Take a Detour to Meslay-le-Grenet Church
If you are in Chartres or near it with a car do not miss this unusual sight. You may never see even its rough equivalent in your travels. There is no town listing for Meslay in VT and it does not appear in most guide books. Its population is 150. It is on the map about 15 km south of Chartres. The church is 15C and its walls are covered with painted pictures most illustrating the poem of the Danse Macabre (anonymous) of that period (1420). It was a time of War (the 100 years War was just over), Pestilence (the Black Deathof 1348) and a famine was in progress. (the 3 Scourges of the Apocalypse). The arrival of printing led to the production of sardonic satires like the Danse and wide distribution. How in the late 15C it came to be incorporated as a sermon on the frailty of mortal man on the church walls is unrecorded.( Incideentally the baley is a sort of sheriff who was responsible for...
