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GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE:STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT

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CHAPTER XVI.
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: As before, Adamy, Corroyer, Enlart, Hasak, Moore, Reber,
Viollet-le-Duc.20 Also Chapuy, Le moyen age monumental. Chateau, Histoire et
caractères de l'architecture française. Davies, Architectural Studies in France. Ferree,
The Chronology of the Cathedral Churches of France. Johnson, Early French
Architecture. King, The Study book of Mediæval Architecture and Art. Lassus and
Viollet-le-Duc, Notre Dame de Paris. Nesfield, Specimens of Mediæval Architecture.
Pettit, Architectural Studies in France.
CATHEDRAL-BUILDING IN FRANCE. In the development of the principles
outlined in the foregoing chapter the church-builders of France led the way. They
surpassed all their contemporaries in readiness of invention, in quickness and
directness of reasoning, and in artistic refinement. These qualities were especially
manifested in the extraordinary architectural activity which marked the second half
of the twelfth century and the first half of the thirteenth. This was the great age of
cathedral-building in France. The adhesion of the bishops to the royal cause, and
their position in popular estimation as the champions of justice and human rights,
led to the rapid advance of the episcopacy in power and influence. The cathedral, as
the throne-church of the bishop, became a truly popular institution. New cathedrals
were founded on every side, especially in the Royal Domain and the adjoining
provinces of Normandy, Burgundy, and Champagne, and their construction was
warmly seconded by the people, the communes, and the municipalities. "Nothing to-
day," says Viollet-le-Duc,21 "unless it be the commercial movement which has
covered Europe with railway lines, can give an idea of the zeal with which the urban
populations set about building cathedrals; . . . a necessity at the end of the twelfth
century because it was an energetic protest against feudalism." The collapse of the
unscientific Romanesque vaulting of some of the earlier cathedrals and the
destruction by fire of others stimulated this movement by the necessity for their
immediate rebuilding. The entire reconstruction of the cathedrals of Bayeux,
Bayonne, Cambray, Evreux, Laon, Lisieux, Le Mans, Noyon, Poitiers, Senlis,
Soissons, and Troyes was begun between 1130 and 1200.22 The cathedrals of
Bourges, Chartres, Paris, and Tours, and the abbey of St. Denis, all of the first
importance, were begun during the same period, and during the next quarter-century
those of Amiens, Auxerre, Rouen, Reims, Séez, and many others. After 1250 the
movement slackened and finally ceased. Few important cathedrals were erected
during the latter half of the thirteenth century, the chief among them being at
Beauvais (actively begun 1247), Clermont, Coutances, Limoges, Narbonne, and
Rodez. During this period, and through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, French
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architecture was concerned rather with the completion and remodelling of existing
cathedrals than the founding of new ones. There were, however, many important
parish churches and civil or domestic edifices erected within this period.
STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT: VAULTING. By the middle of the twelfth century
the use of barrel-vaulting over the nave had been generally abandoned and groined
vaulting with its isolated points of support and resistance had taken its place. The
timid experiments of the Clunisian architects at Vézelay in the use of the pointed
arch and vault-ribs also led, in the second half of the twelfth century, to far-reaching
results. The builders of the great Abbey Church of St. Denis, near Paris, begun in
1140 by the Abbot Suger, appear to have been the first to develop these tentative
devices into a system. In the original choir of this noble church all the arches, alike
of the vault-ribs (except the groin-ribs, which were semi-circles) and of the openings,
were pointed and the vaults were throughout constructed with cross-ribs, wall-ribs,
and groin-ribs. Of this early work only the chapels remain. In other contemporary
monuments, as for instance in the cathedral of Sens, the adoption of these devices
was only partial and hesitating.
FIG. 116.--PLAN OF NOTRE DAME, PARIS.
NOTRE DAME AT PARIS. The next great step in advance was taken in the cathedral
of Notre Dame23 at Paris (Figs. 116, 117, 125). This was begun, under Maurice de
Sully in 1163, on the site of the twin cathedrals of Ste. Marie and St. Étienne, and
the choir was, as usual, the first portion erected. By 1196 the choir, transepts, and
one or two bays of the nave were substantially finished. The completeness, harmony,
and vigor of conception of this remarkable church contrast strikingly with the
makeshifts and hesitancy displayed in many contemporary monuments in other
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provinces. The difficult vaulting over the radiating bays of the double ambulatory
was here treated with great elegance. By doubling the number of supports in the
exterior circuit of each aisle (Fig. 116) each trapezoidal bay of the vaulting was
divided into three easily managed triangular compartments. Circular shafts were used
between the central and side aisles. The side aisles were doubled and those next the
centre were built in two stories, providing ample galleries behind a very open
triforium. The nave was unusually lofty and covered with six-part vaults of admirable
execution. The vault-ribs were vigorously moulded and each made to spring from a
distinct vaulting-shaft, of which three rested upon the cap of each of the massive
piers below (Fig. 117). The Cathedral of Bourges, begun 1190, closely resembled
that of Paris in plan. Both were designed to accommodate vast throngs in their
exceptionally broad central aisles and double side aisles, but Bourges has no side-
aisle galleries, though the inner aisles are much loftier than the outer ones. Though
later in date the vaulting of Bourges is inferior to that of Notre Dame, especially in
the treatment of the trapezoidal bays of the ambulatory.
FIG. 117.--INTERIOR OF NOTRE DAME, PARIS.
The masterly examples set by the vault-builders of St. Denis and Notre Dame were
not at once generally followed. Noyon, Senlis, and Soissons, contemporary with
these, are far less completely Gothic in style. At Le Mans the groined vaulting which
in 1158 was substituted for the original barrel-vault of the cathedral is of very
primitive design, singularly heavy and awkward, although nearly contemporary with
that of Notre Dame (Fig. 118).
DOMICAL GROINED VAULTING. The builders of the South and West, influenced
by Aquitanian models, adhered to the square plan and domical form of vaulting-bay,
even after they had begun to employ groin-ribs. The latter, as at first used by them in
imitation of Northern examples, had no organic function in the vault, which was still
built like a dome. About 1145­1160 the cathedral of St. Maurice at Angers was
vaulted with square, groin-ribbed vaults, domical in form but not in construction.
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The joints no longer described horizontal circles as in a dome, but oblique lines
perpendicular to the groins and meeting in zigzag lines at the ridge (Fig. 119). This
method became common in the West and was afterward generally adopted by the
English architects. The Cathedrals of Poitiers (1162) and Laval (La Trinité, 1180­
1185) are examples of this system, which at Le Mans met with the Northern system
and produced in the cathedral the awkward compromise described above.
FIG. 118.--LE MANS CATHEDRAL. NAVE.
FIG. 119.--GROINED VAULT WITH ZIG-ZAG RIDGE-JOINTS.
a shows a small section of filling with courses parallel to the ridge, for comparison with
the other compartments.
THIRTEENTH-CENTURY VAULTING. Early in the thirteenth century the church-
builders of Northern France abandoned the use of square vaulting-bays and six-part
vaults. By the adoption of groin-ribs and the pointed arch, the building of vaults in
oblong bays was greatly simplified. Each bay of the nave could now be covered with
its own vaulting-bay, thus doing away with all necessity for alternately light and
heavy piers. It is not quite certain when and where this system was first adopted for
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the complete vaulting of a church. It is, however, probable that the Cathedral of
Chartres, begun in 1194 and completed before 1240, deserves this distinction,
although it is possible that the vaults of Soissons and Noyon may slightly antedate it.
Troyes (1170­1267), Rouen (1202­1220), Reims (1212­1242), Auxerre (1215­
1234, nave fourteenth century), Amiens (1220­1288), and nearly all the great
churches and chapels begun after 1200, employ the fully developed oblong vault.
BUTTRESSING. Meanwhile the increasing height of the clearstories and the use of
double aisles compelled the bestowal of especial attention upon the buttressing. The
nave and choir of Chartres, the choirs of Notre Dame, Bourges, Rouen, and Reims,
the chevet and later the choir of St. Denis, afford early examples of the flying-
buttress (Fig. 107). These were at first simple and of moderate height. Single half-
arches spanned the side aisles; in Notre Dame they crossed the double aisles in a
single leap. Later the buttresses were given greater stability by the added weight of
lofty pinnacles. An intermediate range of buttresses and pinnacles was built over the
intermediate piers where double aisles flanked the nave and choir, thus dividing the
single flying arch into two arches. At the same time a careful observation of statical
defects in the earlier examples led to the introduction of subordinate arches and of
other devices to stiffen and to beautify the whole system. At Reims and Amiens
these features received their highest development, though later examples are
frequently much more ornate.
FIG. 120.--ONE BAY, ABBEY OF ST. DENIS.
INTERIOR DESIGN. The progressive change outlined in the last chapter, by which
the wall was practically suppressed, the windows correspondingly enlarged, and
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every part of the structure made loftier and more slender, resulted in the evolution of
a system of interior design well represented by the nave of Amiens. The second story
or gallery over the side aisle disappeared, but the aisle itself was very high. The
triforium was no longer a gallery, but a richly arcaded passage in the thickness of the
wall, corresponding to the roofing-space over the aisle, and generally treated like a
lower stage of the clearstory. Nearly the whole space above it was occupied in each
bay by the vast clearstory window filled with simple but effective geometric tracery
over slender mullions. The side aisles were lighted by windows which, like those in
the clearstory, occupied nearly the whole available wall-space under the vaulting. The
piers and shafts were all clustered and remarkably slender. The whole construction of
this vast edifice, which covers nearly eighty thousand square feet, is a marvel of
lightness, of scientific combinations, and of fine execution. Its great vault rises to a
height of one hundred and forty feet. The nave of St. Denis, though less lofty,
resembles it closely in style (Fig. 120). Earlier cathedrals show less of the harmony of
proportion, the perfect working out of the relation of all parts of the composition of
each bay, so conspicuous in the Amiens type, which was followed in most of the later
churches.
FIG. 121.--THE STE. CHAPELLE, PARIS.
WINDOWS: TRACERY. The clearstory windows of Noyon, Soissons, Sens, and the
choir of Vézelay (1200) were simple arched openings arranged singly, in pairs, or in
threes. In the cathedral of Chartres (1194­1220) they consist of two arched
windows with a circle above them, forming a sort of plate tracery under a single
arch. In the chapel windows of the choir at Reims (1215) the tracery of mullions and
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circles was moulded inside and out, and the intermediate triangular spaces all
pierced and glazed. Rose windows were early used in front and transept façades.
During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries they were made of vast size and great
lightness of tracery, as in the transepts of Notre Dame (1257) and the west front of
Amiens (1288). From the design of these windows is derived the name Rayonnant,
often applied to the French Gothic style of the period 1275­1375.
THE SAINTE CHAPELLE. In this beautiful royal chapel at Paris, built 1242­47,
Gothic design was admirably exemplified in the noble windows 15 by 50 feet in size,
which perhaps furnished the models for those of Amiens and St. Denis. Each was
divided by slender mullions into four lancet-like lights gathered under the rich
tracery of the window-head. They were filled with stained glass of the most brilliant
but harmonious hues. They occupy the whole available wall-space, so that the ribbed
vault internally seems almost to rest on walls of glass, so slender are the visible
supports and so effaced by the glow of color in the windows. Certainly lightness of
construction and the suppression of the wall-masonry could hardly be carried further
than here (Fig. 121). Among other chapels of the same type are those in the palace of
St. Germain-en-Laye (1240), and a later example in the château of Vincennes, begun
by Charles VI., but not finished till 1525.
FIG. 122.--PLAN OF AMIENS CATHEDRAL.
PLANS. The most radical change from the primitive basilican type was, as already
explained in the last chapter, the continuation of the side aisles around the apse to
form a chevet; and later, the addition of chapels between the external buttresses.
Radiating chapels, usually semi-octagons or semi-decagons in plan, early appeared as
additions to the chevet (Fig. 122). These may have originated in the apsidal chapels
of Romanesque churches in Auvergne and the South, as at Issoire, Clermont-Ferrand,
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Le Puy, and Toulouse. They generally superseded the transept-chapels of earlier
churches, and added greatly to the beauty of the interior perspective, especially when
the encircling aisles of the chevet were doubled. Notre Dame, as at first erected, had
a double ambulatory, but no chapels. Bourges has only five very small semicircular
chapels. Chartres (choir 1220) and Le Mans, as reconstructed about the same date,
have double ambulatories and radial chapels. After 1220 the second ambulatory no
longer appears. Noyon, Soissons, Reims, Amiens, Troyes, and Beauvais, Tours,
Bayeux, and Coutances, Clermont, Limoges, and Narbonne all have the single
ambulatory and radiating chevet-chapels. The Lady-chapel in the axis of the church
was often made longer and more important than the other chapels, as at Amiens, Le
Mans, Rouen, Bayeux, and Coutances. Chapels also flanked the choir in most of the
cathedrals named above, and Notre Dame and Tours also have side chapels to the
nave. The only cathedrals with complete double side aisles alike to nave, choir, and
chevet, were Notre Dame and Bourges. It is somewhat singular that the German
cathedral of Cologne is the only one in which all these various characteristic French
features were united in one design (see Fig. 140).
FIG. 123.--PLAN OF
CATHEDRAL OF ALBY.
Local considerations had full sway in France, in spite of the tendency toward unity of
type. Thus Dol, Laon, and Poitiers have square eastward terminations; Châlons has
no ambulatory; Bourges no transept. In Notre Dame the transept was almost
suppressed. At Soissons one transept, at Noyon both, had semicircular ends. Alby,
a late cathedral of brick, founded in 1280, but mostly built during the fourteenth
century, has neither side aisles nor transepts, its wide nave being flanked by chapels
separated by internal buttresses (Fig. 123).
SCALE. The French cathedrals were nearly all of imposing dimensions. Noyon, one
of the smallest, is 333 feet long; Sens measures 354. Laon, Bourges, Troyes, Notre
Dame, Le Mans, Rouen, and Chartres vary from 396 to 437 feet in extreme length;
Reims measures 483, and Amiens, the longest of all, 521 feet. Notre Dame is 124
feet wide across the five aisles of the nave; Bourges, somewhat wider. The central
aisles of these two cathedrals, and of Laon, Amiens, and Beauvais, have a span of not
far from 40 feet from centre to centre of the piers; while the ridge of the vaulting,
which in Notre Dame is 108 feet above the pavement, and in Bourges 125, reaches
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in Amiens a height of 140 feet, and of nearly 160 in Beauvais. This emphasis of the
height, from 3 to 3½ times the clear width of the nave or choir, is one of the most
striking features of the French cathedrals. It produces an impressive effect, but tends
to dwarf the great width of the central aisle.
FIG. 124.--WEST FRONT OF NOTRE DAME, PARIS.
EXTERIOR DESIGN. Here, as in the interior, every feature had its constructive
raison d'être, and the total effect was determined by the fundamental structural
scheme. This was especially true of the lateral elevations, in which the pinnacled
buttresses, the flying arches, and the traceried windows of the side aisle and
clearstory, repeated uniformly at each bay, were the principal elements of the design.
The transept façades and main front allowed greater scope for invention and fancy,
but even here the interior membering gave the key to the composition. Strong
buttresses marked the division of the aisles and resisted the thrust of the terminal
pier arches, and rose windows filled the greater part of the wall space under the end
of the lofty vaulting. The whole structure was crowned by a steep-pitched roof of
wood, covered with lead, copper, or tiles, to protect the vault from damage by snow
and moisture. This roof occasioned the steep gables which crowned the transept and
main façades. The main front was frequently adorned, above the triple portal, with a
gallery of niches or tabernacles filled with statues of kings. Different types of
composition are represented by Chartres, Notre Dame, Amiens, Reims, and Rouen, of
which Notre Dame (Fig. 124) and Reims are perhaps the finest. Notre Dame is
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especially remarkable for its stately simplicity and the even balancing of horizontal
and vertical elements.
FIG. 125.--WEST FRONT OF ST. MACLOU, ROUEN.
PORCHES. In most French church façades the porches were the most striking
features, with their deep shadows and sculptured arches. The Romanesque porches
were usually limited in depth to the thickness of the front wall. The Gothic builders
secured increased depth by projecting the portals out beyond the wall, and crowned
them with elaborate gables. The vast central door was divided in two by a pier
adorned with a niche and statue. Over this the tympanum of the arch was carved
with scriptural reliefs; the jambs and arches were profusely adorned with figures of
saints, apostles, martyrs, and angels, under elaborate canopies. The porches of Laon,
Bourges, Amiens, and Reims are especially deep and majestic in effect, the last-
named (built 1380) being the richest of all. Some of the transept façades also had
imposing portals. Those of Chartres (1210­1245) rank among the finest works of
Gothic decorative architecture, the south porch in some respects surpassing that of
the north transept. The portals of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries were
remarkable for the extraordinary richness and minuteness of their tracery and
sculpture, as at Abbeville, Alençon, the cathedral and St. Maclou at Rouen (Fig.
125), Tours, Troyes, Vendôme, etc.
TOWERS AND SPIRES. The emphasizing of vertical elements reached its fullest
expression in the towers and spires of the churches. What had been at first merely a
lofty belfry roof was rapidly developed into the spire, rising three hundred feet or
more into the air. This development had already made progress in the Romanesque
period, and the south spire of Chartres is a notable example of late twelfth-century
steeple design. The transition from the square tower to the slender octagonal pyramid
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was skilfully effected by means of corner pinnacles and dormers. During and after
the thirteenth century the development was almost wholly in the direction of
richness and complexity of detail, not of radical constructive modification. The
northern spire of Chartres (1515) and the spires of Bordeaux, Coutances, Senlis, and
the Flamboyant church of St. Maclou at Rouen, illustrate this development. In
Normandy central spires were common, rising over the crossing of nave and
transepts. In some cases the designers of cathedrals contemplated a group of towers;
this is evident at Chartres, Coutances, and Reims. This intention was, however,
never realized; it demanded resources beyond even the enthusiasm of the thirteenth
century. Only in rare instances were the spires of any of the towers completed, and
the majority of the French towers have square terminations, with low-pitched
wooden roofs, generally invisible from below. In general, French towers are marked
by their strong buttresses, solid lower stories, twin windows in each side of the
belfry proper--these windows being usually of great size--and a skilful management
of the transition to an octagonal plan for the belfry or the spire.
CARVING AND SCULPTURE. The general superiority of French Gothic work was
fully maintained in its decorative details. Especially fine is the figure sculpture,
which in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries attained true nobility of expression,
combined with great truthfulness and delicacy of execution. Some of its finest
productions are found in the great doorway jambs of the west portals of the
cathedrals, and in the ranks of throned and adoring angels which adorned their deep
arches. These reach their highest beauty in the portals of Reims (1380). The
tabernacles or carved niches in which such statues were set were important elements
in the decoration of the exteriors of churches.
FIG. 126.--FRENCH GOTHIC CAPITALS.
a, From Sainte Chapelle, Paris, 13th century. b, 14th-century capital from transept of
Notre Dame, Paris. c, 15th-century capital from north spire of Chartres.
Foliage forms were used for nearly all the minor carved ornaments, though grotesque
and human figures sometimes took their place. The gargoyles through which the roof-
water was discharged clear of the building, were almost always composed in the form
of hideous monsters; and symbolic beasts, like the oxen in the towers of Laon, or
monsters like those which peer from the tower balustrades of Notre Dame, were
employed with some mystical significance in various parts of the building. But the
capitals corbels, crockets, and finials were mostly composed of floral or foliage
forms. Those of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were for the most part simple in
mass, and crisp and vigorous in design, imitating the strong shoots of early spring.
The capitals were tall and slender, concave in profile, with heavy square or octagonal
abaci. With the close of the thirteenth century this simple and forcible style of detail
disappeared. The carving became more realistic; the leaves, larger and more mature,
were treated as if applied to the capital or moulding, not as if they grew out of it.
The execution and detail were finer and more delicate, in harmony with the
increasing slenderness and lightness of the architecture (Fig. 126 a, b). Tracery
forms now began to be profusely applied to all manner of surfaces, and open-work
gables, wholly unnecessary from the structural point of view, but highly effective as
decorations, adorned the portals and crowned the windows.
LATE GOTHIC MONUMENTS. So far our attention has been mainly occupied with
the masterpieces erected previous to 1250. Among the cathedrals, relatively few in
number, whose construction is referable to the second half of the century, that of
Beauvais stands first in importance. Designed on a colossal scale, its foundations
were laid in 1225, but it was never completed, and the portion built--the choir and
chapels--belonged really to the second half of the century, having been completed in
1270. But the collapse in 1284 of the central tower and vaulting of this incomplete
cathedral, owing to the excessive loftiness and slenderness of its supports, compelled
its entire reconstruction, the number of the piers being doubled and the span of the
pier arches correspondingly reduced. As thus rebuilt, the cathedral aisle was 47 feet
wide from centre to centre of opposite piers, and 163 feet high to the top of the
vault. Transepts were added after 1500. Limoges and Narbonne, begun in 1272 on
a large scale (though not equal in size to Beauvais), were likewise never completed.
Both had choirs of admirable plan, with well-designed chevet-chapels. Many other
cathedrals begun during this period were completed only after long delays, as, for
instance, Meaux, Rodez (1277), Toulouse (1272), and Alby (1282), finished in the
sixteenth century, and Clermont (1248), completed under Napoleon III. But between
1260 or 1275 and 1350, work was actively prosecuted on many still incomplete
cathedrals. The choirs of Beauvais (rebuilding), Limoges, and Narbonne were finished
after 1330; and towers, transept-façades, portals, and chapels added to many others
of earlier date.
The style of this period is sometimes designated as Rayonnant, from the
characteristic wheel tracery of the rose-windows, and the prevalence of circular forms
in the lateral arched windows, of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.
The great rose windows in the transepts of Notre Dame, dating from 1257, are
typical examples of the style. Those of Rouen cathedral belong to the same category,
though of later date. The façade of Amiens, completed by 1288, is one of the finest
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works of this style, of which an early example is the elaborate parish church of St.
Urbain at Troyes.
THE FLAMBOYANT STYLE. The geometric treatment of the tracery and the minute
and profuse decoration of this period gradually merged into the fantastic and
unrestrained extravagances of the Flamboyant style, which prevailed until the advent
of the Renaissance--say 1525. The continuous logical development of forms ceased,
and in its place caprice and display controlled the arts of design. The finest
monument of this long period is the fifteenth-century nave and central tower of the
church of St. Ouen at Rouen, a parish church of the first rank, begun in 1318, but
not finished until 1515. The tracery of the lateral windows is still chiefly geometric,
but the western rose window (Fig. 112) and the magnificent central tower or lantern,
exhibit in their tracery the florid decoration and wavy, flame-like lines of this style.
Slenderness of supports and the suppression of horizontal lines are here carried to an
extreme; and the church, in spite of its great elegance of detail, lacks the vital
interest and charm of the earlier Gothic churches. The cathedral of Alençon and the
church of St. Maclou at Rouen, have portals with unusually elaborate detail of
tracery and carving; while the façade of Rouen cathedral (1509) surpasses all other
examples in the lace-like minuteness of its open-work and its profusion of ornament.
The churches of St. Jacques at Dieppe, and of St. Wulfrand at Abbeville, the façades
of Tours and Troyes, are among the masterpieces of the style. The upper part of the
façade of Reims (1380­1428) belongs to the transition from the Rayonnant to the
Flamboyant. While some works of this period are conspicuous for the richness of
their ornamentation, others are noticeably bare and poor in design, like St. Merri and
St. Séverin in Paris.
SECULAR AND MONASTIC ARCHITECTURE. The building of cathedrals did not
absorb all the architectural activity of the French during the Gothic period, nor did it
by any means put an end to monastic building. While there are few Gothic cloisters
to equal the Romanesque cloisters of Puy-en-Vélay, Montmajour, Elne, and Moissac,
many of the abbeys either rebuilt their churches in the Gothic style after 1150, or
extended and remodelled their conventual buildings. The cloisters of Fontfroide,
Chaise-Dieu, and the Mont St. Michel rival those of Romanesque times, while many
new refectories and chapels were built in the same style with the cathedrals. The
most complete of these Gothic monastic establishments, that of the Mont St. Michel
in Normandy, presented a remarkable aggregation of buildings clustering around the
steep isolated rock on which stands the abbey church. This was built in the eleventh
century, and the choir and chapels remodelled in the sixteenth. The great refectory
and dormitory, the cloisters, lodgings, and chapels, built in several vaulted stories
against the cliffs, are admirable examples of the vigorous pointed-arch design of the
early thirteenth century.
Hospitals like that of St. Jean at Angers (late twelfth century), or those of Chartres,
Ourscamps, Tonnerre, and Beaune, illustrate how skilfully the French could modify
and adapt the details of their architecture to the special requirements of civil
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architecture. Great numbers of charitable institutions were built in the middle ages--
asylums, hospitals, refuges, and the like--but very few of those in France are now
extant. Town halls were built in the fifteenth century in some places where a certain
amount of popular independence had been secured. The florid fifteenth-century
Palais de Justice at Rouen (1499­1508) is an example of another branch of secular
Gothic architecture. In all these monuments the adaptation of means to ends is
admirable. Wooden ceilings and roofs replaced stone, wherever required by great
width of span or economy of construction. There was little sculpture; the wall-spaces
were not suppressed in favor of stained glass and tracery; while the roofs were
usually emphasized and adorned with elaborate crestings and finials in lead or terra-
cotta.
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. These same principles controlled the designing of
houses, farm buildings, barns, granaries, and the like. The common closely-built
French city house of the twelfth and thirteenth century is illustrated by many extant
examples at Cluny, Provins, and other towns. A shop opening on the street by a large
arch, a narrow stairway, and two or three stories of rooms lighted by clustered,
pointed-arched windows, constituted the common type. The street front was usually
gabled and the roof steep. In the fourteenth or fifteenth century half-timbered
construction began to supersede stone for town houses, as it permitted of
encroaching upon the street by projecting the upper stories. Many of the half-
timbered houses of the fifteenth century were of elaborate design. The heavy oaken
uprights were carved with slender colonnettes; the horizontal sills, bracketed out
over the street, were richly moulded; picturesque dormers broke the sky-line, and the
masonry filling between the beams was frequently faced with enamelled tiles.
FIG. 127.--HOUSE OF JACQUES COEUR, BOURGES.
(After Viollet-le-Duc.)
The more considerable houses or palaces of royalty, nobles, and wealthy citizens
rivalled, and in time surpassed, the monastic buildings in richness and splendor. The
earlier examples retain the military aspect, with moat and donjon, as in the Louvre of
Charles V., demolished in the sixteenth century. The finest palaces are of late date,
and the type is well represented by the Ducal Palace at Nancy (1476), the Hotel de
Cluny (1485) at Paris, the Hotel Jacques Coeur at Bourges (Fig. 127), and the east
wing of Blois (1498­1515). These palaces are not only excellently and liberally
planned, with large halls, many staircases, and handsome courts; they are also
extremely picturesque with their square and circular towers, slender turrets,
elaborate dormers, and rich carved detail.
MONUMENTS: (C. = cathedral; A. = abbey; trans. = transept; each edifice is given
under the date of its commencement; subsequent alterations in parentheses.) Between
1130 and 1200: Vézelay A., ante-chapel, 1130; St. Germer-de-Fly C., 1130­1150
(chapel later); St. Denis A., choir, 1140 (choir rebuilt, nave and trans., 1240); Sens C.,
1140­68 (W. front, 13th century; chapels, spire, 14th); Senlis C., 1145­83 (trans.,
spire, 13th century); Noyon C., 1149­1200 (W. front, vaults, 13th century); St.
Germain-des-Prés A., Paris, choir, 1150 (Romanesque nave); Angers C., 1150 (choir,
trans., 1274); Langres, 1150­1200; Laon C., 1150­1200; Le Mans C., nave, 1150­58
(choir, 1217­54); Soissons C., 1160­70 (choir, 1212; nave chapels, 14th century);
Poitiers C., 1162­1204; Notre Dame, Paris, choir, 1163­96 (nave, W. front finished,
1235; trans. fronts, and chapels, 1257­75); Chartres C., W. end, 1170; rest, mainly
1194­98 (trans. porches, W. rose, 1210­1260; N. spire, 1506); Tours C., 1170
(rebuilt, 1267; trans., portals, 1375; W. portals, chapels, 15th century; towers finished,
1507­47); Laval C., 1180­85 (choir, 16th century); Mantes, church Notre Dame,
1180­1200; Bourges C., 1190­95 (E. end, 1210; W. end, 1275); St. Nicholas at Caen,
1190 (vaults, 15th century); Reims, church St. Rémy, choir, end of 12th century
(Romanesque nave); church St. Leu d'Esserent, choir late 12th century (nave, 13th
century); Lyons C., choir, end of 12th century (nave, 13th and 14th centuries); Etampes,
church Notre Dame, 12th and 13th centuries.--13th century: Evreux C., 1202­75
(trans., central tower, 1417; W. front rebuilt, 16th century); Rouen C., 1202­20 (trans.
portals, 1280; W. front, 1507); Nevers, 1211, N. portal, 1280 (chapels, S. portal, 15th
century); Reims C., 1212­42 (W. front, 1380; W. towers, 1420); Bayonne C., 1213
(nave, vaults, W. portal, 14th century); Troyes C., choir, 1214 (central tower, nave,
W. portal, and towers, 15th century); Auxerre C., 1215­34 (nave, W. end, trans., 14th
century); Amiens C., 1220­88; St. Etienne at Chalons-sur-Marne, 1230 (spire, 1520);
Séez C., 1230, rebuilt 1260 (remodelled 14th century); Notre Dame de Dijon, 1230;
Reims, Lady chapel of Archbishop's palace, 1230; Chapel Royal at St. Germain-en-Laye,
1240; Ste. Chapelle at Paris, 1242­47 (W. rose, 15th century); Coutances C., 1254­74;
Beauvais C., 1247­72 (rebuilt 1337­47; trans. portals, 1500­48); Notre Dame de
Grace at Clermont, 1248 (finished 1350); Dôl C., 13th century; St. Martin-des-Champs
at Paris, nave 13th century (choir Romanesque); Bordeaux C., 1260; Narbonne C.,
1272­1320; Limoges, 1273 (finished 16th century); St. Urbain, Troyes, 1264;
Rodez C., 1277­1385 (altered, completed 16th century); church St. Quentin, 1280­
1300; St. Benigne at Dijon, 1280­91; Alby C., 1282 (nave, 14th; choir, 15th century;
S. portal, 1473­1500); Meaux C., mainly rebuilt 1284 (W. end much altered 15th,
finished 16th century); Cahors C., rebuilt 1285­93 (W. front, 15th century); Orléans,
1287­1328 (burned, rebuilt 1601­1829).--14th century: St. Bertrand de Comminges,
img
......
1304­50; St. Nazaire at Carcassonne, choir and trans. on Romanesque nave;
Montpellier C., 1364; St. Ouen at Rouen, choir, 1318­39 (trans., 1400­39; nave,
1464­91; W. front, 1515); Royal Chapel at Vincennes, 1385 (?)-1525.--15th and 16th
century: St. Nizier at Lyons rebuilt; St. Séverin, St. Merri, St. Germain l'Auxerrois, all at
Paris; Notre Dame de l'Epine at Chalons-sur-Marne; choir of St. Etienne at Beauvais;
Saintes C., rebuilt, 1450; St. Maclou at Rouen (finished 16th century); church at Brou;
St. Wulfrand at Abbeville; abbey of St. Riquier--these three all early 16th century.--
HOUSES, CASTLES, AND PALACES: Bishop's palace at Paris, 1160 (demolished); castle of
Coucy, 1220­30; Louvre at Paris (the original château), 1225­1350; Palais de Justice at
Paris, originally the royal residence, 1225­1400; Bishop's palace at Laon, 1245
(addition to Romanesque hall); castle Montargis, 13th century; castle Pierrefonds,
Bishop's palace at Narbonnne, palace of Popes at Avignon--all 14th century; donjon of
palace at Poitiers, 1395; Hôtel des Ambassadeurs at Dijon, 1420; house of Jacques Coeur
at Bourges, 1443; Palace, Dijon, 1467; Ducal palace at Nancy, 1476; Hôtel Cluny at
Paris, 1490; castle of Creil, late 15th century, finished in 16th; E. wing palace of Blois,
1498­1515, for Louis XII.; Palace de Justice at Rouen, 1499­1508.
20.  Consult  especially  articles  ARCHITECTURE,
CATHÉDRALE,
CHAPELLE,
CONSTRUCTION, ÉGLISE, MAISON, VOÛTE.
21. Dictionnaire raisonné de l'architecture française, vol. ii., pp. 280, 281.
22. See Ferree, Chronology of Cathedral Churches of France.
23. This cathedral will be hereafter referred to, for the sake of brevity, by the name
of Notre Dame. Other cathedrals having the same name will be distinguished by the
addition of the name of the city, as "Notre Dame at Clermont-Ferrand."
Table of Contents:
  1. PRIMITIVE AND PREHISTORIC ARCHITECTURE:EARLY BEGINNINGS
  2. EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE:LAND AND PEOPLE, THE MIDDLE EMPIRE
  3. EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE—Continued:TEMPLES, CAPITALS
  4. CHALDÆAN AND ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE:ORNAMENT, MONUMENTS
  5. PERSIAN, LYCIAN AND JEWISH ARCHITECTURE:Jehovah
  6. GREEK ARCHITECTURE:GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS, THE DORIC
  7. GREEK ARCHITECTURE—Continued:ARCHAIC PERIOD, THE TRANSITION
  8. ROMAN ARCHITECTURE:LAND AND PEOPLE, GREEK INFLUENCE
  9. ROMAN ARCHITECTURE—Continued:IMPERIAL ARCHITECTURE
  10. EARLY CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE:INTRODUCTORY, RAVENNA
  11. BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE:DOMES, DECORATION, CARVED DETAILS
  12. SASSANIAN AND MOHAMMEDAN ARCHITECTURE:ARABIC ARCHITECTURE
  13. EARLY MEDIÆVAL ARCHITECTURE:LOMBARD STYLE, FLORENCE
  14. EARLY MEDIÆVAL ARCHITECTURE.—Continued:EARLY CHURCHES, GREAT BRITAIN
  15. GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE:STRUCTURAL PRINCIPLES, RIBBED VAULTING
  16. GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE:STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT
  17. GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN GREAT BRITAIN:GENERAL CHARACTER
  18. GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN GERMANY, THE NETHERLANDS, AND SPAIN
  19. GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY:CLIMATE AND TRADITION, EARLY BUILDINGS.
  20. EARLY RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY:THE CLASSIC REVIVAL, PERIODS
  21. RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY—Continued:BRAMANTE’S WORKS
  22. RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE:THE TRANSITION, CHURCHES
  23. RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN GREAT BRITAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS
  24. RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN GERMANY, SPAIN, AND PORTUGAL
  25. THE CLASSIC REVIVALS IN EUROPE:THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
  26. RECENT ARCHITECTURE IN EUROPE:MODERN CONDITIONS, FRANCE
  27. ARCHITECTURE IN THE UNITED STATES:GENERAL REMARKS, DWELLINGS
  28. ORIENTAL ARCHITECTURE:INTRODUCTORY NOTE, CHINESE ARCHITECTURE
  29. APPENDIX.