Tribunes in the chevet in Romanesque architecture of the early eleventh century

The cross-section and view of the sanctuary executed for Montfaucon in 1726 reveal the existence of an apse with a three-storey elevation. Comparison with later monuments Sainte-Foy de Conques and Saint-Sernin de Toulouse allows us to identify the middle storey as a tribune gallery. Finding prototypes for this is more difficult, given that some of the possible candidates, such as Saint-Martin de Tours or the cathedral Sainte-Croix d'Orleans, are known to us only from partial excavations. But several east ends with an ambulatory of the early 116 century that are still standing, widespread though they are, have apses with tribune galleries: in Catalonia Sant Pere de Rodes, in western Brittany Landevennec and Loctudy, in north Italy the cathedral of Ivrea. Leaving aside function as a possible explanation for the existence of these apse tribunes, it is worth considering the iconography of this architecture: could these east ends with ambulatory refer to the image of the Holy Sepulchre, whose destruction in 1009 caused an outcry in the West? This hypothesis makes sense in the context of the general rise in the phenomenon of the Jerusalem pilgrimage, particularly in Limoges, with its great church dedicated to ``the Apostle''.