How France Built Her Cathedrals: A Study in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

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How France Built Her Cathedrals

[Illustration]

[Illustration: _Soissons Cathedral. The Transept's Southern Arm_ (_c.
1180_)]




How France Built
Her Cathedrals

A Study in the Twelfth
and Thirteenth Centuries

_By_

ELIZABETH BOYLE O'REILLY

Honorary Member of the _Société Française d'Archéologie_

_Author of_ "Heroic Spain" Etc.

_Illustrated With Drawings By_

A. PAUL DE LESLIE

[Illustration: colophon]

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK AND LONDON




HOW FRANCE BUILT HER CATHEDRALS

Copyright, 1921, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America

A-W




Contents


CHAP.                                                               PAGE

INTRODUCTION                                                           1

I. WHAT IS GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE?                                       16

Gothic architecture the logical fulfillment of Romanesque--Origin of
Romanesque architecture--Romanesque basilicas modified by the
liturgy--Horrors of the IX and X centuries in France--Rebirth of the
builders' energy after the year 1000--Cluny, the civilizing force of the
X and XI centuries--Various regional Romanesque schools of
France--Normandy, Burgundy, Auvergne, Poitou, Languedoc, Provence, and
the Franco-Picard school--Birth of Gothic art--An undecided question
where the first diagonal-crossing ribs were used--Germany's and Italy's
claims--Claim of England--The Ile-de-France Picard region, the classic
land of Gothic--Gothic architecture not a layman's revolt against
monkish Romanesque--The architects of the Gothic cathedrals--No
heretical tendencies in Gothic sculpture--Origin of the term
Gothic--XVII- and XVIII-century scorn for Gothic architecture--Modern
French school of mediæval archæology.

II. ABBOT SUGER AND ST. DENIS-EN-FRANCE                               43

Evolution from Romanesque to Gothic--St. Denis' abbatial, the first
important Gothic monument--Some early-Gothic churches in the
Ile-de-France--Morienval, the first Gothic-vaulted ambulatory extant (c.
1122)--Church of St. Étienne, at Beauvais (c. 1120)--St. Germer-en-Flay
built from 1150 to 1175, yet less advanced than St. Denis--Poissy's
church of St. Louis (c. 1135)--How Abbot Suger built his abbey church at
St. Denis--St. Denis' school of glassmaking, the leader for fifty
years--Dedication of St. Denis on June 11, 1144, consecrated the
national art--Who Suger was and how St. Bernard converted him--What is
left of the abbey church which Suger built--Reconstruction of St. Denis
by St. Louis, 1231 to 1280--Pierre de Montereau, its architect--Tombs in
St. Denis' abbatial--Deviation of the axis not symbolic--Some happenings
in St. Denis during the XII and XIII centuries--Charles Péguy's verses,
linking St. Denis, St. Geneviève, and Jeanne d'Arc.

III. PRIMARY GOTHIC CATHEDRALS                                        74

Cathedral of Noyon, first built of Gothic cathedrals (c. 1150)--Noyon's
communal charter, the first of known date, 1109--Cathedral's nave, a
vessel of most perfect proportion--Exceptional among French cathedrals,
its transept's rounded ends--Noyon has retained its annexes--Its chapter
house, built about 1240--Noyon city destroyed, 1918--Cathedral still
stands.

Cathedral of Senlis, second of the Gothic cathedrals, begun about
1153--Sculpture at Senlis' west portal (c. 1180) marks a date in
imagery--Cathedral tower, the "pride of the Valois land"--Transept's
façades of the best Flamboyant Gothic art--What the World War did to
Senlis.

Cathedral of Sens, begun about 1160--Sens' ancient see, governed by
notable men in the XII and XIII centuries--How they found out who was
the architect of the cathedral--St. Thomas Becket in Sens, 1164, and
again from 1166 to 1170--St. Louis married in Sens Cathedral,
1234--Glory of Sens' stained glass.

Cathedral of Laon, begun about 1160--Fallacy of the "town-hall"
theory--Cathedral of springtime foliage--Oxen on Laon's towers--Origin
of the square east end of Laon Cathedral--Laon's communal
struggle--Famous XII-century school of Anselm de Laon--Laon city shelled
by the French, but its cathedral unhurt.

Cathedral of Soissons almost a ruin--Desolation of Soissons in World
War--Soissons' southern arm of transept ends in a hemicycle (c.
1180)--Is the most exquisite thing in France--The crusading
bishop-builder, Nivelon de Chérisy.

Some important Primary Gothic churches: Abbatial of St. Remi at Rheims
(c. 1170)--Its superb XII-century glass wrecked in the World
War--Abbatial of Notre Dame at Châlons-sur-Marne (c. 1160)--Pioneer in
fenestration--First to use pillars between chapels and
ambulatory--Church of St. Quiriace at Provins (c. 1160)--Provins,
residence of the counts of Champagne--Its international fairs frequented
by mediæval Europe--Collegiate of St.