saw a single ram caught by its horns in the dense underbrush. Abraham went over, took the ram, and offered it as an entirely burned offering instead of his son."

I am not sure about the right capital. For a while I saw this as the "Emmaus Road", but it may as well be Christ pointing out the way to pilgrims..