Conques in the Global World. Transferring Knowledge: from Material to Immaterial Heritage

Conques is visited annually by thousands of tourists and walking pilgrims.

It is a unique site of cultural heritage preserving outstanding visual, material, and ritual cultures from the 9th to the 21st c. Regretfully, its cultural significance contrasts with the lack of comprehensive scholarly attention. Its date, level of reconstruction, and place in the story of the history of art have all been disputed.

This is alarming, since a complex understanding of this unique site is indispensable for both the effective research of scientific communities and the expansion of interest among public audiences.

The CONQUES project emerges from an ongoing story of exchanges and interactions between scholars, institutions, and fields of research.

The overall goal of CONQUES is to promote the first interdisciplinary integrative research on the site, combining the expertise from five different fields, and thus to increase its currently marginal role in public discourse.

Our aim is to reconstruct crucial elements in the development of European culture through investigating major stages in the medieval construction of Conques, but also to reimagine and tell the story of the 19th and 20th century “re-invention” of the European Middle Ages.We will break new ground in different disciplines by employing both classic and experimental methods.

The key outcomes of this integrative analysis will include: a) a long overdue scientific monograph; b) the creation of a sustainable collaborative research platform working at the crossroads of different disciplines; c) an integrative protocol of research, which will be transferable and exploitable on other sites of the shared medieval European culture; d) the creation of a sustainable public outreach program sharing the results of this multidisciplinary research with a wide audience through exhibitions, and public lectures, and widely disseminated didactic books for the public and tourists.