Bay 21 - St Eustace

Index to panels:
(Click captions below to open detailed view in this window or click the relevant panel on the diagrams to the left to open in a new window).

01 - Christ addresses Placidus through the mouth of a stag

03 - Placidus is baptised with the name Eustace

02 - All of Eustace's servants die of a plague

05 - Facing ruin, Eustace and his family abandon their home

04 - Eustace and his family take passage on a ship

06 - The boatmen cast Eustace & his sons ashore and kidnap his wife

08 - Eustace's two sons are snatched away by wild animals

07 - Eustace adopts the life of a simple pious farmer

10 - Years later, Eustace leads the Imperial army to victory

09 - Eustace is reunited with his wife and now grown-up children

11 - The Emperor asks Eustace to join in thanking the pagan gods

12 - Eustace refuses to worship an idol and is arrested (bad photo)

13 - Eustace and family are boiled to death in a bull-shaped cauldron

Quite an unusual early telling of the familiar Eustace story. Main difference from the typical depictions at Chartres, Le Mans and Tours are the omission of the events surrounding the finding of Eustace by the Imperial envoys and his return to the army. Equally unusual is the showing of the demise of Eustace's servants (panel 02) - this fills an otherwise unexplained gap in the story but also allows the depiction of the saint engaged in one of the 'seven acts of corporeal mercy' (tending the sick).

The flow of episodes (marked by the blue arrows on the map above) follows a meandering boustrophodonic pattern.