( fl 1096). ?French sculptor. An inscription around the edge of the marble altar table consecrated on 16 May 1096 by Urban II at St Sernin, Toulouse, concludes BERNARDUS GELDUINUS ME FECIT (see TOULOUSE, §2(i)(b)). It has been thought to refer to a sculptor who was not only involved in the execution of the altar table but also in all seven large relief slabs now set in the ambulatory hemicycle wall and of a number of capitals elsewhere in the Romanesque basilica. These include three capitals in the same style reused on the Porte Miègeville on the south side of the nave, which, with other displaced elements, probably belonged to the programme for the sanctuary, which was incomplete at the consecration of 1096. Six limestone capitals in the upper part of the transept also attest to the activity at that time of the same marble-carvers. An impost rendered in a similar style in the tribune arcade of the north transept shows the presentation of a square object by two men wearing tunics. It appears to represent the offering of the altar by members of the lay confraternity referred to in the inscription, to which Gelduinus may have belonged. The object held by the draped figures has also been compared to the memorial cartouche on ancient sarcophagi, however, and may have a funerary connotation.

• Bernardus Gelduinus
  • France, §IV, 1(i): Early Medieval sculpture
  • Romanesque, §III, 1(ii)(g): Stone sculpture: Languedoc
  • Romanesque, §III, 1(iii)(b): Stone sculpture: Galicia, León, Castile, Navarre and Aragon
  • works
    • Conques, Ste Foy, §1: Sculpture
    • Romanesque, §III, 1(i): Stone sculpture: Introduction
    • Toulouse, §2(i)(b): St Sernin: Sculpture