Martin M. Miles' photos with the keyword: billy goat

Barfrestone is a small village known since the time of the Domesday Book, when the manor was owned by Odo, the Bishop of Bayeux. In 1076, the lands were then granted to Hugh de Port, whose descendents may be connected to the erection of this church end of the 12th century, that was a site on the pilgrim route between Dover and Canterbury. This small church is a masterpiece of Norman art and architecture. The southern portal shows carving of the highest order, most probably the work of master carvers and masons, based in nearby Canterbury. Another detail At the bottom is a monkey riding a billy goat and carrying its prey on a pole. Riding a billy goat is often associated with the devil and the prey, which looks like a child, would then be a captured soul.

Cologne is the fourth-largest city in Germany - and one of the oldest. A Germanic tribe, the Ubii, had a settlement here, this was named by the Romans "Oppidum Ubiorum". In 50 AD, the Romans founded "Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium", the city then became the provincial capital of "Germania Inferior". -- Fans of the soccer club Mainz 05 have gathered in front of the Cologne Cathedral to sing their chants. This was a couple of hours before the match again Cologne´s 1. FC Köln started. Probably Mainz 05 won the match. Cologne´s team played a miserable season, the performance was sometimes pitiful - and at the end the club was relegated. The FC Köln, having a billy goat named "Hennes" as a mascot, is a kind of "yo-yo team" moving up and down between "1. Bundeliga" and "2. Bundeliga".

The monastery "Abbatia ad Lacum" was founded in 1093 on the shores of a lake (lacum). It was a priory of Affligem Abbey (Belgium) first, but since 1138 was an independent Benedictian abbey. The erection of the monastery, following the "Sankt Galler Klosterplan" ("Plan of Saint Gall") started, when the first monks settled here. To complete the church took more than 200 years. Even after the consecration, many parts were added or altered. The abbey was an intellectual hub in the 12th/13th century, but like many other convents declined later. It joined the Bursfelde Congregation, a reform movement originating from the Bursfelde Abbey in the valley of the Weser river. The monastery existed upto the secularisation. The buildings and all the abbey´s possessions became property of the French state. The inventary was auctioned. After the Congress of Vienna the ownership of the empty buildings went to the Prussian State, who sold it. Within the 1860s it was acquired by the "Society of Jesus". The "Kulturkampf", a row between the Prussian government and the Roman Catholic administration, ended that episode and in 1992 the Benedictines returned. They could do with the support of Wilhelm II, as the church itself was still owned by the Prussian state. Since then many restaurations and renovations have taken place, to "purify" the buildings - and "recreate" the Romanesque style. A detail from the left side of the narthex facade. Foliage, densely populated by mythical creatures. Two wrestlers to the right. Their upper bodies are human, but they seem to stick in winged siren-bodies. The scene in the center reminds on a "wolf-school", as seen in Freiburg and Saint Ursanne, where the teachers are monks. Here the teacher (in case this is a teacher) seems to be a hairy woodwose or a devil. I could not read the words, he wrote (PEC??? and GAGA??). The animal (wolf?) next to him has turned his head already to the billy goat, that is (not to be seen from this pov) attacked from another wolf from behind. This is left to the portal. The same position on the right side differs notably. See the following upload. According to information from the local museum, the stones used for these carvings by an anonymous master, named "Samsonmeister" by art historians, are "coralline limestones", brought to this secluded place from France.

Twenty years after Pope Leo IX had asked his nephew Count Adalbert of Calw to rebuild the ruined abbay St. Aurelius, this abbey got a young abbot. Wilhem von Hirsau (aka "William of Hirsau"), educated at St. Emmeram in Regensburg, a very well known "thinktank". Immidietly tried to gain independence of all secular powers for the abbey. At that time, he was probably influenced by the idea, that had spread from Gorze Abbey in Lorraine. He was a strong supporter of the Pope during the Investiture Controversy. Already in 1082 he commissioned the building of a new monastery on a nearby high plateau. In 1091 the abbey church, modelled on Cluny II and dedicated to Peter an Paul, got consecrated. The convent followed 1092 and moved into a monastic compound designed according to the Plan of Saint Gall. Wilhelm´s friend Ulrich (aka "Ulrich von Zell", "Ulrich von Cluny"), a schoolmate from St. Emmeram, had made carreer in Burgundy and was an advisor to Abbot Hugh of Cluny. So the Cluniac reform found their way into the Black Forest. Based on them Wilhelm wrote down the "Consuetudines Hirsauginenses". Known as the "Hirsau Reforms", the adoption of these rules revitalised Benedictine life throughout Germany - and were followed by far more than 100 monasteries. Based on a thriving economy most of the romanesque buildings (but not the church!) were demolished and got replaced by gothic style structures. Shortly after that, the Reformation put an end to the abbey in 1536, when the monks had to leave - and a Protestant school was opend here (just like in Maulbronn!). The "Duke of Wuerttemberg" replaced the old abbot´s house by a posh hunting palace around 1590. During the Nine Years' War (aka "War of the Palatine Succession") the infamous General Ezéchiel de Mélac burnt the abbey down (like he did with Heidelberg, Worms, Speyer..). The ruins were used as a quarry - and so there is not really much left of this great and important abbey. There are carved friezes around the "Eulenturm", just seen. This is one of them. A well-dressed Atlas, two billy goats beside him (here symmetrical). Lions at the corners of the tower. As Wilhelm of Hirsau in his early years wrote treatises on astronomy - some historians connect the friezes to that subject. Well, I doubt that, but I have no better idea..