How France Built Her Cathedrals Part 1

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t.i.tle: How France Built Her Cathedrals A Study in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

Author: Elizabeth Boyle O'Reilly

Ill.u.s.trator: A. Paul de Leslie

Release Date: December 22, 2012 [EBook #41687]

Language: English

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Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive)

How France Built Her Cathedrals

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _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 _Societe Francaise d'Archeologie_

_Author of_ "Heroic Spain" Etc.

_Ill.u.s.trated With Drawings By_

A. PAUL DE LESLIE

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 cla.s.sic 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 mediaeval archaeology.

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. etienne, 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 gla.s.smaking, 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 Peguy's verses, linking St. Denis, St. Genevieve, 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 facades 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 gla.s.s.

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 sh.e.l.led by the French, but its cathedral unhurt.