Detail of the Conques Last Judgment Tympanum: Hell (bottom register)

Satan sits enthroned among victims representing deadly sins.

Pride is represented by the knight on the left in expensive chain mail who tumbles from his horse. This is common symbolism in medieval art, but the scene might also be a reference to the death of Rainon de Rouergue, an oppressor of the abbey whom the Book of Saint Foy offers as an example of the sin of Pride.

Standing next to the knight, a half-naked woman and her companion represent Lust. The hanged man with the purse around his neck can represent Avarice; the man reclining under Satan's feet, Sloth; the man whose tongue a devil is removing, Slander. I'm not sure what is meant by the man on the far right carrying a woman on his shoulders – an evocation of the burden of Envy?

Anger does not seem to be represented here, but another detail, just to the right of the upper right corner of this part of the tympanum, has a man who has committed suicide, an example of that sin.

View the main image.

Photographed at the church by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.