CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL
FROM A DRAWING BY A. BRUNET-DEBAINES
e.
GOTHIC
ARCHITECTURE
BY
EDOUARD CORROYER
" i
ARCHITECT TO THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT AND INSPECTOR
OF DIOCESAN EDIFICES
EDITED BY
WALTER ARMSTRONG
DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF IRELAND
With Two Hundred and Thirty-Six Illustrations
NEW YORK
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1893
EDITOR'S PREFACE
THE following pages, which have been translated
under my supervision by Miss Florence Simmonds,
give such an account of the birth and evolution of
Gothic Architecture as may be considered sufficient
for a handbook. Mons. Corroyer writes, indeed,
from a thoroughly French standpoint.' He is
apt to believe that everything admirable in Gothic
architecture had a Gallic origin. Vexed questions
of priority, such as that attaching to the choir of
Lincoln, he dismisses with a phrase, while the larger
question of French influence generally in these islands
of ours, he solves by the simple process of referring
every creation which takes his fancy either to a
French master or a French example, here coming,
be it said, into occasional collision with his own stock
authority, the late Mons. Viollet - le - due. The
Chauvinistic tone thus given to his pages may be
regretted, but, when all is said, it does not greatly
affect their value as a picture of Gothic development.
Mons. Corroyer confines himself in the main to broad
vi Gothic Architecture
principles. He travels along the line of evolution,
pointing out how material conditions and discoveries,
and their consequent social changes, brought about
one development after another in the forms and
methods of the architect. In a treatise so conceived,
the fact that the field of observation is practically
restricted to France, the few excursions beyond her
frontier being made rather with a view to displaying
the extent of her influence than with any desire for
catholicity of grasp, is of no great moment. The
English reader for whom this translation is intended,
will get as clear a notion of how Gothic, as he knows
it, came into being, as he would from a more universal
survey, while he has the advantage of some echo,
at least, of the vivacity, which inspires a Frenchman
when his theme is " one of the Glories of France."
W. A.
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION . . . . i
PART I
RELIGIOUS ARCHITECTURE
CHAP.
1. THE INFLUENCE OF THE CUPOLA UPON SO-CALLED
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE . -. . .11
2. THE ORIGIN OF THE INTERSECTING ARCH . . 16
3. THE FIRST VAULTS ON INTERSECTING ARCHES . 24
4. BUILDINGS VAULTED ON INTERSECTING ARCHES . 32
5. THE ORIGIN OF THE FLYING BUTTRESS. . 41
6. CHURCHES AND CATHEDRALS OF THE TWELFTH AND
FOURTEENTH CENTURIES . .51
7. CATHEDRALS OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY . . 67
8. CATHEDRALS AND CHURCHES FROM THE TWELFTH TO~ -
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY . ^ . 85
9. CHURCHES OF THE FOURTEENTH) AND FIFTEENTH
CENTURIES IN FRANCE AND I-N-THE EAST . . 105
10. TOWERS AND BELFRIES— CHOIRS — CHAPELS . 128
11. SCULPTURE .... 153
12. PAINTING ....... 179
Gothic Architecture
PART II
MONASTIC ARCHITECTURE
CHAP. PAGE
1. ORIGIN ....... 205
2. ABBEYS OF CLUNY, CITEAUX, AND CLAIRVAUX . 215
3. ABBEYS AND CHARTREUSES OR CARTHUSIAN MONAS-
TERIES ....... 227
4. FORTIFIED ABBEYS ..... 247
PART III
MILITARY ARCHITECTURE
1. RAMPARTS OF TOWNS ..... 269
2. CASTLES AND KEEPS . ... 291
3. GATES AND BRIDGES ... . 309
PART IV
CIVIL ARCHITECTURE
1. BARNS, HOSPITALS, HOUSES, AND "HOTELS" OR TOWN-
HOUSES OF THE NOBILITY .... 333
2. TOWN-HALLS, BELFRIES, AND PALACES . . . 360
ILLUSTRATIONS
Canterbury Cathedral. By A. Brunet-Debaines . Frontispiece
FIG. PAGE
1. Plan of a cupola of the Abbey Church of St. Front at
Perigueux . .. ••-.- ' "" . ' . • 1 7
2. Pendentive of a cupola of the Abbey Church of St. Front at
Perigueux . . . . . I y?v 18
3. Diagonal section of a pendentive . ,'» . s » 19
4. Plan of a cupola of Angouleme or Fontevrault . ; v> - 20
5. Section of a bay of the cupolas of Angouleme . .*' 20
6. Section of a bay in the Church of St. Avit-Senieur . . 21
7. Plan of vault on intersecting arches . * .' . 21
8. Section of an intersecting arch , . . 22
9. Plan of a bay in the nave of St. Maurice at Angers . . 24
10. Transverse section of the nave of St. Maurice at Angers . 25
1 1. Plan of a bay of the nave. Ste. Trinite, Laval . . 26
12. Section of two bays of the nave. Ste. Trinite, Laval v 27
13. 14. Comparative sections of Churches of Angouleme- and
Angers . • . - . . . . . 28
15. View in perspective of nave vault. St. Maurice at Angers . 29
1 6. Plan of a summer of the nave vault. Ste. Trinite, Laval . 30
17. Plan of one of the nave piers. Ste. Trinite, Laval . . 30
1 8. Plan of the nave, St. Maurice, Angers .i. • . . 33
19. Plan of La Ste. Trinite, Angers . .. . -34
20. Section of a bay. Ste. Trinite, Angers .. . . 35
21. Transverse section of a bay. Ste. Trinite, Angers . . 37
22. Section of a single-aisled Church vaulted on intersecting
arches with buttresses . . ... .38
x Gothic Architecture
FIG. PAGE
23. Section of a three-aisled Church vaulted on intersecting
arches with flying buttresses . . . -39
24. Durham Cathedral. Transverse sections . . .43
25. Abbey Church at Noyon. Plan . . . .44
26. Transverse section of Noyon Church . . .45
27. Church of Tournai, Belgium. Exterior view of north transept
towards the Scheldt ..... 46
28. Monastery Church at Moissac. Vault of the hall known as
the Salle des Capitaines above the porch . . .47
29. Church of Tournai, Belgium. Interior of north transept . 47
30. Soissons Cathedral, south transept. Section of flying
buttress . . . . . .48
31. Perspective view of south transept, Soissons Cathedral . 49
32. Cathedral of Laon. Plan . . . . .52
33. Cathedral of Laon. Interior of the nave . . .54
34. Cathedral of Laon. Main fa9ade . . . -55
35. Cathedral of Laon. The east end . . . -57
36. Cathedral of Laon. Section of the nave . . .58
37. Notre Dame de Paris. Plan . . . -59
38. Notre Dame de Paris. Section of the nave . . 60
39. Notre Dame de Paris. Flying buttresses and south tower . 61
40. Sens Cathedral. Plan of a bay . . . .62
41. Sens Cathedral. Section of a bay of the nave . . 63
42. Sens Cathedral. Interior ..... 64
43. Bourges Cathedral. Section of the nave . . .'65
44. Rheims Cathedral. Plan ..... 68
45. Rheims Cathedral. Section of the nave . . .70
46. Rheims Cathedral. Flying buttresses of the choir . . 71
47. Amiens Cathedral. Plan . . . . " 72
48. Amiens Cathedral. Section through the nave . . 73
49. Beauvais Cathedral. Apse . . . . -75
50. Beauvais Cathedral. North front . . . .76
51. Beauvais Cathedral. Transverse section . . -77
.52. Chartres Cathedral. Rose window of north transept . 78
53. Mans Cathedral. Plan ..... 80
54. Mans Cathedral. Flying buttresses of the apse . . 81
Illustrations xi
FIG. PAGE
55. Mans Cathedral. Section of the choir . . .82
56. Coutances Cathedral. North tower . . .83
57. Rodez Cathedral. West front . . . .86
58. Bordeaux Cathedral. Choir and north front . . 87
59. Lichfield Cathedral. West front . . . .88
60. Lincoln Cathedral. Plan . . . . 91
6 1. Lincoln Cathedral. West front . . . .92
62. Lincoln Cathedral. Transept . . . .94
63. Lincoln Cathedral. Apse and chapter-house . . 95
64. Brussels Cathedral (Ste. Gudule). West front . . 97
65. Cologne Cathedral. South front . . . .99
66. Burgos Cathedral. West front . . . 101
67. Cathedral or Duomo of Siena. West front . . 102
68. Church of St. Francis at Assisi. Apse and cloisters . 103
69. Church of St. Ouen at Rouen. Central tower and apse,
south front . . . . . .106
70. Albi Cathedral. Plan . . . . .108
71. Albi Cathedral. Section of the nave . . in
72. Albi Cathedral. Apse . . . . 113
73. Albi Cathedral. Donjon tower and south front . .114
74. Church of Esnandes. A fortified church . . . Il6
75. Abbey of Mont St. Michel. Flying buttresses of the
choir . . . . . . .118
76. Abbey of Mont St. Michel. Plan of the choir . .119
77. Abbey of Mont St. Michel. Details of the apse . . 120
78. Alen9on Cathedral. West front . . . .122
79. Fa9ade of the Cathedral of St. Sophia. Island of Cyprus 123
80. Cathedral of St. Nicholas. Island of Cyprus . .124
8 1. Cathedral of St. Nicholas. Island of Cyprus . . 126
82. Church of St. Sophia. Island of Cyprus. Ruins . .127
83. Steeple, Vendome . . . . . .129
84. Giotto's Tower at Florence . . . . .130
85. Bayeux Cathedral. Towers of the west front . .132
86. Senlis Cathedral. South tower of west front . . 133
87. Salisbury Cathedral. Steeple . . . 135
88. Church of Langrune (Calvados). Steeple . . .136
xii Gothic Architecture
FIG. PAGE
89. Church of the Jacobins at Toulouse. Tower . 138
90. Church of St. Pierre at Caen. Tower . . .140
91. Church of St. Michel at Bordeaux. Tower . . 141
92. Cathedral of Freiburg-im-Breisgau . . . . 142
93. Antwerp Cathedral . . . . .143
94. Rheims Cathedral. Statues of west front . . .154
95. Rheims Cathedral. Statues of west front . . 155
96. Rheims Cathedral. Statues of west front . . .156
97. Rheims Cathedral. Principal door. Statue and ornament 157
98. Rheims Cathedral. Principal door. Statue and ornament 158
99. Notre Dame de Paris. Principal door. Running leaf pattern 159
100. Notre Dame de Paris. Principal door. Running leaf pattern 160
101. Chartres Cathedral. Statues of north porch . . 161
102. Chartres Cathedral. Statues of south porch . . 162
103. Amiens Cathedral. Central porch of west front . . 163
104. Amiens Cathedral. Statues in the south porch . .164
105. Amiens Cathedral. Choir stalls. Carved ornament . 165
106. Abbey of Mont St. Michel. Ornament of cloisters . 166
107. Wooden Statuette (thirteenth century). Ateliers of La
Chaise Dieu, Auvergne ..... 167
108. io8a. Two ivory statuettes. School of Paris . 168, 169
109. Wooden Statuette (fourteenth century). School of Paris . 170
no, iio#. Two ivory diptychs (fourteenth century). School
of the Ile-de-France . . . . .171
111. ilia. Ivory diptych and plaque (fourteenth century).
School of the Ile-de-France . . . 172,173
112. Head in silver gilt repousse. Ateliers of the Goldsmith's
Guild of Paris . . . . . .174
113. Group carved in wood (fifteenth century). School of
Antwerp . . . . . . .175
114. Wooden statuette, painted and gilded (fifteenth century) . 176
115. Wooden statuette, painted and gilded (sixteenth century) . 177
116. Paintings in Cahors Cathedral. Horizontal projection of
the cupola . . . . . .180
117. Paintings in Cahors Cathedral. One of the prophets in the
cupola ....... 182
Illustrations xiii
FIG. PAGE
1 1 8. Paintings in Cahors Cathedral. Fragment of central frieze
of cupola ....... 184
119, 120. Painted windows of the early twelfth century. From
St. Remi, Rheims . . . . . 187
121. Painted window of the twelfth century. Church of
Bonlieu, Creuse . . . . . .188
122. Painted window of the thirteenth century. Chartres
Cathedral . . . . . .189
123. Painted window of the thirteenth century. Chartres
Cathedral . . . . . .190
124. Painted window of the thirteenth century. Church of St.
Germer, Troyes . . . . . .191
125. Painted windows of the fourteenth century. Church of St.
Urbain, Troyes . . . . . 193
126. Painted glass of the fourteenth century. Cathedral of
Chalons-sur-Marne ..... 194
127. Painted window of the fifteenth century. Evreux Cathedral 195
128. Enamel of the eleventh century. Plaque cover of a MS. . 196
129. Enamel of the thirteenth century. Plaque cover of an
Evangelium . . . . . . 198
130. Enamel of the twelfth century. Reliquary shrine of St.
Thomas a Becket . . . . 199
131. Enamel of the sixteenth century. Our Lady of Sorrows . 200
132. Abbey of Mont St. Michel. Cloister (thirteenth century) 206
133. Abbey of Cluny. Gateway .... 216
134. Abbey of Cluny. Plan ..... 219
135. Abbey of Cluny. Door of the Abbey Church . .221
136. Abbey of St. Etienne at Caen. Fafade . . . ' 228
137. St. Alban's Abbey (England) .... 230
138. Abbey of Montmaj our. Cloisters .... 231
139. Abbey of Elne. Cloisters. .... 232
140. Abbey of Fontfroide. Cloisters .... 233
141. Abbey of Maulbronn (Wurtemberg). Plan . . 235
142. Abbey of Fontevrault. Kitchen .... 236
143. Cathedra] of Puy-en-Velay. Cloisters . . . 237
144. Abbey of La Chaise Dieu (Auvergne). Cloisters . . 239
145. Chartreuse of Villefranche de Rouergue. Plan . . 242
xiv Gothic Architecture
PAGE
146. Chartreuse of Villefranche de Rouergue. Bird's-eye view . 243
147. Grande Chartreuse. The Great Cloister . . . 244
148. Grande Chartreuse. General View . . . 245
149. Abbey of Mont St. Michel. General View . . 248
150. Abbey of Mont St. Michel. Plan at the level of the
entrance ....... 249
151. Abbey of Mont St. Michel. Plan at the level of the
lower church . . . . . .250
152. Abbey of Mont St. Michel. Plan at the level of the
upper church ...... 252
153. Abbey of Mont St. Michel. Section from north to south . 253
154. Abbey of Mont St. Michel. Section from west to east . 254
155. Abbey of Mont St. Michel. Crypt known as the Galerie
de V Aquilon . . . . . .256
156. Abbey of Mont St. Michel. North front . . . 257
157. Abbey of Mont St. Michel. The almonry . . 258
158. Abbey of Mont St. Michel. A tympanum of the cloisters . 259
159. Abbey of Mont St. Michel. The cellar . . . 260
1 60. Abbey of Mont St. Michel.' Refectory . . . 262
161. Abbey of Mont St. Michel. Hall of the knights . . 263
162. St. Michael's Mount, Cornwall .... 264
163. Abbey of Mont St. Michel. Gate-house . . . 270
164. City of Carcassonne. South-east ramparts . . 273
165. City of Carcassonne. North-west ramparts . . 274
1 66. Fortress of Kalaat-el-Hosn. Section . . .277
i66a. Fortress of Kalaat-el-Hosn. General view . . 278
167. City of Carcassonne. Plan of the thirteenth century . 279
168. City of Carcassonne. Ramparts, south-west angle . 280
169. Ramparts of Aigues-Mortes, north and south . . '281
1 70. Ramparts of Avignon. Curtain and towers . . 282
170^. Machicolations ...... 283
171. Ramparts of St. Malo ..... 284
172. Mont St. Michel.. South front .... 287
173. Mont St. Michel. As restored on paper . . . 288
1 74. Castle of Angers ... . . 292
175. Carcassonne. Citadel ..... 293
Illustrations xv
FIG. PAGE
176. Loches Castle. Keep . . . . ' 294
177. Falaise Castle. Keep . . . ... 297
178. Lavardin Castle. Keep . . . . . . 298
179. Keep of Aigues-Mortes . . . .'.-., 299
1 80. Provins Castle. Keep . . . . . 300
181. Castle, Chinon ...... 302
182. Castle, Clisson. Keep ..... 303
183. Castle. Villeneuve-les- Avignon .... 304
184. Castle of Tarascon . . . , . 305
185. Vitre Castle . . . . , . 307
1 86. City of Carcassonne. Castle gate . . . .310
187. City of Carcassonne. Gate of the Lists . , . . 312
1 88. City of Carcassonne. Gate known as the Porte Narbonaise 313
189. Ramparts of Aigues-Mortes. Drawbridge. . . 314
190. Ramparts of Dinan. Gate known as the Porte de Jerzual . 315
191. Vitre Castle. Gate-house ..... 317
192. Ramparts of Guerande. Gate known as the Porte St.
Michel . . . . . . . 318
193. Ramparts of Mont St. Michel. Gateway known as the
Porte du Rot ...... 320
194. Entrance to the Port of La Rochelle . . . 322
195. Bridge at Avignon . . , . . 323
196. Bridge of Montauban ..... 325
197. Bridge of Cahors ...... 326
198. Bridge of Orthez . . . . . 327
199. Fortified bridge. Mont St. Michel . . . 328
200. Town-hall at St. Antonin (Tarn et Garonne) . . 334
201. Barn at Perrieres (Calvados) . , . . . 335
20ia. Barn at Perrieres (Calvados). Section . . . 336
201/5. Barn at Perrieres (Calvados). Plan . . . 336
202. Tithe-barn at Provins . . • . .... 337
203. Granary of the Abbey of Vauclair . . . 338
204. Hospital of St. John, Angers ' , . " . .' 339
205. Abbey of Ourscamps (Oise) -. V . . 340
206. Lazar-house at Tortoir (Aisne) . . . .341
207. Hospital at Tonnerre. Section . \ 343
xvi Gothic Architecture
FIG. PAGE
208, 2080. Houses at Cluny .... 347, 348
209, 210. Houses at Vitteaux and at St. Antonin . . 349
211, 212. Houses at Provins and at Laon . . 350, 351
213. House at Cordes. Albigeois .... 352
214. House at Mont St. Michel ..... 354
215. 216. Wooden houses at Rouen and at Andelys . 355, 356
217. Hotel Lallemand at Bourges .... 357
218. Jacques Cceur's house at Bourges .... 358
219. Town-hall of Pienza, Italy . .... 361
220. Town-hall and belfry at Ypres .... 363
221. Market and belfry at Bruges .... 365
222. Town-hall of Bruges . . . . . 366
223. Town-hall at Louvain ..... 368
224. Belfry of Tournai (Belgium) .... 370
225. Belfry of Ghent (Belgium) . . . . . 371
226. Belfry at Calais (France) . . . . -374
227. Belfry of Bethune (France) . . . . .376
228. Belfry of 6vreux (France) . . . . -377
229. Belfry of Avignon (France) .... 378
230. Belfry gate known as La Grosse Cloche, Bordeaux . 379
231. Cloth hall known as La Loge, Perpignan . . .381
232. Bishop's Palace at Laon ..... 382
233. Archbishop's Palace at Albi. Plan . . . 383
234. Archbishop's Palace at Albi. General view . .384
235. Palace of the Popes at Avignon. Plan . . . 385
236. Palace of the Popes at Avignon. General view . . 387
\
\
\
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE
INTRODUCTION
THE term Gothic, as applied to the architectural
period dating from the middle of the twelfth to the
end of the fifteenth century, is purely conventional.
The expression is clearly misleading as indicating
the architecture of the Goths or Visigoths ; for these
tribes were vanquished by Clovis in the sixth century,
and left no monumental trace of their invasion.
Hence, their influence upon art was nil. The term
is radically false both from the historical and the
archaeological point of view, and originates in an
error which demands the strenuous opposition due to
persistent fallacies. By a strange irony of fate the
term Gothic, used in the last century merely as the
opprobrious synonym of barbaric, has been specialised
within the last sixty years in connection with that
polished epoch of the Middle Ages which sheds most
lustre upon our national art. And this, in spite of
its Germanic origin.
Romanesque architecture, or to be exact, that
B
2 Gothic Architecture
architecture which, by virtue of the archa^ologic
convention of 1825, we agree to label Romanesque,
undoubtedly borrowed its essential elements from
the Romans and Byzantines, modifying and perfect- «
ing them by the genius of Western Europe ; but the
architectural period which began in the middle of
the twelfth century, and is so unjustly dubbed Gothic ;
was of purely French birth ; its cradle was the*
nucleus of modern France. Aquitaine, Anjou, and \v
Maine were the provinces in which it first took root.
The royal domain, and notably the Ile-de-France,
witnessed its most marvellous developments, and it
was from the very heart of France that its splendour
radiated throughout Europe.
But the tyranny of usage leaves us no choice as
to the title of this volume. We are compelled to
style it Gothic Architecture, though we would gladly
have registered our protest by naming it French
Mediceval Architecture}
1 This idea, which has recently found support in quarters which
might have been considered free from such chauvinism, is based upon
a narrow and peculiarly modern view of art. Art activities in the
Middle Ages were as instinctive and unconscious as speech. The
forms of architecture were invented and elaborated much in the same
way as language. For the purpose of the historian of architecture, the
northern half of France, the three southern quarters of Great Britain,
and the districts threaded by the Rhine, form a single country, a single
foyer of art. They all pressed on from similar starting-points to similar
goals ; and if the French went ahead in one direction, they fell astern in
another. It may be allowed that, on the whole, the architects of the
Ile-de-France did better than their rivals. Gothic architecture is pre-
eminently logical, and logic is pre-eminently the artistic gift of the
Frenchman. So that its more scientific development in the " French
royal domain " was only to be expected. That success of this kind
gives a right to call the whole development " French mediaeval architect-
ure " cannot be allowed. — ED.
Introduction 3
The term Gothic is, however, purely arbitrary, as
is also that of pointed, which has been introduced by
writers who admit the principle of the broken arch
as the characteristic of so-called Gothic architecture.
The broken or pointed arch, which is formed by
the intersection of two opposite curves at an angle
more or less acute, was known to architects long
before its systematic application. It occurs in build- :
ings of the ninth century in Cairo, and was used
prior to this in Armenia, and still earlier in Persia,
where indeed it superseded all other forms of span
from the times of the last of the Sassanides onwards.
It is an expedient which gives increased power of
resistance to the arch by diminishing its lateral
thrusts.
The pointed arch is a form which admits of
infinite variations. The one law which governs its
construction is expediency. It frankly abandons
those rules of classic proportion which are the canons,
so to speak, of the round-headed arch. Thus we
shall find the pointed approximating to the round-
headed form in the twelfth century, only to diverge
from it more widely than before, till, towards the
close of the thirteenth and throughout the fourteenth
century, it took on the acute proportions necessitated
by a perilous disposition to prefer loftiness to solidity. \
Fundamentally, it is of little moment whether the v
architecture of the twelfth to the sixteenth century
be termed Gothic or pointed, when we recognise
these terms as equally inexact. The point to be
really insisted upon is that the filiation we have
already demonstrated in our book on Romanesque
Architecture continued slowly, but surely, in the
4 Gothic Architecture
wake of civilisation, of which architecture is ever one
of the most striking manifestations.
So-called Gothic architecture was not the product
of a single generation ; it was the continuous logical
development of the Romanesque movement, just as
the latter in its time had been the outcome of a
gradual adaptation of old traditions to new-born
exigencies. Thus our Aquitainian forbears, by their
successful translation into stone of the eastern cupola,
prepared the way for the groined vault, the embryo
of which is clearly traceable in the pendentives of
the dome at St. Front.
The great churches which, towards the middle of
the twelfth century, rose throughout the rich Western
provinces that cluster about Aquitaine, were all
constructed with groined vaults. In these examples
we can discern no halting, tentative application of
newly adopted principles. The work is that of
consummate architects, who brought to their labours
the assurance born of experienced skill, and in the
later part of the twelfth century, the new system had
replaced all others for the construction of vaults
throughout Western Europe.
The architects of the royal domain, and notably
those of the Ile-de-France, had been the first to adopt
the groined vault. Towards the close of the twelfth
century their assimilation of the new principles, their
native ingenuity, and professional hardihood alike
urged them to its further development. They became
the inventors of the flying buttress.
The substitution of the groined vault for its parent,
the cupola, was the direct consequence of the old
tradition. The development was merely a stage in
Introduction 5
the march of ideas, a consummation logically arrived
at in the track which the Romans, constructors not
less bold though more prudent than their artistic
progeny, had marked out for them. The groined
vault, in short, is simply the growth of Roman prin-
ciples perfected by continuous experiment. But the
flying buttress, or rather the system of construction
based on its use, caused a radical change in the art
of building of the twelfth century. Stability, which
in the ancient buildings was ensured by solid masses
at the impost of vaults and arches, was replaced by
the balance ot partsl r rom this daring system some
~of the most marvellous of architectural effects have
been won ; but the innovation had a dangerous
inherent weakness, inasmuch as it involved the
exterior position of those essential vital organs for
whose preservation the ancients had wisely provided,
by keeping them within the building.
It is therefore not surprising that though fifty years
after its introduction the groined vault was generally
adopted throughout Western Europe, and even in the
East, the success of the flying buttress was infinitely
more gradual and restricted. Thus, in the North, the
multiplication of great religious monuments built, or
even rebuilt on the new lines, was simultaneous with
the construction in the South of vast churches on the
old principles. The adventurous builders of the
North had eagerly adopted the new division of
churches into several aisles, all with groined vaults,
the vault of the great central nave relying upon
exterior flying buttresses for resistance to its thrust.
In the South, on the other hand, architects were
prudent, either through instinctive resistance to, or
6 Gothic Architecture
deliberate reaction from, the innovating influence,
or by way of fidelity to an ancient tradition. They
built with a single aisle, wide and lofty ; the vaults
were indeed supported by ribs, but their thrusts were
received by powerful buttresses inside the walls, the
projections thus formed being further utilised for the
construction of chapels in the intervals.
This latter system, which has the incontestable
merit of perfect solidity, recalls the construction of
the Basilica of Constantine, or of the tepidarium in
the Baths of Caracalla. The stability of the edifice
was ensured by the resistance of masses at the
imposts, and the whole principle of construction
formed, as it were, a protest against the miracles of
equilibrium so much in favour among the Northerners.
The new system of vaults supported by flying
buttresses made very slight way in the South. It
appears but rarely, and in the few instances where it
is used has entirely the air of a foreign importation.
Even in the cradle of its origin, it took root slowly
and with difficulty, for its first applications were not
without disaster. Lacking that mathematical know-
ledge which is the mainstay of the modern architect,
the experimental skill shown by the thirteenth-
century builder in constructing his vaults, and then
in neutralising their thrusts by flying buttresses
reduced to the legitimate function of permanent
struts, was little short of miraculous. For it must be
borne in mind that the thrust of these vaults, and the
strength of the flying buttresses, varied of necessity
according to their span, and the resisting powers of
their materials. It was only by dint of long gropings
in the dark that the necessarily empirical formulae
Introduction 7
of the innovators were gradually transformed into
recognised rules, and this knotty problem of construc-
tion received no positive solution till the last years
of the thirteenth, or more emphatically, the first years
of the fourteenth century. While even then the
solution could claim no universal acceptance, for
what was comparatively easy in countries where stone
abounds became difficult, if not impossible, in districts
where such a material as brick was the sole resource
of builders.
Nevertheless, the growth of Gothic architecture
was rapid, so rapid that even in fop fourteenth
century it began to show symptoms of that swift
decadence which is the Nemesis of facile success.
The abuse of equilibrium, the excessive diminution
of points of support — defects often aggravated by
insecurity of foundation and exaggerated loftiness of
structure — the poor quality of materials, and the
faulty setting thereof due to empirical methods, the
over -rapidity of execution caused by mistaken
emulation, the dearth of funds consequent on social
and political convulsions complicated by the
miseries of war, — all these things joined hands for
the extinction of a once resplendent art. But the
initial cause of its ruin must be sought in its
abandonment of antique traditions. These_jtradi-
tions had persisted uninterruptedly throughout the
so-called Romanesque period, only to pave the way
for a seductive art in novel form, which, casting
aside the trammels of the past in obedience to the
dictates of the moment, fell on decay as rapidly as
it had risen to eminence. Dawning in the France
of Louis the Fat, it reached its apogee under St.
8 Gothic Architecture
Louis, and was in full decadence before the close of
the fifteenth century.
The narrow limits assigned to us forbid not only
detailed discussion of our great monuments, but even
a summary of the most famous. We must be con-
tent to work out that theory of evolution already
put forward by us in U Architecture Romane. We
propose merely to offer a synthesis of that archi-
tectural development which succeeded the so-called
Romanesque epoch, from its birth in the twelfth to
its extinction in the fifteenth century.
And as the groined vault is, broadly speaking,
the essential characteristic of so-called Gothic archi-
tecture, and the flying buttress one of its most
interesting manifestations, we shall make a special
study of their origin, their modifications, and their
principal applications in connection with religious,
monastic, military, and civil architecture. We shall
dwell more particularly upon religious architecture
as presenting the grandest and most obvious evi-
dences of artistic progress, not in its admirable
buildings alone, but in those masterpieces of paint-
ing and sculpture to which it gave birth in France.
PART I
RELIGIOUS ARCHITECTURE
CHAPTER I
THE INFLUENCE OF THE CUPOLA UPON SO-
CALLED GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE
The cupola, in its symbolic aspect, was the germ, whence sprang
an architectural sy 'stem the revolutionary action of which
upon art can scarcely be overestimated. x
SO-CALLED Gothic architecture was no spontaneous
and miraculous manifestation. Like all human
activities, its end is easy to determine ; but it is
difficult to fix even an approximate date for its
beginning. The traces of its origin are lost in that
period of architectural activity which preceded it, and
prepared its way by a train of unbroken evolution.
The cupola of St. Front, which we may reason-
ably call the mother cupola of France, was not an
imitation of that of St. Mark at Venice, for both
were based upon the church built by Justinian at
Constantinople, in honour of the Holy Apostles.
But the form thus imported into Aquitaine received
such modification and development, as to make it
virtually an original achievement. One of the
knottiest of architectural problems was solved in the
1 L1 Architecture Rotnane, by Ed. Corroyer ; Quantin, Paris, 1888.
12 Gothic Architecture
process, and that admirable constructive principle
was established which consists in concentrating the
thrust of a vault upon four points of support
strengthened by pendentives.
The construction of such a cupola as that of
St. Front in dressed stone was an event of great
moment in a district which still preserved the Gallo-
Roman tradition in its integrity, and was commonly
reputed the fatherland of our architecture. Its
immediate consequences were shown before the close
of the eleventh century by the erection of large
abbey churches on the model of St. Front in various
neighbouring provinces.
But while accepting the new principle, the
architects of the period directed their energies to its
perfectibility. Their efforts, and even their successes,
in this direction are manifest so early as the first
years of the twelfth century. The churches of
Angouleme and of Fontevrault may be cited in
proof. " We jiere recognise the maiixj)reoccupation
of the Romanesque builders — namely, how best to
reduce the immense masses of churches built with
the primitive cupola by a more deliberate and
judicious distribution of thrust and resistance. We
further see how the adoption of these principles led
to the emphasising of critical points by buttresses,
which now began to project from the exterior
walls." l
The new system spread rapidly, notably in
Anjou and Maine, its growth being marked by an
ever - increasing refinement and perfection. The
architects of the rich abbeys of these provinces, the
1 L? Architecture Romane, by Ed. Corroyer ; Quantin, Paris, 1888.
Influence of Cupola on Gothic Architecture 13
importance of which was aggrandised by their strong
attachments to the all-powerful religious organisation
of the period, gave a further development to the
Aquitainian method. They transformed the pen-
dentives of the cupolas into independent arches
which performed exactly the same functionsrthus
logically working-out an architectonic principle of
amazing simplicity, the success of which was so
raplcf that, by the middle of the twelfth century, it
was systematically applied to the construction of
great churches at Angers, Laval, and Poitiers.
The works of the Angevin architects were of
course known to their Northern brethren, who, in
common with all the builders of the day, had long
been seeking the final solution of the great problem
of the vault. The architects of the Ile-de-France
at once appropriated the Angevin system with that
special professional ingenuity which characterised
them, and applied it to the construction of innumer-
able churches, large and small, all of them built on
the basilican plan — that is to say, with three, or even
five aisles.
Thus the Aquitainian cupola of dressed stone
exercised an absolutely direct influence upon Gothic
architecture, since it gave birth to the intersecting
arch, which is the main feature of so-called Gothic.
This influence was first manifested in the general
arrangement of single-aisled churches vaulted upon
intersecting ribs, the earliest departure from the
original cupola. It was then more grandiosely
demonstrated in vast abbey or cathedral churches,
built in accordance with the basilican tradition, and
all vaulted on the new principle.
14 Gothic Architecture
Angers and Laval are primitive examples of
churches whose square compartments carry groined
vaults, which thenceforth took the place of cupolas
with pendentives.
The abbey church of Noyon shows the application
of this principle, novel in the twelfth century, to the
several-aisled churches of the Northern architects.
The original vaults of Noyon * were planned in square.
The intersecting arches united the principal piers
diagonally, the strain being relieved by a subordinate
or auxiliary arch which rested upon secondary piers,
indicated on the exterior by buttresses less salient
than those of the main piers, and on the interior by
a column receiving the lateral archivolts which united
the chief piers.
This system of construction, the principle of which
was logically developed at Noyon, for instance, no
longer exists, save in its traditional state in the great
churches of Laon, and in the cathedrals of Paris,
Sens, and Bourges, to name but the principal, without
regard to the innumerable churches built on these
principles- throughout Western Europe. In these
great buildings the vaults were all square on plan
down to the adoption in the first half of the thirteenth
century of equal bays, vaulted on a rectangular plan,
and marked inside and out by equal piers and
projections, as at Amiens, Rheims, and many other
churches of the period.
Hence we see how incontestable was the influence
1 The original disposition of the vaults built about 1160 is indicated
by the spring of the arches above the capitals, and by the base plan of
the principal piers. The present vaults on rectangular plan were built
after the fire of 1238, in accordance with prevailing fashions.
Influence of Cupola on Gothic Architecture 15
of the cupola upon so-called Gothic architecture.
This truth is demonstrated by monuments yet in
existence, lapidary documents above suspicion. It
cannot be insisted upon too strongly, not merely
for the satisfaction of archaeologic accuracy, but more
especially as yet another proof that the filiation
between the art of the ancients and that of the so-
called Romanesque architects is no less evident than
that which links together the Romanesque and the
so-called Gothic. Of this latter filiation we have a
direct proof in the Aquitainian cupola, the parent of
those of Angoumois, which in their turn gave birth
to the Angevin intersecting arch, and so prepared the
way for the flying buttress, which again was to mark
a new departure.
CHAPTER II
THE ORIGIN OF THE INTERSECTING VAULT
So early as the eleventh century churches were built
with one or several aisles, and in this latter case the
side aisles only had ribbed vaults, the nave being
covered by a timber roof. The next step was to
vault all three aisles, buttressing the barrel-vaulted
nave by continuous half-barrel vaults or ribbed vaults
over the aisles, and further strengthening it by
projecting transverse arches, or arcs doubleaux, the
whole being crowned by a roof which embraced the
side aisles. These cumbrous and timidly constructed
buildings were merely imitations of the Roman
basilicas. To ensure their solidity they had perforce
to be narrow ; and the necessary abolition of top
lighting made them gloomy. We find then that,
before the appearance of the cupola, mediaeval
architects were perfectly acquainted both with the
barrel vault and the ribbed vault, the latter formed,
on traditional principles, by the interpenetration of
two demi-cylinders. They had even attempted to
improve upon the construction by strengthening the
line of penetration with a salient rib, giving an
elliptic arch. But this rib was purely decorative, for
The Origin of the Intersecting Vaiilt 17
in the Roman vault the stones at the line of inter-
section, whether ribbed or not, were in complete
solidarity with the filling on either side in which
they were buried.
It follows that we shall seek in vain in the Roman
ribbed vault the germ of the intersecting arch, with
its essentially active functions.
For the origin of the intersecting arch we must
turn to the eleventh
AD
AD
• •
AD
• •
AD
century. We shall
find it in the dressed
stone cupola of St.
Front, and more
especially in its
pendentives.
Fig. i gives the
plan of one of the
cupolas of St. Front.
It is composed of
four massive trans-
verse arches, the
thrusts of which are A
. , r ^ - - • T ¥ £ V
received upon four
piers united bv I' PLAN OF A CUPOLA OF THE ABBEY CHURCH
OF ST. FRONT AT PERIGUEUX
pendentives (Figs. 2
and 3) passing from the re-entering angles at the
spring of the arches to the base of the circular dome
itself, each of the concentric courses bearing upon
the keys of the arcs-doubleaux, and transmitting to
them, and therefore to the piers by which they are
supported, the weight of the cupola itself.
Fig. 3 is a section through one of the pendentives
of St. Front, following the line A B in Fig. i . It
C
i8
Gothic Architecture
shows that the first six courses are cut so as to
make what is called a tas de charge ; the upper
surfaces are horizontal, the faces curved to the radius
2. PENDENTIVE (MARKED A) OF A CUPOLA OF THE ABBEY
CHURCH OF ST. FRONT
of the dome itself. After the sixth course the
voussoirs are cut normally to the curve of the arch.
The vaulting of religious buildings having long been
the crux of mediaeval architects, the construction of
The Origin of the Intersecting Vault 19
the St. Front cupolas must have been an event
much noised abroad, for towards the close of the
eleventh century a large number of churches with
cupolas were built
in imitation of the
mother church at
Perigueux.
The construc-
tion of the churches
of Angouleme and
Fontevrault in the
first years of the
twelfth century
shows that the
architects were at-
tempting to cover
spaces of ever-
increasing span on
the Aquitainian
model, while at the
same time they set
themselves to
lighten their vaults,
and consequently
to reduce their
.-4-
3. SECTION OF A PENDENTIVE ON THE
DIAGONAL A TO B IN PLAN, FIG. I
points of support.
Fig. 4 gives the
plan of one of the cupolas of Angouleme or of
Fontevrault, both being built on precisely similar
plan, with the exception of the number of bays to
the nave.
Fig. 5 gives the section of a bay in one of these
churches, and illustrates the considerable difference
20
Goth ic A rch itectit re
already existing between the mother cupola of St.
Front and its off-
spring. The cupola
on pendentives
begins to show a
certain attenuation,
and we shall pre-
sently note a fresh
step forward towards
the solution of that
problem so persist-
ently grappled with
by the mediaeval
architect — how to
reduce the weight of
the vault.
PLAN OF A CUPOLA OF ANGOULEME
OR FONTEVRAULT
The Church of
St. Avit-Senieur
furnishes a most
instructive ex-
ample.
The cupola of
this building is
strengthened by
stiffening ribs.
It becomes an
annular vault,
formed of almost
horizontal keyed
courses, sustained
by transverse and
diagonal ribs,
which act the part of a permanent centering.
SECTION OF A BAY OF THE CUPOLAS OF
ANGOULEME
The Origin of the Intersecting Vault 21
The Church of St. Pierre at Saumur marks a
further step onwards
in the construction
of vaults derived
from the cupola.1
Finally, the
architects of Maine
and Anjou .achieved
the long-desired con-
summation. Under
their treatment the
pendentives resolved
themselves into their
actively useful ele-
ments, the visible
signs of which were
diap-onal or inter 6' SECT1ON OF A BAY *,N THE CHURCH OF
ST. AV1T-SENIEUR
secting arches,
salient and indepen-
dent, set in precisely
the same manner as
the pendentives of the
cupola (Fig. 3), and
performing identical
functions (Fig. 8).
The vault proper
is no longer formed
of concentric courses,
as in the mother
cupola. It consists
thenceforward of
voussoirs cut normally
7. PLAN OF VAULT ON INTERSECTING
ARCHES
1 V Architecture Roinane, by Ed. Corroyer.
22
Gothic Architecture
to the curve, and filling the triangles (A, B, C, D,
Fig. 7) determined by the longitudinal, the diagonal
or intersecting, and the transverse arches. These
arches form a stone skeleton, no less solid though far
.less ponderous than the cupola pendentives, and
sustain the vault by
distributing its thrusts
over four points of
support.
The triangular
fillings no longer
imprison the ribs, or,
more exactly speak-
ing, the intersecting
arches, nor do they
any longer neutralise
their active functions.
These fillings, on the
other hand, have, like
the intersecting arch,
8. SECTION OF AN INTERSECTING ARCH gained 3. 11CW inde-
pendence. They now
contribute to the elasticity of the divers organs of the
vault, a most essential element in its solidity. The
peculiar arrangement of the intersecting arches in the
nave of Angers gives incontrovertible proof of the
direct filiation of this building to the Aquitainian
cupola. The voussoirs of the intersecting arches are
about equal in horizontal section to those of the trans-
verse arches, while their vertical section equals the
thickness of the filling plus the internal salience
which marks their function. They look in fact like
slices cut from the pendentives of a cupola (A, Fig. 8).
The Origin of the Intersecting Vault 23
It must be remarked, too, that at Angers the stones
of the filling do not yet rest upon the extrados of the
ribs, in the fashion adopted some years later in the
He -de -France and elsewhere (see B, Fig. 8), but
embrace them (as at A).
The identity of function in the pendentive and
in the Gothic intersecting arch, both constructed, as
they are, of stones dressed normally to their curves,
shows that they sprang from a common origin, which
is as much as to say that the Aquitainian cupola
begat the intersecting vault.
CHAPTER III
THE FIRST GROINED VAULTS
THE first application of the system of intersecting
vaults appears in the great churches of Angers and
Laval.
It is probable that the new methods propagated
by the religious archi-
tects of Aquitaine
and neighbouring
provinces had ex-
cited the emulation
of the Northern
builders, more especi-
ally those of the Ile-
de - France. Evi-
dences to this effect
are to be found in
certain subordinate
portions of their
buildings at this
period, such as side aisles or apsidal chapels. Their
timid arrangement seems, however, reminiscent of
the Roman system of ribbed vaulting, with a slightly
increased prominence of the ribs superadded, rather
9. PLAN OF A BAY IN THE NAVE OF
ST. MAURICE AT ANGERS
The First Groined Vaults
25
than of the revolution that had been effected in
church vaulting generally.
10. TRANSVERSE SECTION OF THE NAVE OF STi MAURICE AT ANGERS
But, if we except perhaps Laval, nowhere shall
we find the new system of vaulting upon intersecting
arches more mightily demonstrated than at Angers,
the aisles of which measure 54 feet across. The
26
Gothic Architecture
grandeur of the architectural composition, no less than
the admirable technical skill shown in the details,
gives proof of the consummate mastery arrived at by
the builders of these noble structures so early as the
middle of the twelfth century. The plan of these
churches resembles that of Angouleme and Fonte-
vrault. It is in no way allied to the Northern
buildings.
They are constructed with single aisles, like the
cupola churches, with
a series of bays,
square on plan ; but
the arrangement of
the vaults has been
perfected by the
logical use of inter-
secting arches in the
place of pendentives,
the architects of the
day having realised
by this time the
progress we have
explained and de-
monstrated in the preceding chapter.
These vast aisles, vaulted on intersecting arches,
are of course allied to the cupolas ; they recall their
general outline, but the arrangement of the vaulting
is different. The intersecting ribs are no longer
merely decorative features ; they have taken on all
the active functions of the arc-doubleau and the
formeret. Their union constitutes an elastic ossature,
the weight being concentrated upon four points of
support, which receive the impost of the arches, and
II. PLAN OF A BAY OF THE NAVE IN THE
CHURCH OF LA STE. TRINITE AT LAVAL
The First Groined Vaults
27
compose a stone skeleton, each unit of which has
been cut and dressed to fill the exact place it occupies
in the whole.
If we compare the sections (Figs. 13 and 14) of
12. LONGITUDINAL SECTION OF TWO KAYS IN THE NAVE OF LA STE.
TRINITE AT LAVAL
the churches of Angouleme and Angers, we may
clearly trace the filiation between these buildings, the
one dating from the first years of the twelfth century,
the other from some thirty or even forty years later.
We shall also note the advance made by the Angevin
architects in the construction of groined vaults in the
28 Gothic Architecture
*
13 AND 14. COMPARATIVE SECTIONS OF THE CHURCHES OF ANGOULEME
AND ANGERS
The First Groined Vaults 29
place of domes with pendentives, a development
15. VIEW IN PERSPECTIVE OF THE NAVE VAULT OF ST. MAURICE
AT ANGERS
worked out by the more perfect and reasoned applica-
tion of the same architectural principle.
The Church of Laval, built simultaneously with
30 Gothic Architecture
that of Angers, or only a few years later, shows a
further advance, not merely in the matter of form,
but in the increased science and ingenuity of com-
binations, and the methodical accuracy of the
execution.
The arches which compose the ossature of the
vaults become independent in their functions, as at
Angers, immediately upon leaving the abacus, an
1 6. PLAN OF A SUMMER OF THE NAVE
VAULT OF LA STE. TRINITE AT
17. PLAN OF ONE OF THE PIERS OF
THE NAVE OF LA STE. TRINITE
AT LAVAL
essential characteristic of the new system. The
lateral 'points of support are composed of piers proper
and of clustered columns, crowned by corbelled capi-
tals, which, by prolonging them, mark the formerets,
the diagonal, and the transverse arches as they fall
upon the abaci. It is easy to see in this arrange-
ment the origin of those clustered shafts so generally
and even excessively used in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, the main object of which was
to conceal as far as possible the points of support.
The First Groined Vaults 31
These details, and the section (Fig. 12) showing
the mode of construction in the vaults, demonstrate
sufficiently that at Laval, no less than at Angers, a
\ direct filiation exists between the dome upon pen-
dentives and the groined and ribbed vault.
CHAPTER IV
BUILDINGS VAULTED UPON INTERSECTING ARCHES
THE new system derived from the domes upon
pendentives, so brilliantly applied in Anjou and
Maine in the first half of the twelfth century, was
thenceforth the normal method of the religious
architect. The admirable simplicity of the new
method and its adaptability to every class of building,
from the great abbey church to the modest chapel,
sufficiently accounts for its rapid dissemination
throughout Western Europe, where religious bodies
had founded innumerable abbeys, large and small,
of varying rules and orders, but all welded together
by one mighty organisation.
A long array of churches on the Angevin model
rose, not only in the neighbouring provinces — as
Ste. Radegonde at Poitiers, Notre Dame de la Coulture
and the nave of St. Julien at Mans, — but farther afield
towards the south. To name only the most impor-
tant— the charming Church of Thor, dedicated to Ste.
Marie du Lac, between Avignon and the fountain of
Vaucluse ; that of St. Sauveur at St. Macaire, near
Bordeaux ; the nave of St. Andre at Bordeaux, begun
in 1252 on the cupola plan, but modified and finally
Buildings vaulted on Intersecting Arches 33
crowned with a groined and ribbed vault ; St.
Caprais at Agen, which shows the same modifications,
and lastly, the immense brick nave of St. Etienne at
Toulouse, which measures 64 feet — all demonstrate
1 8. PLAN OF THE NAVE, ST. MAURICE AT ANGERS
the progression of the new principles in the second
half of the twelfth century.
Towards the North the advance was no less
general. Various buildings show to what excellent
account contemporary architects had turned the
system of vaults on intersecting arches, recognising
D
34
Gothic Architecture
its admirable adaptability to different climates,
and to the most diverse
materials. But it was
reserved for Angers, the
cradle of its birth, to give
an added perfection to this
ingenious system.
The Church of the Ste.
Trinite, on the right bank
of the Maine, built by the
sons or pupils of those
architects who had planned
St. Maurice for the hill on
the opposite shore, marks a
fresh advance in the con-
struction of these vaults.
Like St. Maurice, it has
but a single aisle, which
is divided into three bays,
each as nearly as possible
square on plan. The
system of vaulting takes
on a greater elegance by
the insertion of a trans-
verse arch, with its sup-
porting shafts, in the centre
of each bay. This divides
the bay into two equal
19. PLAN OF THE CHURCH OF LA parts, and, cutting the
diaonal ribs at their
STE. TRINITE AT ANGERS
intersection, supports them at the critical point.
Fig. 1 9 gives the plan of these vaults, the system
of which was eagerly seized upon by the Northern
Buildings vaulted on Intersecting Arches 35
architects, and the great abbey church of Noyon
20. LONGITUDINAL SECTION OF A RAY OF LA STE. TRINITE AT ANGERS
36 Gothic Architecture
appears to have been the first-fruits of this new
development of the Angevin idea.
The great abbey churches and immense cathedrals
which were built from the second half of the twelfth
to the middle of the thirteenth century attest the
importance of the development carried out at Angers
by the arrangement of their own vaults in square
compartments. For we now find this system adopted
in the construction of the churches or cathedrals of
Noyon, Laon, Notre Dame at Paris, Sens, and Bourges,
to name only acknowledged masterpieces of so-called
Gothic.
The influence of the cupola, which we established
in our first chapter, was both direct and consecutive.
It was direct in churches built with one aisle and
vaulted on intersecting arches, and consecutive in
the so-called Romanesque churches, which were either
completed or modified on the new lines by the
substitution of vaults on intersecting arches of dressed
stone for timber roofs. A large number of buildings
in England, Normandy, Germany, Northern Italy,
Switzerland, the Rhine Provinces, and those of
Northern France bear testimony of the highest
interest to the transformations consequent on the
invention of the groined vault and its universal
application.
Architects who had been trained in the great
abbey schools, emboldened by the successes of their
forerunners and their own individual experience,
raised on every hand vast cathedrals, in which every
known development of the system was essayed with
unequalled daring. Going on from strength to
strength, they eventually abandoned the antique
Buildings vaulted on Intersecting Arches 37
traditions, and disregarding the statical conditions
i 5
n i i ^_
21. TRANSVERSE SECTION OF A BAY OF LA STE. TRINITE AT ANGERS
which ensured the solidity of the ancient buildings,
38 Gothic Architectitre
they invented a system of construction which is, as it
22. SECTION OF A SINGLE-AISLED CHURCH VAULTED ON INTERSECTING
ARCHES WITH BUTTRESSES
were, merely a skeleton in stone, a stone version of
Buildings vaulted on Intersecting Arches 39
the timbered roof; its characteristic expression was
10
23. SECTION OF A THREE-AISLED CHURCH VAULTED ON INTERSECTING
ARCHES WITH FLYING BUTTRESSES
40 Gothic Architecture
the permanent strut known as the flying buttress ; its
governing idea was equilibrium, for which it provided
by architectural stratagems ingenious in the highest
degree, but also extremely precarious. Its existence
or stability depends for the most part on the quality
of the materials and their degrees of resisting power,
the essential organs, by which I mean those vital
weig Jit- carry ing portions, the failure of which would
involve the ruin of the whole, being outside the build-
ing, and therefore exposed to all those deteriorating
influences from which the load they bear, that is to
say, the vaults, are protected by walls and roof.
The great buildings constructed on these new
principles consisted of a central nave with two, or
even four side aisles. The huge structure depended
for its light first upon low windows in the collateral
portions, secondly, upon windows at a much higher
level. Hence it became necessary to raise the
vault of the central nave, and to give it an abut-
ment in the form of detached semi-arches or flying
buttresses. The crowns of these semi -arches im-
pinged the piers at the planes of greatest pressure
and received the collective thrust of all the ribs,
formerets, transverse and diagonal arches. Their
bases rested upon abutmentsr the strength of which
was calculated according to the thrust they had to
meet.
CHAPTER V
ORIGIN OF THE FLYING BUTTRESS
THE primitive method of vaulting adopted in the
central provinces of France in the construction of
churches with three aisles rendered such buildings
of necessity low and heavy. The main aisle being
covered by a barrel vault, supported on either side
by a continuous half-barrel vault, the sole means of
lighting lay in the windows of the side aisles, so
that the nave was always gloomy in the extreme.
The Norman architects had avoided this difficulty,
first in their native province, and afterwards in
England, by vaulting the subordinate aisles only,
and by raising the lateral walls of the nave high
enough to allow a line of windows to be introduced
between the lean-to roofs of the side aisles and the
nave roof, the latter being an open timber con-
struction instead of a vault.
The lateral gallery in the first story of Norman
churches built on the basilican model is merely a
development of the ancient tradition.1 It bears the
name of triforium because — or so we are told — each
1 See L? Architecture Romane, by Ed. Corroyer ; Maison Quantin,
Paris, 1888, chaps, i. iii. and iv.
42 Gothic Architecture
compartment of such an interior gallery between the
main piers of the nave was originally divided into
three by pillars supporting lintels or by small
columns supporting an arcade. /
Towards the close of the ^leventh century
Norman architects on both sides of the Channel were
raising vast churches, the side aisles of which bore
above their ribbed vaults galleries after the fashion
of the primitive basilicas. These galleries in their
turn were covered by open timber roofs like that of
the nave. The bays were emphasised in the nave
and in the side aisles by transverse arches, or arcs-
doubleaux, which served as buttresses to those of the
main vault. But after the adoption, towards the
middle of the twelfth century, of the Angevin
method of vaulting for religious buildings, the
functions of the lateral walls and of the supporting
arches became better defined, for these walls and
arches had now to meet the thrusts of the transverse
as well as that of the diagonal arches, which, meet-
ing in bundles, as it were, at each pier, gathered their
energies at well-marked points.
It was thus that the cross walls or arcs-doubleaux
of the side aisles were gradually modified till they
became detached semi-arches concealed beneath the
outer roof of the side aisles.
We have traced this modification in the Abbaye
aux Dames at Caen.1
Fig. 24 shows us an English example. It may
be followed out in a number of other churches in
England, at Pavia in Italy, at Zurich in Switzer-
1 L! Architecture Romane, by Ed. Corroyer ; Paris, Maison Quantin,
88, chap. xvii.
Origin of the Flying Biittress
43
land, and at Basle on the Rhine, to name but a few
of the churches in which the modification of the
vaults was long posterior to the construction of the
building itself.
In France we shall find no example more deeply
interesting than Noyon, which at the date of its
24. DURHAM CATHEDRAL. TRANSVERSE SECTIONS
construction (the last quarter of the twelfth century)
formed, as it were, an epitome of the advance so far
made by the architects of the I le-de- France. In
this curious building we find a fusion of the antique
tradition developed by the Normans in their tri-
foriums, and of the Angevin methods, as manifested
in the groined vaults derived from domes : methods
further perfected by the example of La Ste. Trinite
44 Gothic Architecture
at Angers ; in other words, by the adoption of inter-
25. ABBEY CHURCH AT NOYON. PLAN
secting arches planned on a square, the thrusts of all
being received on the main piers, reinforced by an
Origin of the Flying Buttress
45
intermediate transverse arch. And we note the
appearance of the detached semi-arch beneath the
roofing of the inferior aisles merging at its springing
into the lateral arc-doubleau^ and so resisting the
thrust of the intersecting
arches and transverse arches
of the nave.
It has been said that
Noyon was suggested by
Tournai, doubtless on
account of their superficial
affinities. But the likeness
is merely in general aspect,
the methods of construction
being wholly different. At
Tournai the apsidal tran-
septs are vaulted upon
transverse arches of great
strength, and upon radiating
semi - arches united where
they meet by a ring of
voussoirs set horizontally,
and at their springing by
vaults keyed into their mass,
an ingenious arrangement
which recalls the vaulting
of the Salle des Capitaines
over the porch of the monastery church at Moissac.
The combination of these arcs-doubleaux, which,
in addition to the solidity of their independent
structure, are strongly reinforced by the massive
circular courses of the walls, is very peculiar, for it
dispenses altogether both with auxiliary arches and
26. TRANSVERSE SECTION OF
NOYON CHURCH
46 Gothic Architecture
with abutments. Tournai, therefore, cannot be held
to have begotten Noyon, for here we have groined
CHURCH OF TOURNAI, BELGIUM. EXTERIOR VIEW OF THE NORTH
TRANSEPT TOWARDS THE SCHELDT
vaults, the intersecting arqhes of ( which demand the
reinforcement of abutments either concealed or
apparent to sustain the thrust of these vaults over
the lateral arcs-doubleaux. The ingenious arrange-
ment above cited had in no sense modified the
methods of abutment followed by the architects of
Origin of the Flying Buttress
47
the twelfth century even after the adoption of the
vault on intersecting
arches. THese^jis
will be remembered,
consist5rTn"~rjuttress-
ing the walls and
piers of the nave by
c ross
arches concealed be-
neath the roofing of
the side aisles.
~~~We" find at Sois-
sons the first appli-
cation of an archi-
tectural system, the
special feature of
which is the flying
buttress.
29. CHURCH OF TOURNAI, BELGIUM.
INTERIOR OF THE NORTH TRANSEPT
28. MONASTERY CHURCH AT MOISSAC.
VAULT OF THE HALL KNOWN AS THE
HALL OF THE CAPTAINS ABOVE THE
PORCH
The south tran-
sept of Soissons
Cathedral was evi-
dently suggested by
Noyon. This is ap-
parent in the adop-
tion of the two-
storied side aisle
and in the semi-
circular plan. But
the method of vault-
ing common to both
churches has a
greater refinement at
48
Gothic Architecture
Soissons. Reduced to
30. SOISSONS CATHEDRAL. SOUTH
TRANSEPT. SECTION OF FLYING
BUTTRESS
its simplest expression of
strength by the attenua-
tion of its skeleton, the
vault still exercises its
full thrust on those parts
which rise above the upper
gallery.
The architect of
Soissons was not content,
like his brother of Noyon,
to support the vault later-
ally by interior arches col-
laborating with the arcs-
doubleaux ®{ the triforium,
and reinforced by an
abutment impinging on
the wall of the central
nave. To him the idea
occurred of detached semi-
arches in open air, spring-
ing from above the roof
of the triforium and its
buttresses and marking
each bay. Thus was born
fag. flying buttress, a feature
frankly emphasising its
special aim and function,
namely, to meet the thrust
of the main vault at its
points of concentration.
The flying buttress,
in combination with the
intersecting arch, gave
Origin of the Flying Buttress 49
birth to a new system of construction, a system on
which were raised vast buildings which compel our
admiration and demand our careful study, but should
31. PERSPECTIVE VIEW OF SOUTH TRANSEPT, SOISSONS CATHEDRAL
not invite our imitation. They are monuments to
the ingenuity of the twelfth and thirteenth century
1 These flying buttresses, in themselves insufficient for the task laid
upon them, and worn by the destructive action of the weather, were
pushed entirely out of shape by the constant pressure from within,
the thrust of the vault being aggravated by the circular plan of the
building, while the vaults themselves became dislocated by reason of
their insufficient abutments. It became necessary to reconstruct the
buttresses in 1880, to avert the total collapse of the south transept.
The reconstruction of these flying buttresses, and of many others of
the same period, furnishes us with a criticism ad hominem upon the
system.
E
50 Gothic Architecture
architect, but no less are they beacons warning
against the perils of a rationalism — more apparent
than real — which their authors carried to its extreme
limits, casting to the winds all traditional principles,
and consequently all authority.
It would seem as though the architects of this
period, emboldened by such achievements as the
churches of Noyon, Soissons, Laon, Paris, Sens, and
Bourges, and spurred by professional emulation, went
on from one feat of daring to another, passing from
the triumphs of Rheims, Amiens, and Mans to the
supreme architectural folly of Beauvais, and creating
monuments no less amazing in dimension than in the
statical problems grappled with, if not always solved.
CHAPTER VI
CHURCHES AND CATHEDRALS OF THE TWELFTH
AND THIRTEENTH CENTURIES
THE study of mediaeval architecture is one of the
most fascinating of pursuits, but it is one beset with
difficulties. The obscurity in which the origin of
our great monuments, is buried is profound and often
impenetrable.
A fertile cause of error is the confusion which in
many cases has arisen between the dates of founda-
tion and of consecration. Very often a church was
built and afterwards considerably modified, rather
than actually reconstructed, on the same consecrated
site.
Lightning was the most frequent cause of the
destruction, total or partial, of mediaeval churches.
Striking the steeple, the tower, or the roof, it fired
the timber superstructure of the nave. This in
itself would not have been an irreparable disaster ;
but as the timbers gave way the calcined beams
charred the piers, and so prepared the downfall of
the whole building, which was then either restored
or reconstructed in the fashion of the day. Hence,
whether we base our deductions upon more or less
5 2 Gothic Architecture
trustworthy records or upon contemporary readings
of existing data, the result is too often a confusion
32. CATHEDRAL OF LAON. PLAN
among vanished monuments, or a contradiction
between the buildings as they now exist and the
historic records which relate to them.
Churches and Cathedrals 53
Nothing is easier for interested theorists than
to post- or ante-date the structure of a building.
They have nothing to fear from the testimony of
writers, and, with very few exceptions, it is difficult
to assign a precise date to the construction of great
churches and cathedrals or to point with certainty
to their architects. The obscurity of these great
artists is perhaps to be accounted for by the fact
that they were ecclesiastics. As such the honour of
their achievements belonged not to the individual,
but to the corporate body, the order of which they
were members, and members moreover who had, in
most cases, taken the vow of humility.
Modern science, architectural and archaeological,
has failed to throw much positive light on this
subject. It contents itself for the most part with
ingenious hypotheses and learned deductions which
leave us still in doubt as to precise dates. But we
shall at least find some sort of foothold in a careful
architectural survey of buildings themselves. This
should be, of course, supplemented by study of
historic records, and such a study will convince us
that art in the Middle Ages, as in all epochs, obeyed
the immutable laws of filiation and transformation.
We shall follow the artist step by step, observing his
research, his hesitation, his errors, and even his
corrections.
These are trustworthy documents in which to
study the origin of a building and to note its
successive transformations, which latter were far
more frequent than total reconstructions. For it
was not until the beginning of the thirteenth cen-
tury that great cathedral churches in any con-
54
Gothic Architecture
siderable numbers were conceived and continuously
executed.1
33. CATHEDRAL OF LAON. INTERIOR OF THE NAVE
1 It is possible, if not easy, to trace the architectural development of
the Middle Ages in a good many cathedrals and churches of the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries. \Ve have, however, confined ourselves, for
the purposes of our present synthesis, to the churches and cathedrals of
Churches and Cathedrals 55
The great abbey churches founded towards the
34. CATHEDRAL OF LAON. MAIN FACADE
the royal domain, and more especially of the Ile-de-France, not only
because they served as models for the architects of their day, but be-
cause they illustrate in a remarkable degree the various transitions we
desire to study.
56 Gothic Architecture
close of the twelfth century in the royal domain,
but continued and finished in the early years of the
thirteenth, still preserved a more ancient tradition.
Laon, which is derived from Noyon and from the
south transept of Soissons, consists of a nave with
transepts, and of two-storied side aisles vaulted upon
intersecting arches, above which, as at Soissons, rise
flying buttresses, which meet the thrust of the main
vault.
This arrangement of the side aisles proves the
continuity of the Norman formulae, just as the
method of construction adopted in the main vault
demonstrates the persistent influence of the dome.1
The admirably constructed main vault is square
on plan, each square containing two transverse com-
partments, after the Angevin method as derived from
the Aquitainian dome. Here we find indications
that, if the builders of the Church of Laon had fully
assimilated this method, their minds were neverthe-
less not altogether at rest as to the functions of the
flying buttress. This was, of course, essential to the
piers which received the united thrust of both trans-
verse and diagonal arches. But it was far from
logical to reinforce the intermediate piers supporting
nothing but the auxiliary transverse arches by abut-
ments identical with those of the main piers.
The illogicality so striking at Laon is absent
from Noyon. There, on the contrary, the architects
— of the original construction — had emphasised the
functions of the main piers by buttresses of greater
projection and solidity than those accorded to the
secondary piers.
1 See chap, i., " The Influence of the Cupola on Gothic Architecture."
Churches and Cathedrals
57
35. CATHEDRAL OF LAO\, THK EAST END
58 Gothic Architecture
Notre Dame de Paris was begun towards the
close of the twelfth century, and finished, save for
36. CATHEDRAL OF LAON. SECTION OF THE NAVE
the chapels, in the first half of the thirteenth. As
at Laon, the Norman tradition is observed in the
arrangement of the upper galleries of the side aisles,
while the influence of the dome is again to be traced
Churches and Cathedrals
59
Jl
in the sex -partite groining. The same illogical
system of abutments ob-
tains as at Laon.
This vast building,
consisting of a nave and
double side aisles of equal
height sweeping round
the semicircular choir,
eems to be one of the
first five-aisled cathedrals ;
its grandiose arrangement,
the boldness of its com-
binations, and the perfec-
tion of its detail mark the
considerable progress made
by the architects of the
Ile-de-France.
The method of con-
struction here adopted has
a peculiar significance.
The upper internal
galleries, vaulted on dia-
gonal arches, and raised
considerably above the
level of the second side
aisle, the boldness of the
flying buttress, which at
one span embraces the two
^i • , , f ,1 -37. NOTRE DAME DE PARIS. PLAN
side aisles and forms the J
abutments of the main vault — alike prove that the
architects of Notre Dame de Paris had adopted the
newly discovered systems even to excess, and were
applying them with unparalleled skill and ingenuity.
6° Gothic Architecture
The Norman tradition which had obtained in the
38. NOTRE DAME DE PARIS. SECTION OF THE NAVE
I le-de- France passed away in the first years of the
Churches and Cathedrals
61
thirteenth century. At Chalons-sur-Marne the nave
is flanked by two-
storied side aisles.
But the upper
gallery, vaulted and
greatly reduced in
size, shows that the
conventional ar-
rangement was fast
dying out.
The influence of
the dome was longer
lived, as is shown in
the construction of
vaults at this period.
We may still trace
it at Langres in the
domed form of the
vaults, which, in spite
of their rectangular
plan, seem to be a
reduced copy of the
Angevin naves.
The naves of Sens
and of Bourges are
also vaulted in square
compartments. The
thrust of the vaults
is carried by the
diagonal arches to
each alternate pier, 39- NOTRE DAME DE PARIS. FLYING
,, . , .. , BUTTRESSES AND SOUTH TOWER
the intermediate one
receiving only the auxiliary transverse arch already
62
Gothic Architecture
jully described^
again trip f^rtrrfor flying
buttresses are all ofLequal solidity in spite of the
varying strain. This arrangement, prudent if
illogical, shows once more with what distrust archi-
tects had adopted that system of exterior abutment,
the characteristic of which is a detached arch exposed
to all the vicissitudes of weather, and yet responsible
for the stability of the whole edifice.
The Cathedral of Sens marks a new phase of
40. SENS CATHEDRAL. PLAN OF A BAY. VAULT IN SQUARE
COMPARTMENTS OF TWO BAYS
development by its suppression of the upper gallery
over the side aisles. These are now vaulted and
^ covered by a lean-to roof ; a flying buttress of single
span receives the thrust of the main vault. The
building is perfectly solid ; its construction shows
research, though it is as illogical as that of Laon or
of Paris ; for the exterior flying buttresses are all of
1 equal strength, and so fail to proclaim their true
functions, the interior thrusts varying considerably.
The arrangement at Bourges, which appears to
have been mainly built, if not actually finished, in
Churches and Cathedrals 63
the first half of the thirteenth century, differs from
141. SENS CATHEDRAL. SECTION OF A BAY OF THE NAVE
t of Sens. The structure is one of five aisles,
64 Gothic Architecture
and in plan recalls Notre Dame de Paris, but the
details are very dissimilar. The inner side aisles no
longer support a gallery, nor are they of equal
height with the outer aisles ; they are raised so as
to afford space for lighting (see Fig. 43). The
42. SENS CATHEDRAL. INTERIOR VIEW OF LATERAL BAYS
main vault is sex -partite planned on squares; but
the same illogicality exists here which we have
already pointed out, and in connection with which
we will risk appearing somewhat insistent, in the
hope of directing special attention to it. It is more
j glaring here than elsewhere, the flying buttresses
Churches and Cathedrals
65
themselves being of exaggerated dimensions and of
double span, embracing the two side aisles.
43. BOURGES CATHEDRAL. SECTION OF THE NAVE
F
66 Gothic Architecture
Both at Bourges and Sens the space between the
summit of the archivolts and the bases of the upper
windows, known as the frieze, or, in modern parlance,
the triforium, becomes a purely decorative feature.
It consists. of a narrow arcaded corridor, occupying
in the interior of the building that portion of the
wall space which in the exterior has been appropriated
by the lean-to roof of the side aisles. At Sens there
is merely a single gallery; at Bourges it becomes
double, through the stepped arrangement of the side
aisles (see Fig. 43), a variation in which we may
trace an ingenious blending of the systems of Anjou
and Poitiers with those of the Ile-de-France.
CHAPTER VII
THE CATHEDRALS OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY
THE Cathedral of Rheims, which was begun soon
after the destruction of the original building by the
fire of 1 2 1 1 , is a supreme expression of the fusion
of the three systems — those of Aquitaine, of Anjou,
and of the Ile-de-France. It may be taken as the
most perfect manifestation of persistent efforts to
establish a method of construction based on equi-
librium— the equilibrium, that is to say, of a building
vaulted on intersecting arches, the thrusts of which
are received by exterior flying buttresses.
The temerity, and even the dangers of such a
system, are sufficiently demonstrated in the wonderful
works of the thirteenth-century architects themselves.
For, notwithstanding the skill and beauty of their
many admirable combinations, they were unable to
reduce their methods to scientific formulae. The
statical power of their structures remained an
uncertain quantity, determined by the durability of
the material and its exposure or non-exposure to
the weather, the interior skeleton being formed of
the same material as the exterior.
The perils inherent in such a system are more
68
Goth ic A rch itectu re
c
apparent at Rheims than elsewhere, because of the
colossal proportions of the building. The arrange-
ment of the flying but-
tresses, however, is more
logical than at Laon,
Paris, Sens, and Bourges,
by reason of the quadri-
partite arrangement of
the main vault. The
I \ thrusts being equally dis-
/tributed among the sup-
/ porting piers, each flying
; \buttress performs an iden-
jtical office ; their equal
Jstrength and solidity is
/therefore perfectly appro-
/ priate and logical. But
/ though theoretically cor-
\ rect in its disposition of
I flying buttresses of equal
/ strength to meet thrusts
\ of equal strength, the
method is vitiated by its
inherent weakness as a
system of abutment. The
fragility of the flying
buttress exposed it to
two grave dangers, active
44. RHEIMS CATHEDRAL. PLA^ and passive ', active, tak-'
ing into account the con-
stant strain upon it as" an abutment ; passive, in
regard to the gradual reduction of its solidity by-
exposure to weather. In support of this statement,
Cathedrals of the Thirteenth Century 69
it is only necessary to refer to the restorations which
it has been found necessary to make within the last
few years, to preserve the nave. The flying buttresses
have been strengthened from below, a proceeding
without which the collapse of the huge building
would have been inevitable.
But we shall find much to call for unqualified
admiration at Rheims in the grandiose conception
of the work and in its powerful execution, in the
magnificent arrangement of its eastern facade, and
in the perfect harmony of the ornamentation, where
sculpture, capitals, friezes, crockets, and floriations are
so many types of mediaeval decorative art at its best.
The Cathedral of Amiens, which dates from about
1 2 20, and is one of the largest as well as one of the
most admired of Gothic masterpieces, is directly
founded upon that of Rheims. The plan is on the
same lines, with this exception, that at Amiens the
choir is of greater importance relatively to the nave,
and that the piers and points of support are weaker
and much more lofty.
The Remois architects, while exercised by the
problems of equilibrium which their system involved,
sought to minimise its dangers, which they recognised
no less fully than their predecessors, by prudently
avoiding all false bearings. It will be easily seen by
a comparison of the two sections (Figs. 45 and 48)
that the builders of Amiens were troubled by no
such misgivings, or that they were at least more
venturesome if not more accomplished. They_did_
not hesitate to base the columns which received the
crowns of the flying buttresses on a corbel arrange-
ment which had no solid bearing, as may be seen by
7° Gothic Architecture
following the direction of the dotted line X in Fig.
45. RHEIMS CATHEDRAL. SECTION OF THE NAVE
48. The boldness, or rather the imprudence of such
Cathedrals of the Thirteenth Century 71
46. RIIEIMS CATHEDRAL. FLYING BUTTRESSES OF THE CHOIR
72 Gothic Architecture
an arrangement is patent, for the failure of any
one of the courses, or the decay of any part of the
pier into which the
corbels are keyed,
would necessarily
\/nvolve a rupture in
the flying buttresses,
on which thestability
of the main vault
depends. The dis-
integration of the
whole building and
its total ruin could
be the only result.
The perils of such
combinations, or
rather such tours
de force of equi-
librium, are exem-
plified at Beauvais.
The architects who
built the choir, about
theyeari225,basing
it on that of Amiens,
determined to raise
a monument which
should surpass, both
in plan and elevation,
all the structures of
their epoch. They
increased the breadth of the choir and of its bays,
raising, in the latter, intermediate piers on the
crowns of the lower archivolts, thus dividing the upper
pNpk-
*nsr
>~~! y y -if\.
47. AMIENS CATHEDRAL. PLAN
Cathedrals of the Thirteenth Century 73
bays, and at the same time strengthening the vault by
48. AMIENS CATHEDRAL. SECTION THROUGH THE NAVE
auxiliary transverse arches. They exaggerated the
height of the archivolts and of the large windows,
74 Gothic Architecture
and diminished their thickness, in order to give greater
elegance and lightness, and the main vault rose to a
height of more than 160 feet above the ground level.
This tremendous elevation, the exaggeration of which
in proportion to the width of the nave is striking,
necessitated a complicated system of flying buttresses
surpassing in boldness all that had gone before. The
section in Fig. 5 I will give some idea of what has
been justly described as an architectural folly. It
is astonishing that the structure should have stood as
it has done, taking into account the false bearings
of the intermediate piers, here again shown by the
dotted line X (Fig. 51).
These rest for half of their thickness on off-sets
from the piers, which, proving unequal to the strain,
have been temporarily stayed, and must eventually
be consolidated.
The choir, however, was finished about 1270,
and stood for several years. But dislocations then
declared themselves. The forces so elaborately
balanced lost their equilibrium, and on the 2pth
November 1284 the vault fell, dragging down with
it the flying buttresses, and carrying havoc through
the rest of the building. In the reconstruction which
followed it was thought imperative to double the
points of support in the arcades both of the main
and side aisles, and to reinforce the flying buttresses
iron chains.
During the thirteenth century a number of
cathedrals were raised all over Europe on the model
of the great buildings of Northern France, and more
especially of Amiens, which seems to have roused
a great enthusiasm ; these were, however, of far
Cathedrals of the Thirteenth Centiiry 75
more modest dimensions. They had neither the
exaggerated height nor the structural audacities of
49. BEAUVAIS CATHEDRAL. APSE
their exemplars. Few of these churches and
cathedrals, the reconstruction of which on the new
76 Gothic Architecture
system generally began with the choir, which, was
50. BEAUVAIS CATHEDRAL, NORTH FRONT
Cathedrals of the Thirteenth Century 77
added to the primitive nave, were completed by
those who initiated their erection. The most highly
51. BEAUVAIS CATHEDRAL. TRANSVERSE SECTION
favoured in this respect were finished in the course
of the fourteenth century ; but in the greater number
78 Gothic Architecture
of cases the work dragged slowly on, and reached
52. CHARTRES CATHEDRAL. ROSE WINDOW OF NORTH TRANSEPT
its end some two centuries after its inauguration.
Reconstructive undertakings were constantly impeded
Cathedrals of the Thirteenth Century 79
by wars or social convulsions, which either hampered
or entirely cut off the resources of bishops and
architects, their promoters. Such interruptions were
of great service to modern archaeological study,
offering as they do distinct evidence of the various
transformations which were successively accomplished
from the so-called Romanesque period to the Gothic.
The majority of these great buildings, which show
traces of the vicissitudes through which they passed,
bear a strong likeness to each other, and vary only
in detail, according to the skill of their constructors.
The peculiar interest of Chartres centres in its
remarkable statuary ; it has, however, other features
which command attention, such as the rose window
y— of the north, transept and the design of the flying
buttresses. These consist of three arches, one above
the other, the two lower ones being connected by
colonnettes, radiating from a centre, so that the lower
arch is related to the upper, as the nave of a wheel
. is to the felloes, the colonnettes forming the spokes.
At Mans the arrangement of the choir is so far
more remarkable in that it is extremely unusual, or
indeed, in its way unique. \The flying buttresses are
planned in the form of a Y (see A on the plan Fig.
53), thus affording space for windows in the exterior
wall, to light the vast circular ambulatory, which at
Mans is of unusual importance, and surrounds the
ofioir with a double aisle. The flying buttresses
'which rise above the arcs-doubleaux^ bi-furcated (B
on the plan), are over-attenuated in section ; their
exaggerated height and proportionate slenderness
threaten to make them spring, so that it has been
found necessary to bind them together by ties and
8o
Gothic Architecture
53. MANS CATHEDRAL. PLAN
Cathedrals of the Thirteenth Century 81
iron chains. Such expedients are a sufficient
criticism of the ingenious but precarious system
adopted by the architects of Mans.
54. MANS CATHEDRAL. FLYING BUTTRESSES OF. THE APSE
The influence of the Ile-de-France in Normandy
is manifest in the arrangement of choirs and apsidal
chapels in Norman cathedrals of the thirteenth
century. The Cathedral of Cdutances, a monument
G
82 Gothic Architecture
of the eleventh century, was rebuilt in the early
55. MANS CATHEDRAL. SECTION OF THE CHOIR
Cathedrals of the Thirteenth Century 83
years of -the thirteenth century under the impulse
given by Northern France to
the architecture of the period.
It is in the choir that we
clearly trace this influence, in
the double columns of the
apse, and the ingenious dis-
position of its collateral vaults.
But the fagade is purely
Norman, not merely in general
design, but in the details of
the composition, facsimiles of
which may be found in
England.
The Cathedral of Dol in
Brittany, one of the great
churches of the thirteenth
century, seems to have escaped
the influences of the Northern
innovation. Its general plan,
its square apse lighted by
large windows, the details
of its architecture and orna-
mentation, all proclaim its
affinity to the great churches
which rose contemporane-
ously with it on either side
of the Channel, in Nor-
mandy, and in England. It
is very probable that it was
built by the same architects
or their immediate disciples, 56. COUTANCES CATHEDRAL.
working on the more ancient
NORTH TOWER
84
Goth ic A rch itectu re
methods of the Norman schools founded by
Lanfranc at Canterbury towards the close of
the eleventh century, on the model of those he
had established in France at the famous Abbaye
du Bee.
CHAPTER VIII
CATHEDRALS AND CHURCHES OF THE THIRTEENTH
AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES
THE Cathedrals of Rheims, Amiens, and Beauvais
excited extraordinary enthusiasm in their time, not
only in the provinces of France, but among neigh-
bouring nations, notably in England, Belgium,
Germany, Sweden, Spain, and Italy.
This enthusiasm was less fervid in the provinces
farthest from the royal domain ; but even in these
outlying districts several remarkable buildings rose
in the first half of the thirteenth century, constructed
on the new lines.
In 1233 the Cathedral of Bazas was begun, and,
unlike the majority of such undertakings, was carried
through and finished in a comparatively short time.
The Cathedral of Bayonne, a contemporary
building, shared the fate of Meaux, Troyes, and
Auxerre. It was completed, with one tower only,
in the sixteenth century. In 1248 the foundations
of Clermont Cathedral were laid. The plan provided
for six or seven towers, but the choir was the only
portion finished in the thirteenth century. The
transept and four towers, together with a portion of
86
Gothic Architecture
the nave, were completed in the following century,
and the work was then abandoned until the reign of
Napoleon III., who caused it to be again taken up.
The Cathedral of Limoges was begun in 1273, under
the direct inspiration of Notre Dame at Amiens.
57- KODEZ CATHEDRAL. WEST FRONT
Down to our own times it has had to content itself
with a choir, a transept, and the suggestions of a
nave, the last of which has lately been completed.
At Rodez a greater perseverance was shown, and
the work went steadily on from 1277 until the
Renascence, at which period, however, the two
western towers were left unfinished, notwithstanding
Cathedrals and Churches 87
a contemporary description of their magnificence,
58. BORDEAUX CATHEDRAL. CHOIR AND NORTH FRONT
fhich, in a truly Gascon vein, compares them to the
88
Gothic Architecture
Egyptian pyramids, among other world - renowned
marvels.
"In 1272 Toulouse and Narbonne entered the
lists against Amiens, imitating its plan, and propos-
59. LICHFIEI.D CATHEDRAL. WEST FRONT
ing to at least equal it in dimensions. Neither of
these undertakings proved happy. Archbishop
Maurice of Narbonne died the same year the works
were begun ; his successors took but a lukewarm
interest in their progress. In 1320 the sea re-
Cathedrals and Churches 89
treated, leaving the port on which the wealth of the
inhabitants mainly depended high and dry. For-
tunately the choir with its noble vault 130 feet high
was already completed, but the transept walls were
left to fall into ruins. At Toulouse Bishop Bertrand
de 1'Isle-Jourdain lived just long enough to carry
the work above the triforium of the choir ; it was
then abandoned till the fifteenth century. His
successors squandered the revenues of their vast
diocese so shamelessly in pleasures and display that
Popes Boniface VIII. and John XXII., scandalised
at their disorders, dismembered their territory and
subdivided it into four bishoprics, granting to the
Bishop of Toulouse the title of archbishop by way
of compensation. But this compensation was of
small avail to future zealous prelates for the carrying
out of Bertrand's projects, and the choir of Toulouse
was never finished. It falls short of its predestined
height of i 30 feet by 90, and the transept was not
even begun.
" The Cathedrals of Lyons, of St. Maurice at
Vienne, and of St. Etienne at Toul have~ affinities
more or less direct with the great architectural
movement. At Bordeaux the building of a great
cathedral was contemplated at the time of the
English occupation ; but the choir would never have
been finished but for the liberality of King Edward I.
and of Pope Clement V., who had formerly been
archbishop of the town." *
The great cathedrals constructed in England in
the thirteenth century bear witness to the expansion
1 Antliyme St. Paul, Ilistoire Momimentale de la Prance ; Paris
Hachette and Co., 1884.
Gothic Architecture
of French art on the lines already laid down in the
preceding century by the teaching and achievements
of the Norman monkish architects who had followed
William the Conqueror to Great Britain.1
English builders assimilated the constructive
principles of the architects of Anjou and of the
He -de -France. In the numerous cathedrals they
raised from the thirteenth to the close of the
fifteenth century it is easy to trace the original
characteristics of French art throughout all the
transformations or adaptations by which its methods
were modified in accordance with British usages and
ideas.
This influence is very apparent in the Cathedrals
of York, Ely, Wells, Salisbury, and Canterbury, the
last of which was constructed from the plans of an
architect or master - mason, known as William of
Sens ; in that of Lichfield, where the spires of the
facade recall those of Coutances in Normandy, and
above all, at Lincoln, one of the most beautiful of
English cathedrals. Here we have perhaps the
most strongly - marked instance of the steady and
continuous filiation between the buildings of France
and England during the so-called Gothic period.
It is quite possible that they were the work of the
1 This is a very summary way of dismissing the vexed question of
French influence upon English architecture. The undeniable fact that
wherever a French architect can be identified as the author of an
English building — William of Sens at Canterbury, for instance — the
work he did differs entirely in character from contemporary English
work is enough to refute much of the claim made for France. The
principles of Gothic architecture were the common property of the
two countries, and by each were developed according to their lights.
— Eu.
Cathedrals and Chiirches 91
same architects, as they certainly were carried out
by pupils or disciples of the same master-builders.1
LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. PLAN
1 It is difficult to believe that Mons. Corroyer is in earnest in com-
paring the spires of Lichfield to those of Coutances, or the central
tower of Lincoln to that of the same French cathedral. Mons. Corroyer
appears to be unacquainted with the Jine of filiation between English
spires and towers, and so looks, as a matter of course, for a French
mother to such as strike his fancy. — ED.
92
Gothic Architecture
6l. LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. WEST FRONT
Cathedrals and Churches 93
Lincoln Cathedral, founded in the eleventh
century, and finished in 1092, shared the fate of so
many other timber -roofed buildings of the period.
The greater part of it was destroyed by fire in 1124.
It was rebuilt and enlarged by St. Hugh in
accordance with the new ideas he had brought with
him from France, a very natural consequence of his
supervision, when we take into account that as
mandatory of Pope Gregory VII. he had been
Bishop of Grenoble. The church was again partly
destroyed by an earthquake in 1185. It was
then rebuilt, enlarged, and completed by Bishop
Grossetete, an Englishman by birth, who had, how-
ever, been educated and brought up in France in the
early part of the thirteenth century, and had carried
over with him to his native land the essence of the
grand and noble inspirations which marked that
marvellous era.
The lantern - tower at the intersection of the
western transept, which had fallen in 1235, was
either rebuilt or finished by Bishop Grossetete about
1 240. In its general outline and in detail it
recalls the great lantern-tower of Coutances in
Normandy, which seems also to have served as
model for that of St. Ouen at Rouen in the
fourteenth century.
The vast and magnificent Cathedral of Lincoln is
an admirable subject for comparative study. Its
architecture combines most strikingly the charac-
teristics of the two nations. It blends in one
harmonious whole the massive solidity of English
structure overlaid with detail, formed by lines
vertical, rigid, dry, and hard as iron, and the mingled
94 Gothic Architecture
grace and strength of French architecture, which
62. LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. TRANSEPT
may fitly be compared with gold, in its union of
Cathedrals and Churches
95
the supple and the durable, of solidity and power
of resistance equal to those of the less precious
63. LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. APSE AND CHAPTER-HOUSE
metal, with an adaptability to artistic ends far
greater.
In the fagade and the west towers English charac-
teristics predominate, but the choir and the apse
96 Gothic Architecture
are French in composition, and most probably in
execution, as is also the presbytery, in which
both the arrangement and the details of the
bays recall those of the lateral fagades of Bourges.1
All three are veritable masterpieces, worthy of
the most brilliant period of French mediaeval
architecture.
In Belgium French influence manifested itself
so early as the first half of the thirteenth century
in the building of the remarkable Church of Ste.
Gudule at Brussels. Up to this period the methods
of the Rhenish schools had obtained in the Low
Countries, and the setting aside of these methods in
favour ot the new system of France is significant of
the high repute of the latter throughout Western
Europe. Further evidence to this effect is to be
found in the great churches of Ghent, Tongres,
Louvain, and Bruges among others, which were
1 Here Mons. Corroyer directly traverses the opinion of Viollet-le-
duc, who could see no ground whatever for ascribing a French origin
to the choir of Lincoln. Indeed, the conception of that choir, and
nearly all its details, are not only unlike, they are opposed to those of
French contemporary examples. Here are the words of the great
French architect : "After the most careful examination I cannot find,
in any part of the Cathedral of Lincoln, neither in the general design,
nor in any part of the system of architecture adopted, nor in the details
of ornament, any trace of the French school of the twelfth century (the
lay school, from 1 170 to 1220), so plainly characteristic of the Cathedrals
of Paris, Noyon, Senlis, Chartres, Sens, and even Rouen. . . . The
construction is English, the profiles of the mouldings are English, the
ornaments are English, the execution of the work belongs to the
English school of workmen of the beginning of the thirteenth century."
— Gentleman 's Magazine for May 1861 — Letter to " Sylvanus Urban."
The date of Lincoln choir is known. It belongs to the last years of the
twelfth century, and so anticipates such French work as can show
analogies with it, Le Mans, for instance, where the work in question
dates from 1210-1220. — ED.
Cathedrals and Churches 9 7
either built between 1235 and 1300, or at any rate
begun during this period, to be completed in the
fourteenth century and even later.
64. BRUSSELS CATHEDRAL (STE. GUDULE). WEST FRONT
Ste. Gudule at Brussels was begun about
1226; but only the choir and the transept were
H
98 Gothic Architecture
finished by 1275. The nave was built in the
fourteenth century, together with the towers of the
west front, which, however, were not finally completed
till the following century, or perhaps the sixteenth.
Several chapels, the windows of which are filled
with magnificent painted glass, date from the same
period as these towers.
French influence is no less patent at Cologne,
which is undoubtedly the daughter of Amiens. The
opinion of a German writer is of special interest on
this point.
" The famous Cathedral of Cologne, one of the
masterpieces of the German School, is a direct
emanation from French tradition. The choir is a
replica of that of Amiens; it was dedicated in 1322,
after which the work of nave and transepts was
carried on continuously ; the nave measures 43 feet
in width, and 1 40 in height ; the total length of the
church is 503 feet. The two towers of the west
front have been completed in our own times — from
the original designs, it is said. The general effect,
whether of interior or exterior, is certainly not equal
to that of the finest French cathedrals, but the style
is rich and pure, and touches perfection in the treat-
ment of details." l
In Scandinavian countries French art, which
had already manifested itself at Ripen in Jutland
during the so-called Romanesque period, gives us a
fresh instance of its expansive power in an im-
portant Swedish building which dates from the end
of the thirteenth century. The Cathedral of Upsala
has this peculiarity, that it was designed and even
1 W. Liibke, Essai d'Histoire de I'Art,
Cathedrals and Churches 99
begun by a French architect, one Estienne de Bonneuil,
— i~u__r~—^ss^
65. COLOGNE CATHEDRAL. SOUTH FRONT
ioo Gothic Architecture
who, on 3Oth August 1287, received the royal
authority to betake himself to Upsala to construct
the cathedral.1
In Spain the chief monuments of thirteenth-
century Gothic architecture which betray the in-
fluence of France are the great five-aisled Church
of Toledo, the cathedral at Badajoz, and the
front of St. Mark's at Seville. French influence
again is manifest in the cathedrals of Leon, of
Palencia, of Oviedo, of Pampeluna, of Valencia, and
of Barcelona, founded at the end of the thirteenth
century and continued in the fourteenth, as well as
in the churches of Torquemado, Bilbao, Bellaguer,
Monresa, and Guadalupe, all dating partly from the
fourteenth century.
The Cathedral of Burgos, begun in the first half
of the thirteenth century, shows a striking analogy
with French buildings of about the same period in
the plan and construction of its flying buttresses
and windows as well as in the decorative sculpture
of its portals. The lower stories of the west front
seem to date from the fourteenth century, but the
open-work spires which crown it were not finished
until the fifteenth. In this curious building we find
elements taken from France, mingled with decorative
passages of pure Italian, and with others character-
istically Spanish in their use of motives only to
be explained by the vitality of the Saracenic
traditions.
Innumerable churches were built in Italy during
the so-called Gothic period, principally towards its
1 Charles Lucas, Les Architectes fran$ais a V Etranger (from the
journal, V Architecture).
Cathedrals and Churches
IOI
66. BURGOS CATHEDRAL. WEST FRONT
102
Gothic Architecture
conclusion. Not to speak of the famous Cathedrals
of Milan and Florence, nor of S. Anthony, nor of
the Cathedral of Padua, the Cathedrals of Siena and
Orvieto seem especially to lean away from antique
67. CATHEDRAL OK UUOMO OF SIENA. WEST FKONT
and Lombard traditions towards those of France, a
characteristic especially notable in the decorative
details of their west fronts, which recall in many ways
the work of French architects during the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries.
Cathedrals and Churches
103
It is the opinion of some archaeologists that the
true parent of the Cathedrals of Siena and Orvieto
68. CHURCH OF ST. FRANCIS AT ASSISI. APSE AND CLOISTERS
was the Church of St. Francis at Assisi, which is
not far distant. Now St. Francis of Assisi is
undeniably French in origin. This church, which
104 Gothic Architecture
was founded in 1228 to receive the remains of St.
Francis who died in 1226, was possibly completed
as to the lower structure in the thirteenth century ;
but it is improbable, to say the least, that this
completion should have been the work of a German,
for at this period Gothic architecture was still in
embryo in Germany, while in France it had reached
its most glorious development. The upper church
seems to be later in date by a century ; we may
clearly trace its affinities with French art in the
system of construction, which has all the character-
istics peculiar to that which prevailed in the south
of France at the close of the thirteenth and the
beginning of the fourteenth century. Of this system
the Church of Albi is the most finished type.1 Assisi,
in its single aisle, in its buttresses, both as to their
interior projections and their exterior half-turreted
forms, shows a complete analogy with the French
Albigeois church.
1 See chap. ix. "Albi," etc.
CHAPTER IX
CHURCHES OF THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH
CENTURIES IN FRANCE AND IN THE EAST
" THE thirteenth century was so prolific in religious
architecture as to leave little scope to those which
followed. But even had the growth of great religi-
ous monuments been less rapid at this period, the
wars which convulsed France in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries would have paralysed such under-
takings as the building of great cathedral churches.
The religious buildings actually completed in the
fourteenth century are rare ; still rarer are those
which date from the fifteenth. In those stormy
days enterprise was confined to the completion of
unfinished churches, and the modification, restora-
tion, or enlargement of twelfth and thirteenth
century buildings. It was not until the close of the
fifteenth and opening of the sixteenth century,
when France was beginning to recover its former
power, that a fresh impulse was given to religious
architecture ; even then, however, the Gothic tradi-
tion persisted, though in a corrupt and bastard form.
Many of the great cathedrals were finished, and a
number of small churches, which had been destroyed
io6
Gothic Architecture
during the wars, or had fallen into decay through
long neglect, consequent on the poverty of the
69. CHURCH OF ST. OUEN AT ROUEN. CENTRAL TOWER AND APSE,
SOUTH FRONT
community, were either rebuilt or restored. The
movement was, however, presently arrested by the
Churches of the i^tk and i$th Centuries 107
Reformation, when war, fire, and pillage again
destroyed or mutilated most of the newly completed
religious buildings. The havoc wrought by this last
upheaval was in its nature irrevocable, for when
order once more reigned at the close of the sixteenth
century, the Renascence had swept away the last
traces of the national art ; and though superficially
the system of construction which prevailed in French
churches of the thirteenth century still obtained, the
genius which had presided at their construction was
extinct and its memory despised." 1
The Church of St. Ouen at Rouen, except for
the west front and its towers, which are modern, is
a typical example of the rare religious buildings
constructed in the north of France during the
fourteenth century. The arrangement of these
churches varies, inasmuch as, while in general they
follow the methods of construction adopted by the
Northern architects of the thirteenth century, their
special characteristic is a refinement or rather an
attenuation of the piers, less by actual reduction
of their section than by a diminution of their
apparent bulk. This was effected by multiplying
the clustered shafts, the slenderness of which was
still further exaggerated by the prodigality of the
mouldings, and the over-hollowness of their profiles.
These profiles and mouldings rise from the base to
the summit, and in the fourteenth century mark the
spring of the arches by rings of sculpture, crowned
with rudimentary abaci. These latter details were
the last traces of a tradition which was to finally
1 Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire raisonne de V Architecture fran^aise,
etc., vol. i.
io8
Goth ic A rch itectu re
disappear in the fifteenth century. Thenceforward
the lines of the intersecting arches of the vault, as of
70. ALBI CATHEDRAL. PLAN
the longitudinal and transverse arches, run down
without interruption to the base of the piers, where
we find a complex faggot of mouldings crossing and
Churches of the i^th and i$th Centuries 109
recrossing, and showing little beyond the technical
dexterity of the carver.
The main preoccupation of the architects of this
period seems to have been the reduction of solid
surfaces so as to give full play to the soaring effect
of their airy shafts and vaults. The walls disappear,
save below the windows, which now occupy the
entire space of each bay. The triangular divisions
of the vault are concealed by a serried network of
supplementary ribs, for the most part useless save
as decorations. But it must in justice be re-
membered that to this exaggeration of the window
spaces we owe the growth of the beautiful art of
painting on glass. This art, the admirable fitness
of which for decorative purposes can hardly be
over-estimated, had already manifested itself in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In the interval
from that period to the Renascence it produced its
grandest masterpieces.1
It must be borne in mind that the great con-
structive and reconstructive movement which had
manifested itself throughout Western Europe, and
notably in the north of France, by great buildings,
the distinguishing characteristics of which are vaulted
roofs and flying buttresses, had made little progress
in Southern France. The few exceptions of im-
portance are — Bazas, Bayonne, Auch, Toulouse, and
Narbonne. The Southern architects, as we have
already stated, adhered to the ancient tradition,
whether influenced by impulses of reaction, resist-
ance, or defiance. Their conservatism is compre-
hensible enough in view of the strong Gallo-Roman
1 See chap. xii. " Decorative Painting on Walls and Glass."
1 1 o Goth ic A rch itectu re
tendencies which governed architectural activity
throughout the district. The builders of the thir-
teenth and fourteenth centuries did indeed accept
the Angevin intersecting arch, an invention the
admirable simplicity of which was its own recom-
mendation. But this concession was without pre-
judice to their broad principles. In the general
arrangement of their religious buildings they still
adhered to Roman usage, and to such models as the
Basilica of Constantine and the tepidarium of the
Baths of Caracalla.1
Towards the close of the thirteenth, and through-
out the fourteenth century, a large number of churches
were built in the South, consisting of a single wide
and lofty aisle, vaulted on intersecting arches, the
thrusts of which were received by buttresses of great
bulk and prominence in the interior of the building,
but very slightly indicated on the exterior. The
spaces between the massive interior buttresses, on
either side of the aisle, were occupied by a series of
chapels, supporting disconnected tribunes or a con-
tinuous corridor. The two great churches of the
Cordeliers and of the Jacobins at Toulouse were
built in the brick of the country in the second half
of the thirteenth century. These have two aisles,
according to the Dominican usage of --the period, but
the exterior arrangement is the same as in the one-
aisled churches. The Churches of St. Bertrand at
Comminges, and those of Lodive, Perpignan, Con-
dom, Carcassonne, Gaillac, Montpezat, Moissac, etc.,
were built in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
1 V Architecture Roinane, by Ed. Corroyer ; Paris, Maison Quantin,
chaps, iii. and vii,
Churches of the i^th and i$th Centuries 1 1 1
on the single-aisled plan. That of Perpignan has
_ _ .
< L ~" L~^ ' " ~~l I
71. ALBI CATHEDRAL. SECTION OF THE NAVE
112
Gothic Architecture
this peculiarity ; its vaults, though supported on
intersecting arches, are built in accordance with
Roman methods, which further prevail both in the
forms of the terra-cotta materials, and in the manner
of their application. The reins of the vault, which
measures some 53 feet across, are ornamented by
terra-cotta jars embedded in an admirably prepared
lime mortar of great durability. The actual roof
lies without the support of any intervening structure
of timber upon the extrados of the vault. This
consists of voussoirs of Roman brick, retained by a
layer of terra-cotta upon which the tiles, also of the
antique Roman form, are laid. This arrangement
protects the vault from any infiltration of water due
to the rupture of the tiles, an absolutely necessary
precaution, if the former was to retain its stability.
The Cathedral of Ste. Cecile at Albi is a monu-
mental type of the single-aisled system. It is one
of the largest and most important of Southern
buildings constructed on the traditional principles of
the ancient Romans. The vast single aisle, some
60 feet wide, is built entirely of brick, with the ex-
ception of the window tracery, the choir screen, and
the south porch. Here we may study constructive
principles no less simple than sagacious, combining
all the necessary conditions of stability. The points
of support and abutments of the vault on intersecting
arches are all enclosed by the outer wall ; they are
thus protected from the accidents of climate, and
their durability is almost indefinitely assured.
The foundations of the cathedral, which was
dedicated to St. Cecilia, were laid in 1282, on the
ruins of the ancient Church of Ste. Croix. The
Churches of the ij.th ami i^th Centuries 113
main building was finished towards the close of the
72. ALBI CATHEDRAL. APSE
fourteenth century, and the whole as it now stands
was completed in the last years of the fifteenth and
I
1 14 Gothic Architecture
early part of the sixteenth century, by the addition
of the baldacchino of the southern porch, or prin-
cipal entrance, of the stone rood loft, and choir
73. ALBI CATHEDRAL. DONJON TOWER AND SOUTH FRONT
screen, the stalls of carved wood, and the fresco
decorations which adorn the whole building. This
varied workmanship renders Albi one of the most
instructive of studies in connection with French
decorative art, the successive developments being
CJmrches of the i^tk and i^tJi Centuries 115
marked by monumental examples of the highest
order, inspired or created by divers influences. The
architecture is of the Southern French type, as far
as the main building is concerned ; in essentials, the
same type prevails in the magnificent porch known
as the baldaquin, in the choir screen, and in the
rood loft ; but in these later additions the inspiration
of Northern art at the close of the fifteenth and
beginning of the sixteenth century is also perceptible.
The statuary and sculptured ornaments of wood
and stone are Flemish ; the paintings indicate their
Italian origin by their crudity of colour and vulgarity
of motive.
The Cathedral of Albi has a special interest as
being one of the most curious examples of Southern
Gothic architecture in the fourteenth century. It
has a further peculiarity, inasmuch as it was not
only a church, as it still is, but a fortress. Such
a combination is readily accounted for by a study
of the epoch following on the fierce struggle which
ended in the extermination of the Albigenses, and
of the social and political events resulting therefrom.
The interior is purely ecclesiastical, of the most
beautiful type of its time ; the grandeur of its
dimensions, its structural perfection, and the mag-
nificence of its decoration, are unsurpassed in their
way.
The exterior is that of a fortress. Its intention
is proclaimed by the buttresses rising from the
glacis of the base to form, as it were, flanking
towers ; by the arrangement of the bays, or rather
curtains, crowned by an embattled machicolated
parapet, which unite these towers, and by the grandiose
u6
Gothic A rch itecture
military character of the architecture. The formid-
able aspect of the building is much enhanced by the
74. CHURCH OF ESNANDES (CHARENTE INFERIEURE). A FORTIFIED
CHURCH OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY
western tower, in effect a donjon keep, completing
the system of defence by its connection with the
fortifications of the archbishop's palace, which in
Churches of the 141/1 and i$th Centuries 1 1 7
their turn are carried on to ramparts, crowning the
escarpments which, to the north, rise from the Tarn.1
A few fortified churches still exist — such, for ex-
ample, as Les Stes. Maries (Bouches du Rhone),
which dates from the thirteenth century. Albi was
not a solitary instance of this usage. The Churches
of Beziers, Narbonne, and many others of the thir-
teenth and fourteenth century had been surrounded
by defensive outworks rendered necessary by re-
ligious strife. The buildings thus transformed into
strongholds served the further purpose of sheltering
fugitive populations in times of panic.
One of the most interesting of such examples is
the Church of Esnandes, not far from Rochelle, on
the creek of Aiguillon, a building which dates from
the twelfth century. It was fortified at the beginning
of the fifteenth century to resist the incursions of the
English.
As we have already remarked on the authority of
a learned writer, the buildings of the fifteenth century
are less numerous than those of the fourteenth. Those
concerned in such undertakings were content to
finish churches begun at an earlier period, or to
attempt their reconstruction, frequently on plans
which it was impossible to carry out, so that many
buildings were left incomplete. We may instance a
very famous monument, the Abbey of Mont St.
Michel. The Romanesque choir fell into ruins in
1421, during the Hundred Years' War. In 1452
Cardinal Guillaume d'Estouteville undertook the
reconstruction of the church on a scale so consider-
able that the choir only was completed during the
1 See "Civil Architecture," Part IV. chap. ii.
u8
Gothic Architecture
75. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. FLYING BUTTRESSES OF THE CHOIR
(LATE FIFTEENTH CENTURY). FROM A DRAWING BY THE AUTHOR
Churches of the i^th and i$th Centuries 119
first years of the sixteenth century.1 This part of
the church shows the effect of the decadence of
which there had been indications so early as the
close of the thirteenth century. Certain of the
arrangements are very ingenious, notably that of the
triforium, which rests on the reins of the lower vault,
and forms, as seen
from outside, a series
of small apses stand-
ing out from the
main wall. But
the mason's work is
negligent, especially
in the flying but-
tresses, which were
so carefully treated
by the architects of
the thirteenth cen-
tury. The lines are
attenuated by a multi-
plicity of mouldings
to an almost thread-
like slenderness ; the
spring of the arches is 76. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. PLAN
undefined by capitals, OF THE CHOIR ABOVE
and the complicated network of the fenestration adds
to the wire-drawn effect, and further diminishes the
proportions of the building. There is little to admire
but the extreme manual dexterity of the carvers.
The carving of the granite, the only stone used at
Mont St. Michel 2 save for the arcadings of the cloister,
1 Description de V Abbaye du Mont St. Michel el des ses Abords, by Ed.
Corroyer ; Paris, 1877. 2 See Part II., " Monastic Architecture."
120 Gothic Architecture
is very remarkable, as is also the ornamental sculp-
77. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. DETAILS OF THE APSE
(LATE FIFTEENTH CENTURY)
Churches of the i^th and i$th Centuries 121
ture ; this is executed with extreme skill, in spite of
the excess of detail with which it is loaded.
The decadence of Gothic architecture was mani-
fest even at the close of the thirteenth century in
such tours de force as the choir of St. Peter at
Beauvais, and the Church of St. Urbain at Troyes.
During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries build-
ings or parts of buildings were constructed with
remarkable skill, but the noble simplicity which was
the strength of thirteenth-century architecture was
no more. By the close of the fifteenth century a
studied mannerism had taken its place. The
western doorway of Alengon Cathedral is a typical
example of this development, the defects of which
were still further accentuated in the following
century.
" The qualities of the architecture of the decad-
ence must be sought not in the construction, but in
the decoration of churches ; here we may freely
admire the happy detail and patient execution which
mark the work of carvers and limners during the
last two centuries of the Middle Ages." x
Gothic architecture put forth its expansive force
at the close of the twelfth and during the thirteenth
century, not only throughout Western Europe, but
even in Eastern countries, where monuments still
survive of the highest interest to us as the work of
monkish architects who came from France in the
wake of the first Crusaders. The modifications and
enlargements of famous buildings in the Holy Land
towards the close of the twelfth century show
1 Anthyme St. Paul, Histoirc Monumentak dc la France ; Paris,
1884.
122 Gothic Architecture
evident traces of their influence, which is further
78. ALENCON CATHEDRAL. WEST FRONT (FIFTEENTH CENTURY)
Churches of the i^th and 1 5th Centitnes 123
manifested in certain structures of Rhodes and Cyprus
from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, in which
Western and more especially French types have
served as models.
" It will hardly be disputed that the prolonged
sojourn of the Crusaders in the Levant, the teachings
of their architects, and the contemplation of their
79. FACADE OF THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. SOPHIA AT NICOSIA
(ISLAND OF CYPRUS)
works, were considerable factors in the development
of Arab art. There was a reaction of the West upon
the East ; sometimes indeed such a direct influence
is perceptible as to astound and perplex the
observer. To understand the part played by the
Crusaders in the East, and to appreciate its Western
and independent character, we must cast a rapid
glance at the monuments constructed by them in
Cyprus and Rhodes after their expulsion from
124
Gothic Architecture
Syria. We shall find the movement which originated
in the twelfth century progressing throughout the
80. CATHEDRAL OF ST. NICHOLAS AT FAMAGUSTA (ISLAND OF CYPRUS).
FACADE
following centuries on the same lines ; in other words,
drawing a continuous inspiration from France.1
" The island of Cyprus was conquered in 1191
1 Melchior de Vogiie, Les fcglises de la Terre Sainte.
Churches of the i^-th and i$th Centuries 125
by Richard Coeur de Lion ; in the following year
it was ceded to Guy de Lusignan, in whose family
it remained until the close of the fifteenth century.
Catherine Cornaro, the widow of the last of the
Lusignans, gave it in 1489 to the Venetians,
who retained possession of it till its conquest by
the Turks in 15/1. Throughout the thirteenth
century Cyprus was a refuge for successive remnants
of the Christian colonies of Syria. French pre-
dominance was at its height in the fourteenth
century. The religious monuments of this period
are very numerous and of great variety of structure.
Art had emerged from the cloister, and had ceased
to be the monopoly of monastic bodies. In Cyprus
we no longer find that scholastic uniformity which
characterises the Latin churches of the Holy Land.
The new blood of secularism had entered into
Romanesque architecture and led to a fresh develop-
ment of the art in Cyprus as in France. . . . Archi-
tects applied the thirteenth -century methods, fully
recognising their consequences. They sacrificed to
local exigencies by the substitution of flat roofs for
timber ones, but this modification in nowise affected
the general arrangement of their buildings.
" The most considerable monument of the
thirteenth century is the Cathedral of Nicosia, built
between 1209 and 1228, and dedicated to St.
Sophia (see Fig. 79). This large three - aisled
church has all the characteristics of French
cathedrals of the period." l
The Churches of St. Catherine and of the
Armenians, the mosques of Emerghie and of Arab
1 Melchior de Vogue, Les Eglises de la Terrc Sainte.
126
Goth ic A rch it edit, re
Achmet also date from the close of the thirteenth
century. Among the more numerous buildings of
the fourteenth century the most noteworthy are the
Cathedral of St. Nicholas at Famagusta (Figs. 80
and 8 1 ), with its three portals and two towers ; the
Church of St. Sophia at Famagusta (Fig. 82),
the Premonstrant Monastery of Lapai's, remarkable
8l. CATHEDRAL OF ST. NICHOLAS AT FAMAGUSTA (ISLAND OF CYPRUS)
for the beauty and nobility of its abbatial buildings,
which comprise a large three - aisled chapel, and
several religious buildings at Paphos and at Limasol.
At Rhodes there are a number of churches built in
the fifteenth century after French models, which had
no less a vogue for dwelling-houses than for religious
and military architecture ; in a word, architecture
—civil, religious, or military — was French in all
its manifestations. " The guns of the order still
point from the embrasures of the towers, Soliman's
Churches of the i^th and i$th Centuries 1 2 7
stone cannon balls strew the neighbouring ground ;
sculptured on the house fronts are the blazons, and
in many cases the French names, of their bygone
owners. Involuntarily the mind travels back by the
space of three centuries, reincorporating these for-
82. RUINS OF THE CHURCH OF ST. SOPHIA AT FAMAGUSTA
(ISLAND OF CYPRUS)
gotten worthies, and repeopling their dwelling-
places. One half expects to see the emblazoned doors
thrown open, to give egress to knightly owners,
mustering for the last time under the banner of
St. John." l
1 Melchior de Vogue, Les Eglises de la Terre Sainte.
CHAPTER X
TOWERS AND STEEPLES CHOIRS CHAPELS
THE first steeples were round, on the model of the
Greek and Byzantine cupolas, and modest in diameter,
so that the bells they contained can only have been
small ones. These bells were suspended from the
summit of the tower, the portion of wall surrounding
them being pierced by arcaded openings, and crowned
by a long pyramidal roof.1
Such towers were very frequently isolated from
the body of the church. A large number of Italian
churches, dating from all periods of the Middle
Ages, have steeples at a considerable distance from
the main building.
Force of habit determined the application of the
round form to towers of the twelfth century ; but it
is evident that a square plan was preferred, even so
early as the tenth century, and such a form was in
course of time rendered necessary by the develop-
ment of the founder's art, and the increase in the
dimensions of bells at the beginning of the twelfth
century. Besides the great bells which proclaimed
1 Encydopedie de F Architecture et de la Construction, article
"Clocher," by Ed. Corroyer.
Towers and Steeples — Choirs — Chape ts 129
the hour of prayer to a distant flock, small bells
were in use to regulate the religious exercises of the
clergy. They are called in the Latin texts signum,
sckilla, nola ; in French sin, esqmelle, eschelitte ;
from the beginning of the tenth
century they were placed in the
campaniles which crowned the
domes.
The Italian word campanile has
the force of the French terms
tour, docker, beffroi (or the English
tower, steeple, belfry). But the
denomination docker has a general
application to all pyramidal struc-
tures rising above the roof of a
church.
The belfry was a tower, in
most cases isolated, which con-
tained the bell destined to sound
the curfew and tocsin, and
to call the burghers to civic
assemblies.
Like the belfry, the Italian
campanile is generally an isolated
building, but it is usually placed ^
83. STEEPLE, VENDOME
in the near neighbourhood of (TWELFTH CENTURY)
a church. Among the most
famous campanili are those of Florence — begun in
the fourteenth century, on the plans of Giotto, — of
Padua, of Ravenna, and the famous leaning tower of
Pisa.
In France the term campanile has a more
general application, and is given to the little pierced
K
Gothic Architecture
arcaded turrets which, in many churches, crown the
walls of the fagade and
shelter small bells.
The most ancient
belfries of the original
provinces of France
have great analogies
with Byzantine monu-
ments as to form, even
when differing in detail.
One of the most re-
markable of these is
the tower of St. Front
at Perigueux, which
seems to date from
the first years of the
eleventh century. It
marked the sepulchre of
the Saint,and apparent-
ly embraced two bays
of the original three-
aisled Latin church of
the sixth century, evi-
dent traces of which
have been discovered
to the west of the
great domed building
of later times.
The tower of St.
Front is composed of
three square stories,
diminishing on plan as
84. GIOTTO'S TOWER AT FLORENCE they rise, and crowned
Towers and Steeples — Choirs — Chapels 131
by a conical dome, resting upon a circular colonnade,
the columns of which vary in height and diameter,
and owe their origin to Roman examples in the
neighbourhood.1
The influence of this remarkable building was
very considerable. It served as a model to architects
of the neighbouring provinces. The type was im-
proved upon in the tower of the Abbey Church of
Brantome by the avoidance of the false bearings
which mar the structure of St. Front, while at St.
Leonard, near Limoges, a very original feature was
superadded in the octagonal form of the crown or
roof. The Auvergnat architects further perfected
the construction by introducing internal piers for
the support of the recessed walls of the upper stories,
as at Puy.2
It is worthy of note that, in spite of the im-
portance given to these buildings, the space allotted
to the bells themselves was comparatively limited,
which seems to indicate that the towers were destined
for other purposes than the reception of bells. In
the eleventh century the tower bore the same re-
lation to the cathedral or abbey as did the donjon
to the feudal castle. It was, in fact, the symbol of
power. As abbots and bishops enjoyed the same
rights as the nobles, it will be readily understood
that the costliness of such emblems would be governed
solely by the resources of their authors. The number
of towers built at about the same period in connec-
tion with cathedrals and abbeys, and the importance
1 L Architecture Rotuane, by Ed. Corroyer ; Paris, Maison Quantin,
1887.
2 Ibid. 1888.
132 Gothic Architecture
of such as were attached even to simple parish
85. BAYEUX CATHEDRAL. TOWERS OF THE WEST FRONT
Towers and Steeples — Choirs — Chapels 133
churches may be explained if we consider them
86. SENLIS CATHEDRAL. SOUTH TOWER OF WEST FRONT
mainly as denoting the status of an enfranchised
134 Gothic Architecture
commune. The rivalries in connection with neigh-
bouring towers undoubtedly had their origin in
conditions such as these.
Towards the close of the eleventh century and
throughout the twelfth many towers were built at
an angle with the door, or in front of it, so as to
form a porch, as at St. Benoit-sur-Loire and Poissy ;
or above it, as in the Churches of Ainay and of
Moissac.
Later on immense towers with spires were built
at each angle of the western facade, the gable of
the nave rising between them.
At the Abbey Church of Jumieges a large project-
ing porch filled the central bay of the ground story
between the bases of the towers, but more frequently
the towers were in one plane with the chief porch,
and were themselves pierced with lateral porches,
the three doors, with their richly sculptured voussoirs,
forming one vast decorative whole.
The architects of the so - called Romanesque
period built their towers at the intersection of the
transepts ; but avoiding the constructive audacities
of the tower of St. Front, which was one of the
most generally accepted models of the eleventh
and twelfth centuries, they ensured the solidity of
their central tower by placing the more or less
conical cupola which crowned the structure upon a
square base, carefully loaded and abutted at each
angle.
At the close of the twelfth century the architects
of the Ile-de-France adopted a square form for the
body of the tower, and in imitation of Oriental and
Rhenish builders, reserved the octagonal plan for
Towers and Steeples — Choirs — Chapels 1 3 5
the spire, ensuring the solidity of the angles by a
variety of ingenious com-
binations.
The great central
Towers of the Norman
churches built in England
and Normandy from the
thirteenth to the fourteenth
century were not always
merely belfries, as at
Salisbury or Langrune,
for instance ; in many
cases they were lanterns,
their functions being to
light the centre of the
church and to form
a magnificent decorative
feature at the intersection
of transepts, nave, and
choir in cruciform struc-
tures, such as St. Georges,
Bocherville,Coutances,etc.
Of all the French pro-
vinces Normandy clung
most persistently to the
lantern tower, and that
of St. Ouen at Rouen is
one of the most interesting
examples.
In other provinces, not-
ably Picardy, Champagne,
Burgundy, and the Ile-
87. SALISBURY CATHEDRAL.
de-Prance, lantern towers STEEPLE
136 Gothic Architecture
were superseded by timber flecJies cased in lead, which
88. CHURCH OF LANGRUNE (CALVADOS). STEEPLE
rose at the intersection of the roofs of nave and transepts.
Towers and Steeples — Choirs — Chapels 137
Among the most remarkable towers of the twelfth
century in the Northern provinces we may mention
those of Tracy-le-Val (Oise), of the Abbey Church
of the Ste. Trinite at Vendome, and of Bayeux ;
those of the Abbaye-aux-Hommes at Caen ; the
old tower of the Cathedral of Chartres, and that of
St. Eusebe at Auxerre.
In the thirteenth century the height and decora-
tive richness of these structures had increased to an
extraordinary degree. The tower of Senlis (Fig.
86) is a most elegant example of the first years of
a century which witnessed the birth of so many
marvels of architecture.
In Burgundy several remarkable towers were
built by the monks of Cluny, who were free from
the asceticism introduced by St. Bernard among
their brethren of Citeaux. The most notable of
their structures are perhaps the towers of the Church
of St. Pere, near Vezelay, built about 1240.
In the South various original developments in
Gothic architecture were logically brought about
by a judicious use of the materials of the country,
such as brick. Most interesting examples of such
development are to be found in the tower of the
Jacobin Church at Toulouse, which dates from the
close of the thirteenth century, and the donjon
tower of Albi, the characteristics of which we have
already discussed.
Examples of isolated towers are hardly to be
found of later date than the thirteenth century.
Bordeaux perhaps offers an exception. But the
general usage after this period was to include the
towers in the composition of the facade ; their actual
138 Gothic Architecture
functions as belfries became apparent only above the
II
89. CHURCH OF THE JACOBINS AT TOULOUSE. TOWER
level of the vaults. A beautiful example of this
Towers and Steeples — Choirs — Chapels 1 39
treatment may be studied in the noble composition
of Notre Dame de Paris.
Its contemporary, the Cathedral of Laon, has
four towers, terminating in octagonal belfries, the
angles of which are flanked by two-storied open-
work pinnacles ; on the second of these stories are
placed colossal bulls, the effect of which is very
striking.
The towers of Rheims, which date from the
second half of the thirteenth century, are of secondary
importance in the splendid facade ; but they are
marked by a feature which was a novelty at the
time. The interior of the belfry is built with a
cage to allow free play to the bells, and space for the
timbers by which they are supported, while the
exterior forms an octagonal tower flanked by im-
portant pinnacles.
Rheims may be said to mark in Gothic archi-
tecture the boundary which separated its period of
perfection from that of exaggeration and mannerism.
The mania for lightness and the desire to dazzle and
astound soon seduced its artists into a dangerous
path which led inevitably to decadence. Such
effects first manifested themselves more especially in
the provinces of the German frontier, and the spire
of Strasburg, built in the fourteenth century, is a
famous example of these mistaken tendencies.
Throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
towers adhered to the plan and general arrangement
adopted by the later architects of the thirteenth
century, diverging chiefly in the marvellous profusion
of detail and of sculpture, and in the excessive light-
ness of design. The points of support were attenu-
140
Gothic Architecture
ated, and the mass of ornament seemed designed to
conceal them as far as
possible. In France
the misfortunes of the
times tended largely
to perpetuate these
dangerous foibles; for
a number of churches
which were founded
at the close of the
thirteenth century re-
mained unfinished till
the fifteenth and six-
teenth, when Gothic
art was in full de-
cadence.
But we must not
passover unmentioned
certain buildings
famous for boldness
of construction and
magnificence of de-
coration, if not for
purity of style. The
following are perhaps
the most important :—
In France the tower
of St. Pierre at Caen,
which shows strong
traces of that analogy,
or family likeness, so
to speak, uniting Nor-
90. CHURCH OF ST. PIERRE AT CAEN. . . -
TOWER man edifices ; and the
Towers and Steeples — Choirs — Chapels 14
tower of St. Michel at Bordeaux, the spire of which
was destroyed by a
hurricane in 1768,
and has lately been
restored to its primi-
tive height of 365
feet ; in Austria the
tower of St. Stephen,
one of the most im-
portant of such build-
ings in that country,
finished in 1433; the
tower of the Cathedral
of Freiburg-im-Breis-
gau (grand -duchy of
Baden), one of the
most beautiful and
important examples.
It was mainly con-
structed towards the
close of the fourteenth
century, but the open-
work spire was added
about the middle of
the following century.
The Cathedral of
Antwerp in Belgium
was begun in the
middle of the four-
teenth century ; the
nave and the four side
.
aisles were not com-
. 91. CHURCH OF ST. MICHEL AT
pleted till a century BORDEAUX. TOWER
142
Gothic A rch itectu re
later. The fagade is said to have been begun in
1406 by a Boulognese
master-mason, one Pierre
Amel ; but of the two
belfry towers only that
on the north was com-
pleted in 1518. Its
principal merit lies in
its boldness of construc-
tion and its unusual
height of 410 feet, rather
than in purity of style
or beauty of detail, the
latter being a conglomer-
ate made up from every
period of Gothic.
CJioirs. — In Christian
churches the choir * proper
was an institution long
before the chapels.2
At the extremity of
the basilica, in the centre
of the chalcidium or tran-
sept which gave to the
basilican plan the form
of a T or Tau — a figure
venerated by the Christians
1 I? Architecture Rotnane, by
Kd. Corroyer ; Paris. Maison
Quantin, 1888.
2 Encydopedie de V Architecture
92. CATHEDRAL OF FREIBURG - IM- et de la Construction, article
BREISGAU (GRAND -DUCHY OF " Choeur - Chapelle," by Ed.
BADEN). TOWER Corroyer.
Towers and Steeples — Choirs — Chapels 143
as symbolising the Cross — were placed the altar, the
93. ANTWERP CATHEDRAL
144 Gothic Architecture
sanctuary, and the precincts occupied by the deacons
and sub -deacons. The altar stood in the midst,
between the hemicycle or apse and the nave arch.
The hemicycle or apse which formed the Pagan
tribunal was by the Christians reserved for ordained
priests, hence its name, presbyterium. A semi-
circular bench (consistorium)^ interrupted in the middle
by a seat higher than the rest, on either side of which
sat the inferior clergy, surrounded the apse, the raised
seat (suggestus) being the throne of the bishop or his
representative.
This portion of the basilica underwent a later
modification ; from the presbyterium it became the
martyrium, or shrine in which was placed the body
of the patron saint of the basilica or the relic to
which the devotion of the faithful was specially
addressed. This usage had been established even
before the year 500 in the first basilica of St.
Martin at Tours.
The primitive apse was lighted only from the
nave or transept. After its transformation into the
martyrium it was not only pierced with windows,
but, according to some authors, was provided with
openings along its base, or even arcaded, so as to
give access to a low gallery running round it. If
this be so, the characteristic arrangement of mediaeval
churches dates from the fifth century.
In later times when it became customary to place
the altar at the back, against the wall of the apse,
seats for the bishops, priests, and choristers — the
choir — were arranged between the altar and the
nave. In monastic churches, built after the Latin
tradition, the choir was generally in the crossing, or
Towers and Steeples — Choirs — Chapels 145
where there were no transepts, in the nave itself. It
was separated from the congregation by a low
enclosure of stone or marble. There are a few ex-
amples of churches with tivo choirs, one at the east,
the other at the west.
In the first churches of the Romanesque epoch
the choir was confined to the space between the
piers of the crossing ; it soon, however, made con-
siderable advances. In monastic churches the choir
or sanctuary was cut off from the surrounding spaces
by barriers of stone or wood, and towards the nave
was closed by a jube, or rood screen and loft, the
upper part of which was accessible to the monks for
the reading of the epistle and gospel. Bishops, on
the other hand, being free from the necessity of
closing the choirs of their cathedrals, made a point
of providing their flocks with wide spaces, in which
ceremonies could be afforded a liberal development.
At the end of the twelfth century and beginning
of the thirteenth these ideas governed the construc-
tion of important churches. Changes continued to
be made, however, and from the reign of St. Louis
we find the choirs of great cathedrals arranged on
the exclusive principles of the monastic churches.
The arcades surrounding them were filled with high
stone walls, against the inner sides of which the
stalls of the clergy, with their lofty and richly carved
wooden canopies, were securely fixed.
Among the more famous choirs we may quote
those of Notre Dame de Paris, of Amiens, of
Beauvais, of Auch, of Lincoln, of Canterbury, of
Spires, of Worms, of Burgos, etc. In order to
satisfy the laymen whose view .of the ceremonies
L
146 Gothic Architecture
performed in the choir was intercepted by these
enclosures, the sanctuary was surrounded by chapels
contrived in the wall of the apse, and in the side
aisles of the nave.
Chapels— -From the end of the tenth century,
according to M. de Caumont, we shall sometimes
find aisles running entirely round the choir or
sanctuary and communicating with it by an arcade.
Even at this early period there must have been
chapels in such aisles. In the twelfth century the
disposition to elongate the choirs of important
churches became general, and brought with it
certain modifications of the plan. The Church of
Vignori, which dates from the tenth century, has
an apse divided into three chapels, recalling in
its arrangement that of the Holy Sepulchre at
Jerusalem.
The Church of St. Servan, built in the eleventh
century, has five chapels round the choir, and the
Auvergnat churches — Notre Dame du Port at
Clermont, and St. Paul at Issoire among others, —
which date from the beginning of the twelfth
century, also show in this respect some interesting
peculiarities. The importance given to the apse by
these rings of chapels can scarcely be too much
insisted on.
On plan these apsidal chapels are, for the most
part, round -ended. They are pierced with one or
more round-headed windows, and have segmental
vaults. On the outside they are often ornamented
by mouldings, modillions, and even by variations in
the colour of their stones. Chapels between the
buttresses of the .nave are rare in several aisled
Towers and Steeples — Choirs — Chapels 147
churches of the Romanesque period, but in many
such buildings they were added at a later time.
The great revolution which took place in the art
of building towards the end of the twelfth century
had, for one of its results, the multiplication of
chapels in the numerous great churches dating from
that epoch. The principle of that revolution being
to replace the inert masses which had previously
resisted the various thrusts by comparatively slender
points of support upon which those thrusts could be
collected, stability being secured by a scientific
calculation of forces, it led, as a natural conse-
quence, to a considerable augmentation of dispos-
able surfaces in the interior. These surfaces, mere
curtains between the points of support, were orna-
mented with vast networks of stone, embracing
panels of painted glass, on which the principal
events of the Old and New Testaments, and the
scenes so vividly outlined in the traditions of the
time, were traced with admirable art. Room was
found for chapels of considerable size, not only in
the walls, or rather between the piers of the apse,
but also in those of the side aisles, the bounding
walls of which were carried out to the external faces
of the buttresses receiving the thrust of the main
vault, which buttresses now formed the lateral walls
of a continuous line of chapels.
The veneration paid to the relics of saints
increased greatly after the year 1000, in con-
sequence of the pilgrimages to the Holy Land which
preceded the Crusades. Each religious community
established a patron, and demanded a special oratory
dedicated to him, and it was a point of honour to
148 Gothic Architecture
make such a shrine excel that of the neighbouring,
and, in most cases, rival corporation. The demand
for these shrines increased to such an extent at the
close of the fourteenth and throughout the fifteenth
century that, though chapels were constructed in all
the available spaces of the vast cathedrals, they were
found insufficient, and sanctuaries, which in earlier
times had been the special property of particular
bodies, were shared by several confraternities.
The Lady Chapel, or chapel dedicated to the
Virgin, was generally in the apse, and in the thirteenth
century, especially at its close, had been so consider-
ably developed as to give great importance to the
portion of the apse allotted to it. Very curious
examples of this development are to be studied in
the Cathedrals of Bourges, Amiens, Meaux, and
Rouen, among others.
In many cathedrals and churches of the Middle
Ages lateral chapels or annexes were built to serve
some subsidiary purpose ; such were chapter-houses,
muniment rooms, treasuries, or even mortuaries, as
the presbytery of Lincoln, the circular chapel at
Canterbury, known as Becket's Crown, containing
the tomb of Thomas a Becket, and Henry VII.'s
chapel at Westminster.
A most interesting example of this species of
structure dating from the end of the twelfth century
is to be seen at Soissons Cathedral ; a two-storied
vaulted building is connected by openings with the
upper galleries of the round-ended south transept,
and contains a funeral chapel, with a vaulted
chamber above for a treasury.
In many countries small ancient buildings are to be
Towers and Steeples — Choirs — Chapels 149
found, known as baptisteries or chapels ; these latter
are doubtless the little rural churches which were
built in great numbers in the first centuries of the
Christian era, and are designated capella in texts
of the time of Charlemagne, or perhaps oratories,
such as it was customary to attach to the charnel-
houses of towns or great religious establishments.1
The use of private chapels dates from the earliest
days of Christianity ; great personages who had
embraced the new faith followed the example of the
Romans who constructed private basilicas in their
palaces. The custom was perpetuated, and the
splendid Palatine Chapel of Aix is one of the most
magnificent of its results. In later times kings and
great nobles built themselves sanctuaries within their
castles. In the time of Charles V. the Louvre
owned an important chapel ; the feudal castles of
Coucy and Pierrefonds, among others, contained
large chapels, the arrangement of which is very
curious. Archaeologists cite as of special beauty
among seignorial chapels the ancient oratory of the
Dukes of Bourbon at Moulins, the Chapels of
Chenonceaux, Chambord, and Chaumont, and the
Chapel of Jacques Cceur's hotel at Bourges. Many
episcopal palaces have very remarkable chapels,
such as that of the archbishop's palace at Rheims.
Refuges, hospitals, madhouses, and prisons also
had chapels more or less important.
The term Sainte Cliapelle 2 was applied in the
1 'C Architecture Romane, by Ed. Corroyer ; Paris, Maison Quantin,
1888.
2 The plans and elevations of these chapels are so well known, and
have been so frequently published, that we abstain from reproducing
them in the present work.
150 Gothic Architecture
Middle Ages to buildings raised over spots sanctified
by the martyrdom of a saint, or destined to enshrine
relics of peculiar holiness. The most famous was
the royal oratory, built by Pierre de Montereau
between 1242 and 1248 on the south side of the
royal palace, now the Palais de Justice, Paris, to
receive the Crown of Thorns, the pieces of the true
Cross, and other relics brought by the royal founder,
St. Louis, from the Holy Land.
The distinguishing feature of the Ste. Chapelle of
Paris is its division into two stories — the upper
chapel, which communicated with the royal apart-
ments, and the lower chapel on the ground floor,
which may have been open to the public. Its con-
struction is remarkable no less for the happy bold-
ness with which the whole of the spaces between
the buttresses were utilised for the introduction of
immense painted windows, than for the perfection of
execution and the beauty of the sculptures, and this
in spite of the rapidity with which the work was
carried out. An annexe, which has now disappeared,
adjoined the apse on the north, and consisted of
three stories serving as sacristies and muniment
rooms. The spire, a wooden structure cased in lead,
dating from the time of Charles VII., was destroyed
by fire in 1630 ; it was shortly restored, only to be
again demolished at the close of the eighteenth
century, and was finally replaced by the architect
Lassus, who restored the building.
The Ste. Chapelle of St. Germain-en-Laye must
have been built some years before that of the royal
palace of Paris. It is remarkable for certain
peculiarities of structure which show a greater
Towers and Steeples — Choirs — Chapels 1 5 1
architectural skill ; the piers which sustain the vault
have a greater interior projection ; the formerets are
disengaged from the wall, and the square windows
occupy the whole space between the buttresses,
and rise to close beneath the cornice. This most
original and learned arrangement gives the building
a very graceful aspect, and brings out its elegant
proportions.
The Ste. Chapelle of Vincennes, begun by
Charles VI., was not completed until the reign of
Henry II. In construction it is akin to that of
Paris. The two-storied annexes which formed the
sacristies and treasury were finished towards the
close of the fifteenth century.
After the example of kings and princes the great
abbeys began to raise important oratories inde-
pendent of their conventual churches. The Abbey
of St. Martin des Champs at Paris founded two
large chapels about the middle of the thirteenth
century, — one dedicated to the Virgin, and the other
to St. Michael.
Pierre de Montereau was commissioned to build,
in addition to the Ste. Chapelle of the palace, a
chapel dedicated to the Virgin, within the precincts
of the Abbey of St. Germain des Pres ; the plan of
the vaults differs here from that of the Ste. Chapelle
of the palace. According to a drawing by Alex-
ander Lenoir, made before the destruction of this
chapel of the Virgin, the pointed arches comprised
two bays, in imitation of the vaults on intersecting
arches in Notre Dame of Paris, the origin of which
we discussed in chapter vi.
The Abbey of Chaalis, near Senlis, founded by
152 Gothic
Louis the Fat in 1 136, which was one of the most
important abbeys of the Cistercian order in the
thirteenth century, possessed an abbey church of
five aisles, over 330 feet long. Towards the middle
of the thirteenth century it nevertheless founded a
Ste. Chapelle^ known as the Chapelle de 1'Abbe,
The building has undergone various vicissitudes, and
the ribbed vaults which date from the reign of St.
Louis were once decorated with frescoes, attributed
to Primaticcio. The building still exists, however,
almost in its entirety. It illustrates the considerable
influence exercised by the Ste. Chapelle of Paris
from its very foundation on the great nobles, more
especially the heads of rich abbeys eager to parade
their immense power and wealth.
CHAPTER XI
SCULPTURE
IN the Middle Ages all the arts were auxiliary to
architecture. The architect traced the details of his
conception in the workshop, and superintended the
construction ; he directed stone - carvers, masons,
sculptors, illuminators, painters, and glass - stainers,
and laid his imprimatur on every branch of the
work of which he was the creator.
Thus the connection between the allied arts was
very close. The history of sculpture is that of
architecture, for the diverse influences which marked
their origin and modifications were common to both.
Each reached its apogee in the brilliant manifesta-
tions of the thirteenth century, and each followed the
same path to decadence less than two centuries later.
Statuary and ornamental sculpture were insepar-
able, being executed by the same artists in pursu-
ance of the same idea : the study of nature.
In obedience to the law of increasing develop-
ment they abandoned the hieratic forms imposed
by religious tradition, but only to give a new
expression to these very traditions, which were still
preserved and venerated.
154
Gothic Architecture
Roman inspiration, and even direct imitation of
Roman sculpture, is clearly traceable in the first half
of the thirteenth century. Rheims, which may be
accepted as the masterpiece, the last word, so to
speak, of Gothic architecture, illustrates this influence
in certain magnificent examples of the western porch.
94. RHEIMS CATHEDRAL. STATUES OF WEST FRONT. CENTRAL PORCH
The architects of the thirteenth century were pre-
eminently the children of their generation. Ignoring
their Latin descent they followed in the paths of
the innovators so far as monumental structure was
concerned ; but they in their turn inaugurated a
new departure by abandoning the Byzantine con-
Sculpture
95- RHEIMb CATHEDRAL. STATUES OF WEST FRONT
156 Gothic Architecture
vention in statuary and sculptured ornament which
96. KHE1MS CATHEDRAL. STATUES OF WEST FRONT
Sculpture
had prevailed throughout the preceding century, in
favour of the more
ancient Roman tradi-
tion. In this one
respect they made a
salutary return upon
those antique prin-
ciples which they after-
wards definitively
abandoned.
The influence of
Roman art upon French
mediaeval sculpture is
unquestionable. Its
course may be traced
through the relations
existing between North
and South long before
the Crusades, princi-
pally by means of the
great religious com-
munities, and even
more manifestly in the
countless monuments
raised in Gaul on
Roman models, or in
those constructed by
Gallo- Romans for
several centuries.
Many of these sur-
vived the incursions of
the barbarians.
The origin of orna-
97. RHEIMS CATHEDRAL. INTERIOR
OF PRINCIPAL DOOR. STATUE
AND ORNAMENT
158
Gothic A rchitecture
mental sculpture is no less venerable. Superficially,
it would seem to have
drawn its inspiration
mainly from the
Romanesque epoch ;
but according to
modern savants l its
source must be looked
for in much remoter
periods. Oriental art,
imported into Scandi-
navia, and there bar-
barised,was introduced
into Ireland in the
early centuries of our
era. The Irish monks,
whose power was very
great, and who seem to
have been the principal
agents in the Renas-
cence of the days of
Charlemagne, created,
or at any rate greatly
influencedCarlovingian
art by their manu-
scripts and miniatures.
From Carlovingian art
that of the so-called
Romanesque period
was born, and this was
98. RHEIMS CATHEDRAL. INTERIOR
OF PRINCIPAL DOOR. STATUE
AND ORNAMENT
1 M. A. cle Montaiglon,
Professor at the Ecole des
Chartes,
Sculpture 159
in its turn the parent of the ornamental sculpture of
I 8
the thirteenth century. In the admirably decorative
160 Gothic Architecture
character of this art we recognise the influence of
100. NOTRE DAME DE PARIS. RUNNING LEAF PATTERN ON
ARCHIVOLTS OF NORTH DOOR
an ancient tradition handed on from generation to
Sculpture
161
generation, to be
finally rejuvenated,
invigorated, and
transformed as to
detail by a close
study of nature,
precisely as had
happened in the
allied development
of statuary.
The architects of
the Ile-de-France,
likethoseofRheims,
assimilated the prin-
ciples of the new
art with the supple
skill which charac-
terised them, such
assimilation bear-
ing rich fruit at
Notre Dame de
Paris in the sculp-
tured figures of the
west porch, and
no less in their ac-
cessory ornaments.
A most instruc-
tive comparative
study is furnished
by the north and
south porches of
| Chartres Cathedral,
fere we find, in one
&
fe*
Yi-
101. CHARTRES CATHEDRAL. STATUES OF
THE NORTH PORCH
M
162
Gothic Architecture
building, examples of sculptures inspired by the
hieratic tradition of
Byzantium, and of
those which had been
transformed and nat-
uralised by a return
to antique ideals.
At Amiens again
certain of the sculp-
tures were influenced
by the new principles.
But in the greater
part there is a pro-
digality of motive
and looseness of exe-
cution which indicate
decline no less surely
than the mistaken
ingenuity of the
structural details.
Mediaeval sculp-
ture followed the
fortunes of architect-
ure, both in its rise
and fall. In its first
beginnings it was
characterised by a
purity of style not
unworthy of Rome
in her most glorious
102. CHARTRES CATHEDRAL. STATUES . , ...
OF THE SOUTH PORCH days, but rapidly
losing touch with the
antique ideal, it lost measure and proportion in its
Sculpture 163
development. The wise laws of simplicity, essential to
/fo^^.- • bf«rt~rf~ " '^
103. AMIENS CATHEDRAL. CENTRAL PORCH OF WEST FRONT
164 Gothic Architecture
all greatness in art, were set aside in favour of an
unruly exuberance which ran riot in details, and was
the immediate cause of a decline perceptible even in
the fourteenth century, and absolute in the fifteenth.
104. AMIENS CATHEDRAL. STATUES IN THE SOUTH PORCH
" Sculpture was at its zenith. We are astounded by the
activity and fertility of thirteenth-century artists, who
peopled facades and embrasures with figures from
seven to ten feet in height, and animated every tym-
panum with countless statuettes. The facade of
Notre Dame, by no means one of the richest, has
Sculpture
165
sixty-eight colossal statues, for the most part of the
highest excellence ; at Chartres and at Amiens there
are over a hundred to each porch. The famous
105. AMIENS CATHEDRAL. CHOIR STALLS. CARVED ORNAMENT
figure of Christ at Amiens is a masterpiece ; bas-
reliefs work out the details of the main subject, and
enrich the story with innumerable pictures of amaz-
ing vigour and originality."
1 66
Gothic Architecture
106. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. CLOISTERS OF THE THIRTEENTH
CENTURY. CARVED ORNAMENT OF INTERIOR SPANDRILS
Sculpture
167
The favourite themes of the thirteenth century
had something in
common with those
of the Romanesque
epoch, though there
is a sensible differ-
ence of treatment
and considerable
progress in com-
position, which ex-
hibited more of
taste and learning
and less of eccen-
tricity. But the
satiric power and
delight in carica-
ture of our fore-
fathers still de-
manded an outlet.
These found ex-
pression in many
a caustic gibe at
clergy, princes, and
rich burghers, and
took substance in
many a quaint
gargoyle. A lux-
uriant system of 107. WOODEN STATUETTE (HEIGHT 23! IN.)
ornamentation,
adapted from the
vegetable kingdom, was auxiliary to statuary. The
main subject was enframed by it, or relieved against
it ; while often the composition itself was enriched
THIRTEENTH CENTURY. ATELIERS DE
LA CHAISE DIEU, AUVERGNE
i68
Gothic Architecture
by its introduction to complete the decorative
effect. Or such a
system of decoration
was the only sculptur-
esque motive em-
ployed ; it was then
used with the utmost
elaboration, and de-
veloped at the expense
of statuary. Such was
the case in Burgundy
and Normandy, in
which provinces the
latter art was of slow
growth. The Byzan-
tine character of the
scrolls, carved bands,
and fantastic foliage
of Romanesque art dis-
appeared ; ornament
took on a new inde-
pendence, and began
to seek its types
among native plant
forms.
The carved .leaf-
age (Fig. 1 06) of the
cloister arcades in the
Abbey of Mont St.
Michel strikingly illus-
trate this departure.
108. IVORY STATUETTE (HEIGHT 9| IN.) The very plants which
THIRTEENTH CENTURY. SCHOOL OF . . ,
PARIS inspired the thirteenth-
Sculpture
169
century sculptors still flourish at the foot of the
ancient abbey walls.
Thus the flora of our own
fields was applied in lithic form
to the elements of our church
architecture. But the breadth
proper to architectural sculpture
was still preserved by means
of ingenious combinations.
It was not until the four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries
that the imitation of natural
forms became servile, tedious,
and over-minute, and that the
beauty of the whole was sacri-
ficed to exaggerated faithful-
ness of detail.1
It should be noted that the
decadence which manifested
itself in monumental sculpture
was far less rapid in the more
intimate art which may be
distinguished as imagery. In
the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries all sculptors were
image-makers ; but towards the
close of the latter, and during
the fifteenth, the term was
specially applied to carvers
of images in wood, ivory, etc.
1 Anthyme St. Paul, Histoire Monu-
mentale de la France ; Paris, Hachette
and Co., 1884.
I08.\. IVORY STATUETTE
(HEIGHT g\ IN.) FIF-
TEENTH CENTURY.
SCHOOL OF PARIS
170
Gothic Architecture
Art still flourished in their ateliers in all its beauty,
notably that of the goldsmiths, who carved images in
high or low relief in precious metals, and who, thanks
109. WOODEN STATUETTE (HEIGHT IO IN.) FOURTEENTH
CENTURY. SCHOOL OF PARIS
to the severely paternal regulations of the maitrise,
were enabled to bring French decorative art to the
highest degree of perfection. The beautiful carved
wooden stalls of Amiens, Auch, and Albi, to name
Sculpture
171
no. IVORY DIPTYCH (HEIGHT 6| IN.) FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
SCHOOL OF PARIS
IIOA. IVORY DIPTYCH (HEIGHT 2| IN. ) FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
SCHOOL OF THE ILE-DE-FRANCE
172
Gothic Architecture
but the most famous, testify to the vigorous talent of
the fourteenth and fifteenth-century image-carvers.
Flemish ateliers, which were kept up by the
severe rules of the guilds, exercised a salutary in-
fluence upon the Burgundian craftsmen. This is
more especially true of the great workshops of
III. IVORY DIPTYCH (HEIGHT 4§ IN.) FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
SCHOOL OF PARIS
Antwerp and of Brussels, and perhaps also of those
of Southern Germany. Burgundian influences re-
acted in their turn upon the artists of the Ile-de-
France, notably in Paris (that brilliant centre of all
artistic activities ifi the fourteenth century), and
stirred them to emulation. The union of these
various elements brought about the revival of the
fine tradition of the thirteenth century, and towards
Sculpture
173
II I A. IVORY PLAQUE (HEIGHT 6{£ IN.) COVER OF AN EVANGELIUM.
FOURTEENTH CENTURY. SCHOOL OF THE ILE-DE-FRANCE (SOISSONS)
174 Gothic Architecture
the close of the fifteenth century paved the way for
a French Renascence, which heralded that more
famous movement of the sixteenth, the credit of
112. HEAD IN SILVER GILT REPOUSSE. HALF-LIFE SIZE. THIRTEENTH
CENTURY. ATELIERS OF THE GOLDSMITH'S GUILD OF PARIS
which is usually given to the Italians, who, however,
such was the infatuation of the times, contributed
rather to the debasement than to the regeneration of
French national art.
Sculpture 175
The remarkable sculptures that owe their origin
to the ateliers of Antwerp are distinguished by one
of the quarterings of the civic arms, a severed hand
burnt in with a red-hot iron. Those of Brussels are
113. GROUP CARVED IN WOOD (HEIGHT lo| IN.) FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
SCHOOL OF ANTWERP
branded in like fashion. The images of wood, ivory,
and vermeil, that we figure as illustrating the art of
the image-carvers from the thirteenth to the fifteenth
century, show that the old tradition was still cherished
in this community. Their artists were so far swayed
176 Gothic Architecture
by iconographic convention that a certain hieratic
114. WOODEN STATUETTE, PAINTED AND GILDED (HEIGHT l<)\\ IN.
FIFTEENTH CENTURY. SCHOOL OF BRUSSELS
Sculpture 177
sentiment is perceptible in their works ; but this
115. WOODEN STATUETTE, PAINTED AND GILDED (HEIGHT ipfj IN.)
SIXTEENTH CENTURY. SCHOOL OF MUNICH
is never allowed to outweigh fitness of action and
N
178 Gothic Architecture
expression, and their masterpieces are so instinct with
taste and 'delicacy, composed with so much skill and
executed with such freedom, that they are the
admiration of modern artists.1
These essentially French qualities they owe,
primarily, of course, to the genius of their creators,
but in a scarcely inferior degree to the fostering care
of the maitriseS) institutions which only require a
certain modification by the progressive leaven of to-
day, to become models for the imitation of all whose
function it is to develop national art.
1 The statuettes, diptychs, etc., in wood, ivory, and vermeil, or
silver-gilt, figured from No. 107 to No. 115, belong to the author.
CHAPTER XII
PAINTING
THE origin of painting dates from remote antiquity,
and the art had already passed through many
developments before it was applied by Gothic
architects to the decoration of their buildings.
" In the thirteenth century the architectonic paint-
ing of the Middle Ages reached its apogee in France.
The painted windows, the vignettes of manuscripts,
and the mural decorations of this period all denote
a learned and finished art, and are marked by a
singular harmony of tones, and a corresponding
harmony with architectural forms. It is beyond
question that this art was developed^ in the cloister,
and was a direct product of Graeco - Byzantine
teachings." l
From the archaeological point of view, however,
it is important to bear in mind the considerable
influence exercised upon continental art by the
manuscripts and miniatures of Irish monks, so early
as the reign of Charlemagne.
Towards the close of the twelfth century sculp-
ture and painting alike entered on a new phase,
1 Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire raisonnc, vol. vii.
i8o
Gothic Architecture
resulting from that process of architectural evolution
we have been considering. The hieratic tradition was
set aside for the direct teaching and inspiration of
Il6. PAINTINGS IN CAHORS CATHEDRAL. HORIZONTAL PROJECTION OF
THE CUPOLA WITH FORESHORTENED FIGURES AND THEIR ARC III-
TECTURAL FRAMEWORK
nature. But as the mastery of the painter increased,
the mural spaces available for the application oi
his new methods diminished rapidly, till, by th<
thirteenth century, the only wall surfaces left to hii
were those beneath the windows, and some fe
Painting 181
triangular spaces in the vault, where the interlacing
network of arches became gradually closer and
closer. Finding themselves thus practically ex-
cluded from the new Gothic buildings, the painters
of the day turned their attention with entire success
to the decoration of ancient monuments by the new
naturalistic methods. The domes of great abbey
churches such as St. Front (Perigueux) offered
immense bare surfaces, the concave forms of which
they utilised with extraordinary skill, adorning them
with compositions in which figure and ornament are
so adroitly combined, that they seem to be of
normal proportions, in spite of their really colossal
size (Fig. 117).
Thanks to a discovery of mural paintings made
in the Cathedral of Cahors in 1890, of the greatest
archaeological importance, we are able to verify these
statements.
During the progress of certain works undertaken
for the preservation of the two domes, some paint-
ings of great interest were laid bare on the removal
of several coats of whitewash from the western
cupola. Traces of similar decoration were found on
the eastern cupola and its pendentives, but these it
was found impossible to preserve, the action of the
air causing them to peel at once from the surfaces.
But the western composition is intact, and though the
brilliance of the colour has no doubt suffered from
time, we can still appreciate the learning, vigour, and
firmness of hand perceptible in the design, which is
outlined in black.
This western cupola, which is ovoid, and some
fifty-three feet in diameter, like that of the east, is
l82
Goth ic A rch itectu re
117. PAINTING IN CXHORS CATHEDRAL. FRAGMENT OF ONE OF THE|;
EIGHT SECTORS OF THE CUPOLA. THE PROPHET EZEKIEL
Painting \ 83
divided by its pictorial scheme into eight sectors,
separated by wide bands of boldly-designed fruits
and flowers. Fig. 1 1 6 gives an exact idea of the
general arrangement. Eight colossal figures of
prophets, varying in height from fifteen to sixteen
feet approximately, form the chief motives of the
decoration. David, the prophet king, and the four
great prophets : Daniel to the left of David ; then
in order, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel on the right,
towards the choir of the church, and the three minor
prophets — Jonah, Esdras, and Habakkuk — are
painted in modulated tones, the dark outline forming a
setting, on a background varying from tawny to deep
red. The figures are enframed in a firmly-drawn
architectural setting. This architecture is painted in
gray against the masonry, the courses of which are
indicated by double lines of brown upon the pale
ochre of the general surface. Each prophet holds a
phylactery or banderole inscribed with his name in
beautiful thirteenth-century characters.
The floriated bands which divide the sectors
terminate above in a circular frieze surrounding the
crown of the cupola. The latter represents a starry sky,
the centre painted with the apotheosis of St. Stephen,
the patron of the cathedral. The frieze is painted
with scenes from the trial and stoning of the Saint ;
the life-size figures are full of expression and grouped
with great variety. In these paintings there are
evident leanings towards the naturalistic evolution ;
and though the figures of the prophets are still
hieratic in certain respects, the poses, heads, and
details all point to evident research in the matter of
physiognomy. This research is carried very far in
"\!
1 84 Gothic Architecture
the figures of the circular frieze, where the hands
have evidently been carefully studied from nature.
Technically speaking, these paintings are not
frescoes. " The medium employed seems to have
been egg, the white and yolk mixed, and the method
It8. PAINTINGS IN CAHORS CATHEDRAL. FRAGMENT OF THE CENTRAL
FRIEZE OF THE CUPOLA
very analogous to that of water-colour painting. . . .
The red tones were laid over a bed of deep orange,
the effect being one of extraordinary vigour and
brilliance, taking into account the means at com-
mand. The use of a prepared ground was systematic,
and was resorted to whenever intensity of the tones
or colour effects was desired. Evident efforts in the
Painting 185
direction of modelling are noticeable, though these
have been neutralised to a great extent by a lack of
concentration in the lights, and if it were not for the
thick outline in which each figure is set, there would
be much in common between the methods of these
paintings and those renderings of diffused light
affected by our modern plein-airistes. The general
tone is that of the simpler paintings of the thirteenth
century, that is to say, of those in which no gold
was used. The effect is warm and brilliant, the
dominant hue orange, heightened by reds of various
tints." x
According to the archaeological records derived
from various works of the historians of Le Quercy,
these paintings in the west cupola of Cahors were
carried out under the direction of the Bishops Ray-
mond de Cornil, 1280-93, Sicard de Montaigu, 1294-
1300, Raymond Panchelli,2 1300-1312, or Hugo
Geraldi, 1312-16, the friend of Pope Clement V.
and of Philip IV. of France, who was burnt alive at
Avignon, or perhaps even of Guillaume de Labroa,
1316-24, whose residence was at Avignon, and who
governed the diocese of Cahors through a procurator.
From this period onwards there was no further ques-
tion of decorative works, the successors of these
bishops being fully occupied in maintaining the
struggle against the English invaders.
It seems reasonable therefore to infer that the
Cahors paintings date either from the end of the
thirteenth century or the beginning of the fourteenth.
1 From the technical notes of M. Ga'ida.
2 Raymond Panchelli, or Raymond II., who in 1303 began to build
the Bridge of Valentre at Cahors.
1 86 Gothic Architecture
In any case, these decorations are of very great
artistic merit, and of the highest interest as an unique
example of French decorative art at the finest period
of the thirteenth century, when Gothic architecture
had reached its apogee, and was producing master-
pieces which served as models for contemporary
artists, and even more notably, for those of the early
fourteenth century.
That vigilant guardian of our beautiful cathedrals
and historic monuments, the Administration des
Cultes, has taken measures which do it infinite
honour in this matter. No attempt has been made
to restore the paintings, but all necessary steps have
been taken to ensure their preservation as they stand,
so as to leave intact the archaeological value of these
convincing witnesses to the genius of our French
mediaeval .painters.
The mural spaces available for fresco decoration
having been gradually suppressed, and decorative
painting limited to the illumination of certain sub-
ordinate members of the structure, the mediaeval
artists began to apply themselves to the decoration
of the great screens of glass which, with their
sculptured framework of stone, now filled the entire
spaces between the piers. In this new art, or rather
this incarnation of the spirit of decoration under a
new form, we find a fresh illustration of that supple
assimilative genius which already distinguished the
French artist.
" It is in the nature of the material used, that
painted windows should greatly affect the character
of the building they decorate. If their treatment is
injudicious, the intended architectural effect may be
Painting
187
US
/ \
119, 120. PAINTED WINDOWS OF THE EARLY TWELFTH CENTURY.
FROM ST. REMI AT RHEIMS l
1 Drawings lent by M. Ed. Didron, painter upon glass.
i88
Gothic Architecture
greatly modified ; if, on the other hand, they are
intelligently applied, they tend to bring out the
beauty of structural surroundings. ... As is the
case with all architectonic painting, stained glass
demands simplicity in composition, sobriety in exe-
cution, and an avoidance of naturalistic imitation. It
should aim neither at illusion nor perspective. Its
scheme of colour should be frank, energetic, compris-
ing few tints, yet
producing a har-
mony at once sump-
tuous and soothing,
which should com-
pel attention, but
seeks not to engross
it to the detriment
of the setting. Like
a mural mosaic, an
Eastern carpet, or
the enamelled gold-
smith's work of the
twelfth and thir-
teenth centuries, a
truly decorative
window has no affinities with a picture, a scene or
landscape gazed at from an open window, where the
interest concentrates itself upon a particular point,
and where the illumination is not equally diffused
throughout. The fundamental law of decorative
painting rests on a convention the aim of which is
the satisfaction of the eye, which finds its pleasure to
a far greater degree in the logical decoration of some
structural or useful object than in its realisation of
121. PAINTED WINDOW OF THE TWELFTH
CENTURY. CHURCH OF BONLIEU (CREUSE)
Painting
189
natural phenomena. Between painted windows and
pictures a great gulf is fixed ; and the modern
school, the heir of the Italian Renascence, seeking to
122. PAINTED WINDOW OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.
CHARTRES CATHEDRAL
bridge it over, has seduced decorative art from the
safe paths of sound judgment." l
The true functions of stained glass were never
more admirably understood than in the twelfth
1 Le Vitrail h f 'Exposition de 1889, by Ed. Didron ; Paris, 1890.
190 Gothic Architecture
century. The artists of that day had a perfect
comprehension of those colour - harmonies, the
subdued splendour of which best accorded with
the simple and vigorous forms of Romanesque
123. PAINTED WINDOW OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.
CHARTRES CATHEDRAL
architecture. Upon his glass of various tints the
painter first outlined his figure or ornament in black.
This outline he supported with a flat half-tint which
supplied a rough modelling and allowed the forms
expressed to make their fullest effect from a distance.
Painting
191
When, in the thirteenth century, the extreme
austerity of religious buildings began to relax, the
124. PAINTED WINDOW OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. CHURCH OF
ST. GERMER, TROVES
splendour of the painted windows increased pro-
portionately ; but the coloration, though it increased
192 Gothic Architecture
in glow and vigour, still preserved its complete
harmony with its surroundings. An additional rich-
ness is perceptible in work of the fourteenth century,
at which period red glass began to be used with
a certain prodigality. The system of execution
remains unchanged so far ; but the black outline is
considerably attenuated, and the half-tone which
emphasises it loses much of its importance. The
figures, in place of the hieratic repose of an earlier
period, affect a certain grace and animation which
herald a tendency towards realistic imitation. These
germs of naturalism soon bore fruit. At the close
of the fourteenth century the discovery of how to
obtain yellow from salts of silver, and the facility
with which it could be used to warm the grayer tones
of glass by the help of the muffle, caused a revolu-
tion in the art of glass-painting, and prepared the
way for polychromatic enamelling. This discovery,
eminently useful when discreetly applied, was to lead
to regrettable exaggerations.
In the fifteenth century the figures of saints were
usually drawn upon glass so tinted as to be of a
soft white tone ; the hair, beards, head - dresses,
jewels, trimmings, and embroideries were painted in
yellow. The figures stood out in bold relief against
a background of blue or red, and were divided by
a damasked drapery of green or purple. Vast
architectural motives were introduced enframing the
figures and filling up the immense window spaces of
the latest period of mediaeval art. The transforma-
tion was radical. It is of interest to note that the
final development of the Gothic style ought logically
to have brought about a recrudescence of vigour in the
Painting
125. PAINTED WINDOWS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY,
CHURCH OF ST. UKBAIN AT TROVES
o
i94
Goth ic A rch ite^i re
coloration of stained glass ; but the exact reverse
was the case ; and a marked modification took place
in the glowing effects won by a diversity of strong
tints. The sort of camaieu which was the result
obliged the painter to insist more strongly on the
modelling of the figures, and to give less importance
to the black outline,
which was event-
ually suppressed
altogether.
In the sixteenth
century painted
glass became to a
certain extent trans-
lucent pictures, in
which architectural
fitness was no longer
respected. Compo-
sition lost its sim-
plicity. A subject
spread from panel
to panel, regardless
of the
intervening
126. PAINTED GLASS OF THE FOURTEENTH
CENTURY. HEAD OF ST. PETER. theleSS, WC forget
CATHEDRAL OF CH^LONS-SUR-MARNE ulfc>^L
the defects of this
luxuriant development, and cease to wonder at its
popularity, in view of that broad and vigorous exe-
cution and beauty of colour which give it a special
decorative value of its own.
Enamelling is so closely allied to glass-painting
as to claim a word for itself. Here, again, the
decorative art of the Middle Ages was characteristic-
Painting
ally displayed, and though the process is more
specially applicable
to the ornamenta-
tion of goldsmith's
work than to the
decoration of large
surfaces, it is one of
the most brilliant
and exquisite of the
auxiliary arts.
The earliest
enamels are chainp-
leve and cloisonne.
By the cJiampleve
process a hollow,
the edges of which
outlined the figures
or ornaments, was
cut in the field
or ground of metal
for the reception of
the fusible enamel ;
for cloisonne, cloi-
sons,or slenderwalls
of metal were fixed
upon the field to
separate flesh from
draperies, and one
tint generally from
another. The back-
ground the cloisons I27- PAINTED WINDOW OF THE FIFTEENTH
CENTURY. EVREUX CATHEDRAL
and the flesh were
gilt and burnished ; details were defined by
196
Gothic Architecture
engraved lines, so that the draperies only were
enamelled.
128. ENAMEL OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY. PLAQUE COVER OF A MS.
HEIGHT 4f IN., WIDTH 2T\ IN.
Painting 197
Fig. 1 2 8 reproduces an enamel of the close
of the eleventh century, in which these various
characteristics may be studied. The inscriptions on
either side of the cross are formed by letters verti-
cally superposed, which read downwards.
From the beginning of the thirteenth century
enamels were executed by the process known as
taille d'epargne. By this method the ground was
cut out, as described above, for the reception of the
various ingredients which, after undergoing the
process of firing, formed the enamel ; the draperies,
hands, and feet of the figures which were epargnes
(spared or left) were modelled and chased in very
low relief; but the central figure, such as the Christ,
and the heads of the subordinate personages or at-
tendant angels, were always in high relief, vigorously
modelled, and chased.
Fig. 129, a plaque forming the cover of an
evangelium, is a characteristic example of this class
of enamel. It dates from the early thirteenth
century, and is a production of the ateliers founded
at Limoges by the monks of Solignac.
The reliquary figured No. 130 is also a work of
the Limousin enamellers. The methods employed
are identical, but the carving of the figures is less
delicate, indeed almost rudimentary, the modelling
being replaced by hasty strokes of the graver. The
lower panel of this reliquary represents the martyr-
dom of Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury,
the upper part his apotheosis. It is crowned by a
ridge roof of two sides.
As is well known, Thomas a Becket was
canonised two years after his tragic death, which had
198
Goth ic A rch itcctu re
aroused general reprobation throughout Christendom.
The universal feeling expressed itself at Limoges by
the manufacture of a great number of reliquaries
destined to receive relics of the sainted martyr.
129. ENAMEL OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. PLAQUE COVER OF AN
EVANGELIUM. HEIGHT 7T2^ IN., WIDTH 6^ IN.
In the details of the draperies and hands of
those portions of Fig. I 2 9 which are carved in low
relief, we may trace the germs of those low-relief
enamels known as translucent, or to be more exact,
transparent enamels. This process originated i
1
Painting 199
Italy, and was commonly employed in France, and
130. ENAMEL OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY. RELIQUARY SHRINE OF
ST. THOMAS A BECKET
200
Goth ic A rch itectu re
even in Germany throughout the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, more especially the latter. These
enamels could only be executed on gold and silver.
131. ENAMEL OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. OUR LADY OF SORROWS
The method consisted in modelling the design in
very low relief on the face of the plate, which was
then covered with a transparent enamel of few
colours. The process was a slow and difficult one ;
Painting 201
the pieces were consequently very costly, and the
demand for them proportionately restricted.
The enamellers of the sixteenth century, especi-
ally those who flourished at its beginning, were
evidently inspired by these low - relief enamels to
seek the same brilliant opalescence of effect by more
scientific and less costly methods. But the simpli-
fication of the process degenerated into vulgarisation,
and its original qualities gradually faded out. Fig.
131, representing Our Lady of Sorrows, and signed
I. C. (Jehan Courteys or Courtois), gives some idea
of the design, at least, of the painted enamels
executed by the Limousin artists of the early
sixteenth century.
Gothic architecture, more especially in its
religious manifestations from the twelfth to the
fifteenth century, made its prolific influence felt, not
only by the structural qualities of its vast and
numerous buildings, but by those various arts
created, perfected, or at least developed, for their
decoration. We have traced a bare outline of its
activities, regretting that space fails us to make an
exhaustive study of their various manifestations.
The priceless fragments which illustrate these off-
shoots of an art essentially French are now the
chief ornaments not only of French, but of all
European museums. They take rank as factors of
the first importance in art education, pointing the
ay to fresh masterpieces of French genius.
PART II
MONASTIC ARCHITECTURE
CHAPTER I
MONASTIC ARCHITECTURE : ITS ORIGIN
THE origin of monastic architecture is of no greater
antiquity than the fourth century of the Christian
era. The hermits and anchorites of the earliest
period made their habitation in the caves and
deserts of the Thebai'd ; their sole monument is the
record of their virtues, which have outlived any
buildings they may have raised during their years of
solitude. But the first Christians who banded them-
selves together under a common rule, and discarded
anchoritism for the cenobitic life, marked their worldly
pilgrimage by monuments, traces of which are still to
be found in historic records or fragmentary remains.
The history of abbey churches is identical with
that of cathedrals.1 The architectural evolutions
and transformations which succeeded each other in
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries manifested them-
selves in both. Like the cathedrals, the abbey
churches were the creation of monkish architects, and
were carried out either under their immediate direc-
tion or that of their pupils.
But a kindred field of study offers itself in the
1 See Part I., "Religious Architecture."
206
Gothic Architecture
Monastic Architecture : its Origin 207
abbeys themselves, their organisation and adaptation
to the domestic needs of their be-frocked inmates.
Monastic institutions date from the Roman era.
The first abbeys were those established in France
in the fourth century, by St. Hilary of Poitiers and
St. Martin of Tours. These religious associations or
corporations, which eventually became so powerful,
by reason not only of their numbers, but of the spirit
which animated them, must be reckoned as among
the most beneficent forces of the Middle Ages.
Even from the philosophical side alone of the re-
ligious rule under which they flourished, by virtue of
which enlightened men wielded supreme power, they
were admirable institutions.
To instance one among many, the so-called Rule
of St. Benedict is in itself a monument, the basis of
which is discipline, the coping-stone labour. These
are principles of undying excellence, for they are the
expression of eternal truths. And from them our
modern economists, who so justly exalt the system
of co-operation, might even in these latter days draw
inspiration as useful and as fruitful as that by which
men were guided in the days of Benedict.
Three great intellectual centres shed their light
on the first centuries of the Middle Ages. These
were Lerins, Ireland, and Monte Casino. Their
most brilliant time was from the fourth century to
the reign of Charlemagne, by which period they
may be said to have prepared the way for successive
evolutions of human knowledge, by assiduous cul-
tivation of the sciences and arts, more especially
architecture, in accordance with the immutable laws
of development and progress.
208 Gothic Architecture
Lerins. — St. Honoratus and his companions, when
they landed in the archipelago, built on the principal
island a chapel surrounded by the cells and buildings
necessary for a confraternity. This took place about
375"39° A-D- The members of the budding com-
munity were learned monks, who had accepted the
religious rule which had now become their law. They
instructed neophytes sent them from the mainland,
and their reputation grew so rapidly that Lerins soon
took rank as a school of theology, a seminary or
nursery whence the mediaeval church chose the
bishops and abbots best fitted to govern her.
The school of Lerins was so esteemed for learn-
ing that it took an active part in the great Pelagian
controversy which agitated Christendom at the time,1
and zealously advocated the doctrines of semi-
pelagianism, but this tendency was finally subdued
by St. Vincent of Lerins, whose ideas were more
orthodox. The theological teaching of Lerins seems
to have dominated, or at least to have directed re-
ligious opinion in Gaul down to the sixth century.
Ireland. — So early as the sixth century Ireland
was the centre of art and science in the West. The
Irish monks had followed the oriental tradition as
modified by its passage through Scandinavia ; they
exercised a considerable influence on continental art
by their manuscripts and illuminations, and prepared
the way for the renascence of the days of Charle-
1 Pelagianism was the heresy of the monk Pelagius, who flourished
in the fourth century. He contested the doctrine of original sin, as
imputed to all mankind from the fall of Adam, and taught that the
grace of God is accorded to us in proportion to our merits. Semi-
pelagianisui taught that man may begin the work of his own ameliora-
tion, but cannot complete it without Divine help.
Monastic Architecture : its Origin 209
magne, to which such importance was given by the
monuments of the Romanesque movement.
St. Columba was a monk of the seminary of
Clonard in Ireland, whence towards the close of the
sixth century he passed over to the continent, founding
the Abbeys of Luxeuil and Fontaine, near Besangon,
and later that of Bobbio, in Italy, where he died in
615. His principal work was the Rule prescribed
to the Irish monks who had accompanied him, and
those who took the vows of the monasteries he had
founded. In this famous work he did not merely
enjoin that love of God and of the brethren on which
his Rule is based ; he demonstrated the utility
and beauty of his maxims, which he built upon
Scriptural precepts, and upon fundamental principles
of morality. The school of Luxeuil became one of
the most famous of the seventh century, and, like
that of Lerins, the nursery of learned doctors and
famous prelates.
Monte Casino. — In the sixth century St. Benedict
preached Christianity in the south of Italy, where, in
spite of Imperial edicts, Paganism still prevailed
among the masses. He built a chapel in honour of
St. John the Baptist on the ruins of a temple of
Apollo, and afterwards founded a monastery to
which he gave his Rule in 529. This was the cradle
of the great Benedictine order.
The number of St. Benedict's disciples grew
apace. He had imposed on them, together with
the voluntary obedience and subordination which
constitute discipline, those prescriptions of his Rule,
which demanded the partition of time between
prayer and work. He proceeded to make a practical
P
210 Gothic Architecture
application of these principles at Monte Casino,
the buildings of which were raised by himself and
his companions. Barren lands were reclaimed and
transformed into gardens for the community ; mills,
bakehouses, and workshops for the manufacture of
all the necessaries of life were constructed in the
abbey precincts, with a view to rendering the con-
fraternity self-supporting ; auxiliary buildings were
reserved for the reception of the poor and of
travellers. These, however, were so disposed that
strangers were kept outside the main structure, which
was reserved exclusively for the religious body.
The great merit of St. Benedict, apart from his
philosophical eminence, lies in his comprehension of
the doctrine of labour. He was perhaps the first to
teach that useful and intelligent work is one of the
conditions, if not indeed the sole condition, of that
moral perfection to which his followers were taught
to aspire. If he had no further title to fame, this
alone should ensure his immortality.
" The apostles and first bishops were the natural
guides of those who were appointed to build the
basilicas in which the faithful met for worship.
When at a later stage they carried the faith to
distant provinces of the empire, they alone were able
to indicate or to mark out with their own hands the
lines on which buildings fitted for the new worship
should be raised. ... St. Martin superintended the
construction of the oratory of one of the first Gallic
monasteries at Liguje, and later of that of Mar-
moutier, near Tours, on the banks of the Loire. In
the reign of Childebert, St. Germain directed the
building of the Abbey of St. Vincent — afterwards
Monastic Architecture : its Origin 211
re-named St. Germain - des - Pres — in Paris. St.
Benedict soon added to his Rule a decree providing
for the teaching and study of architecture, painting,
mosaic, sculpture, and all branches of art ; and it
became one of the most important duties of abbots,
priors, and deans to make designs for the churches
and auxiliary buildings of the communities they
ruled. From the early centuries of the Christian
era down to the thirteenth century, therefore, archi-
tecture was practised only by the clergy, and came
to be regarded as a sacred science. The .most
ancient plans now extant — those of St. Gall and of
Canterbury — were traced by the monks Eigenhard
and Edwin. . . . During the eleventh and twelfth
centuries there rose throughout Christendom admir-
able buildings due to the art and industry of the
monks, who, bringing to bear upon the work their
own researches, and the experience of past genera-
tions, received a fresh stimulus to exertion in this
age of universal regeneration, by the enthusiasm
with which their kings inspired them for the vast
ruins of the ninth century." ]
From the earliest centuries of the Christian era
communities both male and female had been formed
with the object of living together under a religious
rule ; but it seems evident that the greater number of
monasteries owed their fame and wealth, if not their
actual origin, to the reputation of their relics.
These attracted the multitude. Pilgrimages became
so frequent, and pilgrims so numerous, that it was
found necessary to build hospices, or night-refuges,
in various towns on their routes. A confraternity
1 Albert Lenoir, L? Architecture Monastique ; Paris, 1856.
212 Gothic Architecture
of the Pilgrims of St. Michael was formed in the
beginning of the thirteenth century in Paris, where
the confraternity of St. James of Pilgrims had
already built its chapel and hospital in the Rue
St. Denis, near the city gate.
From the seventh to the ninth century important
abbeys flourished in nearly all the provinces now
comprised in modern France. Later, under the
immediate successors of Charlemagne, great monas-
teries were founded in all the countries which made
up his dominions. Charlemagne himself had greatly
contributed to the development of religious institu-
tions by his reliance on the bishops, and more
especially the monks who represented progress,
supported his policy, and enforced his civilising
mission. But after his death the study of art and
science declined so rapidly that a radical reform
became necessary in the tenth century, a reform
which seems to have had its birth in the Benedictine
Abbey of Cluny, established in Burgundy about the
year 930.
From this hasty sketch of monastic organisation
some idea may be gathered of the importance of
religious institutions in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, and of the immense services they had
rendered the State by diligent and useful toil, among
the chief fruits of which must be reckoned the
revival of agriculture, and the development of the
sciences and arts, more especially architecture.
Monastic architecture exercised a great and
decisive influence upon national art by its vast
religious buildings, the precursors of our great
cathedrals.
Monastic Architecture : its Origin 213
Until the middle of the twelfth century science,
letters, art, wealth, and above all, intelligence — in
other words, omnipotence on earth — were the
monopoly of religious bodies. It is bare historic
justice to remember that the Middle Ages derived
their chief title to fame, and all their intellectual
enlightenment, from the abbeys, and that the great
religious houses were in fact schools, the educational
influence of which was immense. It must be borne
in mind that if the great cathedrals of the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries were not actually constructed
by the monks, their architects were nevertheless the
pupils of monks, and that it was in the abbey
schools, so generously opened to all, that they
imbibed the first principles of the art they afterwards
turned to such marvellous account.
The study of architecture in particular was not
merely theoretical. It was demonstrated by the
monks in their important monastic buildings, the
crowning point of which was the abbey church, a
structure often larger and more ornate than con-
temporary cathedrals.
On the plan commonly adopted, the cloister, a
spreading lawn adorned with plants, adjoined the
church on the north, and sometimes on the south.
An open arcade surrounded the cloister, by means
of which communication with all the necessary
domestic offices was provided. Of these the
principal were : the refectory, generally a fine vaulted
hall, close to the kitchens ; the chapter - /louse, a
building attached to the church, the upper story of
which was the dormitory of the monks ; the vaulted
cellars and granaries, above which were the lodgings
214 Gothic Architecture
provided for strangers ; the storerooms were con-
nected with stables, cattle - stalls, and various out-
door offices, often of great extent. All these
dependencies for the service of the community were
kept strictly separate one from another, thus all
necessary measures were taken to provide for the
needs and duties of hospitality without any disturb-
ance of the religious routine.
The abbeys of the Romanesque period were
largely used as models in their day. They were
modified by lay architects or monkish builders who,
however, were careful to abate nothing of their
perfection ; they partook of the developments which
marked the middle of the thirteenth century, and
were subjected to that progressive transformation,
the great feature of which was the adoption of the
Angevin intersecting arch, the distinguishing charac-
teristic of Gothic architecture.
CHAPTER II
THE ABBEY OF CLUNY CISTERCIAN ABBEYS
THE Benedictines, the Cistercians, the Augustinians,
the Premonstrants, and notably the congregation of
Cluny were all energetic builders, and the vast and
magnificent structures of their creation were reckoned
the most perfect achievements of their day. The
study of their buildings — the church, the dwelling-
places of abbot and monks, with all their depend-
encies— is most instructive. It fills us with admira-
tion for the learning and judgment of the monkish
builders who, accepting the limitations imposed by
climate, locality, material, the numbers of their in-
mates, and the resources of their order, turned them
all to account as elements of beauty and harmony.
The architects of the first abbeys undoubtedly
adopted the constructive methods of the period, and
built in the Latin, Roman, or Gallo-Roman manner.
The double gateway of the Abbey of Cluny, the
architect of which was probably Gauzon, sometime
Abbot of Beaune, who laid the foundations of the
famous monastery, is an interesting proof of this
assertion. But monastic architecture underwent the
same modifications to which ecclesiastical architecture
2l6
Gothic Architecture
had been subjected under those various influences
which manifested themselves in the glorious monu-
ments built from the eleventh to the thirteenth
century, when Gothic architecture reached its
apogee.
The abbots of the many abbeys of various orders
built throughout this period were too enlightened to
133. ABBEY OF CLUNY. GATEWAY
disregard the progress of their contemporaries, and
they promptly applied the new principles to the
construction or embellishment of their monasteries.
The Abbey of Cluny was founded in 909 by
William, Duke of Aquitaine, and declared independ-
ent by Pope John XL, who in 932 confirmed the
duke's charter. Its rapid development and growth
in power is sufficiently explained by the social and
political circumstances of its origin. At the begin-
The Abbey of Cluny — Cistercian Abbeys 217
ning of the tenth century Norman invasions and feudal
excesses had destroyed the work of Charlemagne.
Western Christendom seemed to lapse into barbarism
after the havoc made by the Saracens and Northern
pirates among towns and monasteries. Civil society
and religious institutions had alike fallen into the
decay born of a conflict of rights and a contempt of
all authority.
Cluny rapidly became a centre round which all
the intelligence which had escaped submersion in the
chaos of the ninth century grouped itself. Its school
soon attained a distinction equal to that which
marked the first great seats of learning at the be-
ginning of the Middle Ages. Thanks to the Rule of
St. Benedict, on which the Benedictines of Cluny
had grounded their community, the abbey developed
greatly in extent and wealth. Throughout the
eleventh and twelfth centuries it seems to have
been the prolific nursery - ground whence Europe
drew not only teachers for other monastic schools,
but specialists in every branch of science and of
letters, notably architects, who aided in the expan-
sion of Cluny and its dependencies, and further
practically contributed to the construction of the
numerous abbeys founded by the Benedictines
throughout ^Western Europe, and even in the East,
the cradle of Christianity.
While this struggle of intelligence against ignor-
ance was in progress, a social revolution had ac-
complished itself by the enfranchisement of the
communes, a development of the utmost importance
in its relation to science, art, and material existence,
in a word, to the whole social system.
218 Gothic Architecture
Architecture, that faithful expression of the
social state which had its origin in Pagan civilisation,
became Christianised by its culture in the abbeys,
and in its new development rose to that pre-eminence
the marvels of which we have already studied in the
first part of this work. But though the successes
achieved by the architecture of this period were
rapid and dazzling, its decadence was profound, for
it was induced by too radical an emancipation from
antique principles, the superiority of which had been
established in the first centuries of the Middle Ages.
The Abbey of Cluny soon became too small for
the increasing number of monks. St. Hugh under-
took its reconstruction in the closing years of the
eleventh century, and the monk Gauzon of Cluny
began the works in 1089 on a much more extensive
plan, indeed on a scale so magnificent that the
church of the new abbey was esteemed the first in
importance among Western buildings of the kind.
The plan (Fig. 134) shows the arrangement of
the abbey at the close of the eleventh century, when
the monastic buildings had been reconstructed some
time previously. The ancient church was intact ; the
choir had been begun in the time of St. Hugh, but the
building had not been consecrated till 1131. The
chapel which precedes it on the west was completed
so late as 1228 by Roland I., twentieth abbot of
Cluny.
At A on the plan stood the entrance, the Gallo-
Roman gateway which still exists. At B, in front
of the church, a flight of steps led up to a square
platform, from which rose a stone cross ; a flight of
broad steps gave access to the chapel entrance at C,
The Abbey of Cluny — Cistercian Abbeys 219
an open space between two square towers. The
northern tower was built to receive the archives ; that
134. ABBEY OF CLUNY. PLAN
on the south was known as the Tower of Justice.
The ante-church or narthex at D seems to have been
set apart for strangers and penitents, who were not
220 Gothic Architecture
allowed to enter the main building. Their place of
worship was distinct from the abbey church, just as
their lodging was separated from the buildings re-
served for the brotherhood, who were permitted no
intercourse with the outer world. At E was the
door of the abbey church, which was only opened
to admit some great personage whose exceptional
privilege it was to enter the sanctuary.
At Cluny, as at Vezelay, one of the dependencies
of Cluny, the Galilee, which is found in all Bene-
dictine abbeys, was built with aisles and towers on
the same scale as an ordinary church. It communi-
cated with the buildings set apart for guests over
the storehouses of the abbey to the west of the
cloister at F on the plan. From the Galilee access
to the abbey church was obtained at E, by means of
a single doorway, which from descriptions seems to
have resembled the great door of the monastery
church at Moissac in arrangement and decoration.
The special characteristic of the Abbey Church
of Cluny is its double transept, an arrangement we
shall find reproduced in the great abbey churches
of England, notably at Lincoln. According to a
description written in the last century, the Abbey
Church of Cluny was 410 feet long. It was built
in the form of an archiepiscopal cross, and had two
transepts : the first nearly 200 feet long by 30 feet
wide ; the second, I I o feet long and wider than the
first. The basilica, 1 1 o feet in width, was divided
into five aisles, with semi-circular vaults supported on
sixty -eight piers. Over three hundred narrow round-
headed windows, high up the wall, transmitted the
dim light that favours meditation. The high altar was
The Abbey of Cluny — Cistercian Abbeys 221
placed immediately beyond the second transept at
135. ABBEY OF CLUNY. INTERIOR OF NARTHEX, WITH DOOR LEADING
INTO ABBEY CHURCH
G, and the retro-choir and altar at H. The choir,
222 Gothic Architecture
which had two rood screens, occupied about a third
of the nave. It contained two hundred and twenty-
five stalls for the monks, and in the fifteenth century
was hung with magnificent tapestries. A number of
altars dedicated to various saints were placed against
the screens and the piers of nave and side aisles.
At a later period chapels were constructed along the
aisles and on the eastern sides of the two transepts.
Above the principal transept rose three towers
roofed with slate ; the central, or lantern tower was
known as the lamp tower, because from the vaults
of the crossing below it were suspended lamps, or
coronas of lights which were kept burning day and
night over the high altar.
To the south of the abbey, at F on the plan, was
a great enclosure, surrounded by a cloister, some
vestiges of which still remain. K and L mark the
site of the abbatial buildings which were restored in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries ; M and N the
structures raised last century over the primitive
foundations. To the east lay the gardens and the
great fish-ponds which still exist, with portions of
their enclosures. Another surviving fragment is a
building of the thirteenth century, said to be the
bakery, and marked O on the plan.
The abbots who succeeded St. Hugh were unable
to preserve the primitive conditions of the foundation.
The excessive luxury resulting from over-prosperity
brought about demoralisation, and by the end of
the eleventh century discord was rife at Cluny.
Peter the Venerable, who was elected abbot in
i 112, restored order for a time, and established a
chapter general, consisting of two hundred priors
The Abbey of Cluny — Cistercian Abbeys 223
and over twelve hundred other monks. In 1158,
at the time of Peter's death, these numbers had
increased by more than four hundred, and the order
had founded monasteries in the Holy Land and at
Constantinople.
The Abbey of Citeaux. — The reform of the
Benedictine orders became a pressing necessity, and
St. Robert, Abbot of Solesmes, entered upon the task
about 1098. St. Bernard continued it, after having
quitted his abbey, with twenty-one monks of the
order, to take refuge in the forest of Citeaux, given
him by Don Reynard, Vicomte of Beaune. His
main achievement was reorganisation of such a
nature as to deal effectually with the decay of
primitive simplicity throughout the order, which had
completely lost touch with monastic sentiment.
" Frequent intercourse with the outside world had
demoralised the monks, who attracted within their
cloister walls crowds of sightseers, guests, and
pilgrims. The monasteries which, down to the
eleventh century, were either built in the towns, or
had become centres of population in consequence of
the Norman and Saracen invasions, retained their
character of religious seclusion only for a certain
number of monks, who devoted themselves to
intellectual labours. Besides which, the brethren
had become feudal lords, holding jurisdiction side by
side with the bishops, and St. Germain-des-Pres,
St. Denis, St. Martin, Vendome, and Moissac owned
no over - lordships but that of the Pope. Hence
arose temporal cares, disputes, and even armed
conflicts, among them. The greed and vanity of the
abbots at least, if not of their monks, made itself
224 Gothic Architecture .
felt even in religious worship, and in the buildings
consecrated thereto." 1
St. Bernard, in an address to the monks of his
day, reproves their degeneracy, and censures the
exaggerated dimensions of the abbey churches, the
splendour of their ornamentation, and the luxury of
the abbots. O vanity of vanities ! he exclaims, and
folly great as vanity ! The Church is bedecked in
her walls, but naked in her poor ! She overlays her
stones with gold, and leaves her children without
raiment ! The curious are given distractions, and
the miserable lack bread ! It was to suppress such
abuses that the Cistercian order was founded by
St. Robert and St. Bernard, and also to put an end
to the disputes arising from ecclesiastical jurisdiction
by making the new abbeys dependencies of the
bishoprics. They were to be built in solitary places,
" and to nourish their inmates by agriculture. It was
forbidden to found them over the tombs of saints,
for fear of attracting pilgrims, who would bring
worldly distractions in their train. The buildings
themselves were to be solid, and built of good free-
stone, but without any sort of extraneous ornament ;
the only towers allowed were small belfries, some-
times of stone, but more usually of wood." 2
The Cistercian order was founded in 1119, and
St. Robert imposed the Rule of St. Benedict in its
primitive severity. To mark his separation from
the degenerate Benedictines, whose dress was
black, he gave his monks a brown habit. After
determining their religious duties he gave minute
1 Anthyme St. Paul, Histoire Monumentale de la France.
2 Ibid.
Tke Abbey of Cluny — Cistercian Abbeys 225
instructions as to the arrangement of the buildings.
The condition chiefly insisted upon was that the
site of the monastery should be of such extent and
so ordered that the necessaries of life could be
provided within its precincts. Thus all causes of
distraction through communication with the outside
world were removed. The monasteries, whenever
possible, were to be built beside a stream or river ;
they were to contain, independently of the claustral
buildings, the church and the abbot's dwelling,
which was outside the principal enclosure, a mill,
a bakehouse, and workshops for the manufacture
of all things requisite to the community, besides
gardens for the use and pleasure of the monks.
The Abbey of Clairvaux was an embodiment of
the reforms brought about by St. Robert, and later
by St. Bernard. The general arrangement and the
details of service were almost identical with those of
Citeaux, just as Citeaux itself had been modelled
upon Cluny in all respects, save that a severe
observance of the primitive Benedictine rule was
insisted upon in the disposition of the later founda-
tion. All superfluities were proscribed, and the
rules which enjoined absolute seclusion as a means
towards moral perfection were sternly enforced.
The result is undoubtedly interesting as a re-
ligious revival ; but we may be permitted to regret
that the intellectual impetus given to art progress by
the great Benedictine lords spiritual of Cluny should
have been checked by the frigid utilitarianism to
which architecture — -then an epitome of all the arts
— was reduced by the purists of Citeaux in its
application to the monasteries of the reform.
Q
226 Gothic Architecture
The Cistercian monuments are not, however,
wanting in interest.
Of Clairvaux and Citeaux little remains but
fragments embedded in a mass of modern buildings,
for the most part restorations of the last century.
As records these are less to be relied upon than the
historical and archaeological documents which guided
Viollet-le-Duc in his graphic reconstruction of famous
Cistercian abbeys, an essay not to be bettered as a
piece of lucid demonstration (see his Dictionary,
vol. i. pp. 263-271).
CHAPTER III
ABBEYS AND CARTHUSIAN MONASTERIES
IN the eleventh century a large number of monas-
teries had been built throughout Western Europe by
monks of various orders, in imitation of the great
monastic schools of Lerins, Ireland, and Monte
Casino. Among the famous abbeys of this period
may be mentioned " Vezelay and Fecamp, sometime
convents for women, afterwards converted into
abbeys for men ; St. Nicaise, at Rheims ; Nogent-
sous-Coucy, in Picardy ; Anchin and Annouain, in
Artois ; St. Etienne, at Caen ; St. Pierre-sur-Dives,
Le Bee, Conches, Cerisy-la-Foret,1 and Lessay, in
Normandy ; La Trinite, at Vendome ; Beaulieu,
near Loches ; Montierneuf, at Poitiers, etc." 2
The Abbeys of Fulde, in Hesse, and of Corvey,
in Westphalia, the latter founded by Benedictine
monks from the Abbey of Corbie, in Picardy, were
in their day the chief centres of learning in Germany.
In England St. Alban's Abbey, in Hertfordshire,
was built in 1077 by a disciple of Lanfranc, the
illustrious abbot of the famous Abbey of Le Bee, in
1 L ^Architecture Roniane, by Ed. Corroyer, chap. iii. part ii.
2 Anthyme St. Paul, Histoire Momunentale de la France.
228 Gothic Architecture
Normandy. A large number of monasteries were
136. ABBEY OF ST. ETIENNE AT CAEN. FA£ADE
Abbeys and Carthusian Monasteries 229
founded later on by various orders, notably the
Benedictines — Croyland, Malmesbury, Bury St.
Edmund's, Peterborough, Salisbury, Wimborne,
Wearmouth, Westminster, etc., not to mention the
abbeys and priories which had existed in Ireland
from the sixth century.
The mother abbey of Citeaux gave birth to four
daughters — Clairvaux, Pontigny, Morimond, and La
Ferte.
The importance of Clairvaux was much increased
in the first years of the twelfth century by the fame
of her abbot, St. Bernard, that most brilliant embodi-
ment of mediaeval monasticism. His influence was
immense, not alone in his character of reformer and
founder of an important order, but as a statesman
whom fortune persistently favoured in all enterprises
tending to the increase of his great reputation.
St. Bernard distinguished himself in the theo-
logical controversies of his century at the Council of
Sens in 1140, and in successful polemical disputa-
tions with Abelard, the famous advocate of free
will, and other heterodox philosophers who heralded
the Reformation of the sixteenth century. Some-
what later he took an active part in promoting the
hapless second Crusade under Louis VII., and in
1147, a few years before his death, he entered
vigorously into the Manichaean controversy as a
strenuous opponent of the heresy which was then
agitating the public mind and preparing the way for
the schism which, at the beginning of the thirteenth
century, brought about the terrible war of the
Albigenses, and steeped Southern France in blood.
The monastic fame of St. Bernard was established
23°
Gothic Architecture
not only by the searching reforms he instituted at
Clairvaux among the seceding monks of Cluny and
Solesmes, but by the success of the Cistercian
colonies he planted in Italy, Spain, Sweden, and
Denmark, to the number of seventy-two, according to
his historians.
During his lifetime the poor hermitage of the
Vallee d! Absinthe (which name he changed to Clairc-
137. ST. ALBAN'S ABBEY (ENGLAND)
Vallee, Clairvaux) had become a vast feudal settle-
ment of many farms and holdings, rich enough to
support more than seven hundred monks. The
monastery was surrounded by walls more than half
a league in extent, and the abbot's domicile had
become a seignorial mansion. As the fount of the
order, and mother of all the auxiliary houses, Clair-
vaux was supreme over a hundred and sixty monas-
teries in France and abroad. Fifty years after the
death of St. Bernard the importance of the order
Abbeys and Carthitsian Monasteries 231
232 Gothic Architecture
had become colossal. During the thirteenth century,
and from that time onwards, the Cistercian or
Bernardine monks built immense abbeys, and
decorated them with royal magnificence. Their
establishments contained churches equal in dimension
to the largest cathedrals of the period, abbatial
139. CHURCH AT ELNE IN ROUSSILLON. CLOISTERS
dwellings adorned with paintings, and boasting
oratories which, as at Chaalis, were Stes. Chapelles as
splendid as that of St. Louis in Paris. The very
cellars held works of art in the shape of huge casks
elaborately carved.
Thus, by a strange recurrence of conditions, the
settlements founded on a basis of the most rigorous
austerity by the ascetics who had fled from the
splendours of Solesmes and Cluny to the forest,
Abbeys and Carthusian Monasteries 233
became in their turn vaster, richer, and more
sumptuous than those the magnificence of which
they existed to rebuke. With this difference, how-
ever : the ruin brought about by the luxury of the
Cistercian establishment was so complete that no-
thing of their innumerable monasteries was spared by
140. ABBEY OF FONTFROIDE (LANGUEDOC). CLOISTERS
social revolution but a few archaeologic fragments and
historic memories.
The influence of the Cistercian foundation ex-
tended to various countries of Europe. It was
manifested in Spain, at the great Abbey of Alcobaco,
in Estramadura, said to have been built by monkish
envoys of St. Bernard ; in Sicily, in the rich archi-
tectural detail of the Abbey of Monreale ; and
in Germany, in the foundation of such abbeys as
those of Altenberg in Westphalia, and Maulbronn in
234 Gothic Architecture
Wurtemberg. In 1133 Everard, Count of Berg,
invited monks of Citeaux to settle in his dominions,
and in 1145 they founded a magnificent abbey on
the banks of the Dheen, which was held by the
Cistercian order down to the period of the Revolu-
tion, when it shared the fate of other religious
houses.
The Cistercian Abbey of Maulbronn is the best
preserved of those which owed their origin to St.
Bernard throughout the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. The abbey church, the cloister, the re-
fectory, the chapter -house, the cellars, the store-
rooms, the barns, and the abbot's lodging, the latter
united to the other buildings by a covered gallery,
still exist in their original condition. More mani-
festly even than Altenberg does the Abbey of
Maulbronn prove that simplicity marked the pro-
ceedings of the Benedictines during the first years
of the twelfth century, under the rule or influence of
St. Bernard. From this period onward Cistercian
brotherhoods multiplied with great rapidity in the
provinces which were to form modern France.
In the Ile-de-France the ruins of Ourscamp, near
Noyon, of Chaalis, near Senlis, of Longpont and
of Vaux-de-Cernay, near Paris, bear witness to the
monumental grandeur of once famous and important
abbeys. The monasteries and priories of the twelfth
century are numerous in Provence ; we may name
Senanque, Silvacane, Thoronet, and Montmajour, near
Aries, at the extremity of the valley of Les Baux.
Among the abbeys founded in the thirteenth century
were Royaumont, in the Ile-de-France ; Vaucelles,
near Cambrai ; Preuilly-en-Brie ; La Trappe, in Le
Abbeys and Carthusian Monasteries 235
Perche ; Breuil-Benoit, Mortemer, and Bonport, in
Normandy ; Boschaud, in Perigord ; 1'Escale-Dieu,
in Bigorre ; Les Feuillants, Nizors, and Bonnefont,
in Comminges ; Granselve and Baulbonne, near
Toulouse ; Floran, Valmagne, and Fontfroide, in
Languedoc ; Fontenay, in Burgundy, etc.
141. CISTERCIAN ABBEY OF MAULBRONN (WURTEMBERG). PLAN
Towards the close of the eleventh and the be-
ginning of the twelfth century other fraternities had
been formed in the same spirit as that of Citeaux ;
" in the first rank of these was the Order of the
Premonstrants, so named from the mother abbey
founded in i i 1 9 by St. Norbert at Premontre, near
Coucy." 1
1 Anthyme St. Paul, Histoirc Monumentah de la France.
236 Gothic Architecture
To this order the monastery of St. Martin at
142. ABBEY OF FONTEVRAULT. KITCHEN
Abbeys and Carthusian Monasteries 237
Laon, and others in Champagne, Artois, Brittany,
and Normandy owed their origin.
In the early part of the twelfth century Robert
d'Arbrisselles founded several double monasteries for
men and women, on the model of those built in
Spain in the ninth century ; that of Fontevrault was
143. CATHEDRAL OF PUY-EN-VELAY. CLOISTERS
not more successful as a monastic experiment than
the rest, but it gave rise to a number of superb
buildings. The abbey itself contributed in no slight
degree to the progress of architecture, which developed
in Anjou at the dawn of the twelfth century, and
manifested itself principally at Angers in works the
supreme importance of which we have dwelt upon in
the early part of this volume.
238 Gothic Architecture
The episcopal churches also owned claustral
buildings for the accommodation of the cathedral
clergy who lived together in communities according
to the ancient usage which obtained down to the
fifteenth century. The Cathedrals of Aix, Aries,
and Cavaillon, in Provence, of Elne, in Roussillon,
of Puy, in Velay, of St. Bertrand, in Comminges,
still preserve their cloisters of the twelfth century.
The Abbey of La Chaise Dieu, in Auvergne,
founded in the eleventh century, was one of the
monastic schools which rose to great importance,
mainly through the talents of its monkish architect
and sculptor, Guinamaud, who established its re-
putation as an art centre. By the close of the
twelfth century La Chaise Dieu was turning out
proficients in sculpture, painting, and goldsmith's
work.
The buildings of La Chaise Dieu were recon-
structed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
The order of preaching friars, founded by St.
Dominic in the early part of the thirteenth century,
is noted rather for its intellectual than for its archi-
tectural achievements ; the fame of the Dominicans
rests upon their preaching and writings, not upon
the number or magnificence of their monasteries.
About the same period St. Francis of Assisi
founded the order of minor friars, who professed
absolute poverty — a profession which, however, did
not prevent their becoming richer at last than their
forerunners. These two orders — preaching and
mendicant friars, apparently formed in protest against
the supremacy of the Benedictines — were strongly
supported by St. Louis, who also protected other
Abbeys and Carthusian Monasteries 239
orders, such as the Augustinians and Carmelites, by
way of balancing the power of the Clunisians and
Cistercians.
To the preaching friars St. Louis granted the site
of the Church of St. Jacques, in the Rue St. Jacques,
paris — whence the name Jacobin as applied to
144. ABBEY OF LA CHAISE DIEU (AUVERGNE). CLOISTERS*
monks of the Dominican order, — and here they built
in I 22 i the Jacobin monastery, the church of which,
like those of Agen and Toulouse, has the double
nave peculiar to the churches of the preaching
friars.
From the thirteenth century onwards the arrange-
ment of the abbeys diverges more and more from
240 Gothic Architecture
the Benedictine system in the direction of secular
models. The daily life of the abbots had come to
differ but little from that of the laymen of their
time, and as a natural consequence, monastic archi-
tecture lost its distinguishing characteristics.
The Rule of the Carthusian Order, founded
towards the close of the eleventh century by St.
Bruno, was of such extreme austerity, and was so
persistently adhered to down to the fifteenth century,
at least, that we need not wonder to find no vestiges
of buildings erected by this community contempor-
aneously with those of other great foundations. The
Carthusians clung longer than any of their brethren
to the vows of poverty and humility which obliged
them to live like anchorites, though dwelling under
one roof. Far from living in common, on the
cenobitic method, after the manner of the Bene-
dictines and Cistercians, they maintained the cellular
system in all its severity. Absolute silence further
aggravated the complete isolation which encouraged
them to scorn all that might alleviate or modify the
rigours of their religious duties.
In time, however, the Carthusians relaxed some-
thing of this extreme asceticism in their monastic
buildings, if not in their religious observances.
Towards the fifteenth century they did homage to
art by the construction of monasteries which,
though falling short of the Cistercian monuments
in magnificence, are of much interest from their
peculiarities of arrangement.
The ordinary buildings comprised the gate-house,
giving access by a single door to the courtyard of
the monastery, where stood the church, the prior's
A 6 beys and Carthusian Monasteries 241
lodging, the hostelry for guests and pilgrims, the
laundry, the bakehouse, the cattlesheds, storerooms,
and dovecote. The church communicated with an
interior cloister, giving access to the chapter-house
and refectory, which latter were only open to the
monks at certain annual festivals. The typical
feature of St. Bruno's more characteristic monasteries
is the great cloister, on the true Carthusian model —
that is to say, rectangular in form, and surrounded
by an arcade, on which the cells of the monks open.
Each of these cells was a little self-contained
habitation, and had its own garden. The door of
each cell was provided with a wicket, through which
a lay brother passed the slender meal of the Car-
thusian who was forbidden to communicate with his
fellows.
The Rule of St. Bruno, as is commonly known,
enjoins the life of an anchorite ; the Carthusian must
work, eat, and drink in solitude ; speech is interdicted ;
on meeting, the brethren are commanded to salute
each other in silence ; they assemble only in church
for certain services prescribed by the Rule, and
their meals, none too numerous at any time, were
only taken in common on certain days in the
year.
The severity of these conditions explains the
extreme austerity of Carthusian architecture. It
had, as we have already said, no real development
until the fifteenth century, and then only as regards
certain portions of the monastery, such as the church
and its cloister, which were in strong contrast with
the compulsory bareness of the great cloister of the
monks.
242
Gothic Architecture
The ancient Chartreuse of Villefranche de
Rouergue, either built or reconstructed in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, still preserves some
remarkable features. The plan, and the bird's-eye
view (Figs. 145 and 146) from L Encyclopedie de
r Architecture et de la Construction, gives an exact idea
of the monastery. Some of the cells are still intact,
145. CHARTREUSE OF VILLEFRANCHE DE ROUERGUE. PLAN
also the refectory, and certain other portions of the
primitive structure.
In spite of the rigidity of the Rule of St. Bruno
certain foundations of his order became famous,
notably the monastery established by the Carthusians
on the invitation of St. Louis in the celebrated castle
of Vauvert, beyond the walls of Paris, near the Route
d'Issy. The castle was regarded with terror by the
Abbeys and Carthusian Monasteries 243
Parisians, who declared it to be haunted by the devil,
whence the popular expression : aller au diable
Vauvert, which later was corrupted into aller au
146. CHARTREUSE OF VILLEFRANCHE DE ROUERGUE. BIRD'S- EYE VIEW
diable au vert. The Carthusians, nevertheless, took
up their quarters in the stronghold, and enriched it
with a splendid church built by Pierre de Montereau,
the foundation stone of which was laid by St. Louis
in 1260, The Chartreuse of Vauvert developed
244
Gothic A rchitecture
greatly, and became one of the most famous of the
order. It was in the lesser cloister of this monastery
147. GRANDE CHARTREUSE. THE GREAT CLOISTER
that the artist Eustache Le Sueur painted his famous
frescoes from the life of St. Bruno in the beginning
of the seventeenth century.
Abbeys and Carthusian Monasteries 245
The most famous Carthusian monasteries of Italy
are those of Florence, which dates from the middle
of the fourteenth century, and is attributed in part
to Orcagna, and of Pavia, founded at the close
of the fourteenth century by Giovanni Galeazzo
Visconti.
The French Carthusian monasteries of greatest
148. GRANDE CHARTREUSE. GENERAL VIEW
interest after Vauvert, which had the special
advantage of royal protection, are those of Clermont,
in Auvergne, Villefranche de Rouergue (Figs. 145
and 146), Villeneuve-lez-Avignon, and Montrieux, in
Var. The Chartreuse of Dijon is one of the most
ancient, not only as to its buildings, which are the
work of the Duke of Burgundy's architects, but in
respect of its famous sculptures of the tomb of Philip
the Bold, and his wife, Margaret of Flanders, and those
246 Gothic Architecture
of the Well of Moses, carved by the Burgundian
brothers, Claux Suter, who flourished at the close of
the fourteenth century, and had much to do with the
revival of art at that period.1
But the most imposing of all, and the most
famous, if not the most beautiful, is that in the
mountains near Grenoble, universally known as La
Grande Chartreuse.
The original monastery is said to have been
founded by St. Bruno. It consisted merely of a
humble chapel and a few isolated cells, which are
supposed to have occupied the site in the Desert^ on
which the Chapels of St. Bruno and St. Mary now
stand. The existing buildings were reconstructed
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the
manner of the day, of which the arcades of the great
cloister are good examples. The present church,
which is extremely simple in design, has preserved
nothing of its sixteenth -century decoration but the
choir stalls. The great cloister consists of an
arcaded gallery, on which the sixty cells of the
monks open. It is arranged in strict accordance
with the Rule of St. Bruno as regards its connection
with the main buildings, the chief features of which
we have already pointed out.
1 See Part I., "Sculpture."
CHAPTER IV
FORTIFIED ABBEYS
THE monasteries built throughout the twelfth cen-
tury were provided with outer walls, by means of
which the claustral buildings, offices, workshops, and
even farms of the community were enclosed. Thus
all the necessaries of life were produced within the
precincts, and all communication with the outside
world was avoided.
But by the end of the century the great abbeys
had become feudal castles ; and fortified walls were
raised around them, often embracing the town which
had grown up under their protection and shared
their fortunes. This was the case at Cluny, and the
town acknowledged its obligations to the monks by
the payment of tithes.
In the reign of Philip Augustus and St. Louis
the abbots were not only the heads of their monas-
teries but feudal chieftains, vassals of the royal
power, and as such obliged to furnish the sovereign
with men-at-arms in time of war, and to maintain a
garrison when required.1
1 See Part III., " Military Architecture," Abbey of Mont St. Michel.
248 GotJdc Arckite&ure
The Abbey of Tournus was, like Cluny, sur-
rounded by walls connected with the city ramparts.
The Abbey of St. Allyre, in Auvergne, near
Clermont, was defended by walls and towers, which
seem to have been added to the original structure
of the ninth century at some period during the
thirteenth, when such fortification of religious houses
became necessary.
149. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. GENERAL VIEW FROM THE ROCKS
OF COUESNON, TAKEN IN 1878, BEFORE THE CONSTRUCTION OF
THE DYKE
In many other monasteries a system of defence
more or less elaborate was adopted ; but the most
famous of all the abbeys built by the Benedictines
was unquestionably Mont St. Michel, which, for
boldness and grandeur of design, is unique among
military and monastic monuments from the eleventh
to the close of the fifteenth century.
The Abbey of Mont St. Michel was founded in
708 by St. Aubert, according to tradition. At the
Fortified Abbeys
249
150.
ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. PLAN AT THE LEVEL OF THE
GUARD-ROOM, ALMONRY, AND CELLAR
Key to Plan. — A. Tower known as the TourClandine. Ramparts. B. Barbican.
Entrance to the abbey. B'. Ruin of the stairway known as the Grand Degrt. C.
Gate-house. D. Guard -room known as Bellechaise. E. Tower known as the Tour
Perrine. F. Steward's lodging and Bailey. G. Abbot's lodging. G'. Abbatial
buildings. G". Chapel of St. Catherine. H. Courtyard of the church, great stairway.
I. Courtyard of the Meweille. J, K. Almonry, cellar (of the Merveille). L. Formerly
the abbatial buildings. M. Gallery or crypt known as the Galerie de I'Aqnilon (of
the North Wind). N. Hostelry (Robert de Thorigni). O. Passages connecting
the abbey with the hostelry. P, P'. Prison and dungeon. R, S. Staircase.
T. Modern wall of abutment. U. Garden, terraces, and covered way. V. Body
of rock. •
250
Gothic Architecture
151. ABBEV OF MONT ST. MICHEL. PLAN AT THE LEVEL OF THE
LOWER CHURCH, THE REFECTORY, AND THE CHAPTER-HOUSE, OR
KNIGHTS' HALL. — For Key to Plan see opposite page.
Fortified A bbeys 2 5 1
close of the tenth century it was restored by Richard
Sans Peur, third Duke of Normandy, with the help
of the Benedictine monks from Monte Casino,
whom he had installed at St. Michel in 966. It
increased greatly in wealth and extent in the eleventh
century, and by the end of the twelfth was in the
full tide of its prosperity. Its buildings, however
had not yet that importance to which they attained
in the following century.1 In the twelfth century
they consisted of the church, which was built between
1 020 and 1135 2 and the monastic buildings proper
(lieux reguliers), with lodgings for servants and
guests to the north of the nave, at G, G', and F on
the plan, Fig. 152. To these, which were restored
or reconstructed in a great measure by the Abbot
Roger II. at the beginning of the twelfth century,
additions were made on the south and south-east by
Robert de Thorigni from 1 1 54 to 1 186.
The monastery was not then fortified.
1 Description de FAbbaye du Mont St. Michel, by Ed. Corroyer ;
Paris, 1877. This work was crowned by the Institute in 1879, at the
Contours des Antiquites Nationales.
- See L1 Architecture Romane, by Ed. Corroyer ; Paris, Maison
Quantin, 1888.
Key to Plan. — A. Lower church. B, B'. Chapels beneath the transepts. C.
Substructure of Romanesque nave. C, C', and C". Charnel-house or burying-place
of the monks, and substructure of south platform. D. Formerly the cistern. E.
Formerly the claustral buildings. Refectory. F. Formerly the cloister or ambu-
latory. G. Passage communicating with the hostelry. H, I. Hostelry and offices
(Robert de Thorigni). J. Chapel of hostelry (St. £tienne). K, K', L, M. Refec-
tory. Tower known as the Tour des Corbins (Tower of Crows). Chapter-house, or
hall of the knights, Galilee or narthex (Merveille). N. Hall of the military
executive, or hall of the officers. O. Tower known as the Tour Perrine. P.
Battlements of the gate-house. Q. Courtyard of the Merveille. R, S. Staircase
and terrace of the apse. T. Courtyard of the church. U. Fortified bridge con-
necting the lower church with the abbey buildings. V, X. Abbot's lodging.
Accommodation for guests. Y, Y'. Cisterns of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Z. Body of rock.
252
Gothic Architecture
I 52. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. PLAN AT THE LEVEL OF THE UPPER
CHURCH, THE CLOISTERS, AND THE DORMITORY
Key to Plan.—k, A', A." Church, choir, and transepts. B, B', B". Three first
bays of nave, destroyed in 1776. C, C', C". Towers and porch (Robert de Thorigni).
D. Tomb of Robert de Thorigni. E. Formerly the terrace in front of the church.
F. Formerly the chapter-house. G, G'. Formerly the claustral buildings. Dormitory.
H. Platform at the southern entrance of the church. I. Ruin of the hostelry
(Robert de Thorigni). J. Infirmary. K. Dormitories of the thirteenth century
(Merveille). K'. Tower, known as the Tour des Corbins (thirteenth century,
Merveille). L, L'. Cloister and archives (thirteenth century, Merveille). M.
Vestry (thirteenth century, Merz'eille). N. Abbot's lodging. O. Accommodation
for guests. P. Courtyard of the Merveille. P'. Terrace of the apse. Q. Court-
yard of the church and great staircase.
Fortified A bbeys 253
-
Built on the summit of a rock, the impregnable
steepness of which provided a natural rampart north
and west, it depended solely upon the advantages of
its position for defence. Its situation in the midst
of a treacherous sandy plain — a position which gave
rise to the mediaeval name, Le Mont St. Michel au
Peril de la Mer— secured it against attempts at
investiture, and even to a great extent against
sudden assaults. Enclosures of stone or wooden
fences surrounded it at those points on the east
153. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. TRANSVERSE SECTION, FROM
NORTH TO SOUTH1
where the less rugged nature of the surface rendered
access comparatively easy, and where stood the
entrance, with the various habitations which had
grouped themselves round it. The so-called town
had been founded in the tenth century by a few
families decimated by the Normans, in their raids
upon Avranches and its neighbourhood after the
death of Charlemagne. In the thirteenth century it
consisted of a small number of houses which, by
1 Description de FAbbaye dn Mont St. Michel et de ses Abords, by
Ed. Corroyer ; Paris, 1877.
254 Gothic Architecture
way of security against the vagaries of the sea, were
built upon the highest point of the rock to the east.
In 1203 the greater part of the abbey, the church
excepted, was destroyed during the wars between
Philip Augustus, King of France, and John, King
of England.
Historic records prove conclusively that the abbey
had no defensive works properly so-called in the
twelfth and early part of the thirteenth century.
From this period onwards abbeys, more especially
154. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. LONGITUDINAL SECTION, FROM
WEST TO EAST
those of the Benedictine orders, were transformed
into regular fortresses capable of sustaining a siege.
The abbots, in their character of feudal lords, fortified
their monasteries to ensure them against disasters
such as had marked the early years of the thirteenth
century. Mont St. Michel is one of the most curious
examples of such fortification.
The original architects of the abbey seem to
have been unwilling to diminish the height of the
mount by levelling. Resolving to detract in no
degree from the majesty of so splendid a base for
Fortified A bbeys 255
their church, they set about their work on the same
principle as the pyramid builders. Our illustrations
show how the buildings were raised partly on
plateaux circumscribing the apex of the mount,
partly on that apex itself. The result is that the
monastery, as we see it, has a core of rock rising at
its highest point to the very floor of the church.
The ring of lower stories rests upon walls of great
thickness, and upon piers united by vaults, the whole
forming a substructure of perfect solidity.
The section made through the transept (Fig. 153)
gives an exact idea of the portion which dates from
the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and of the build-
ings which gradually grouped themselves round this
nucleus, such as the so-called Meweille (Marvel) to
the north, and the abbot's lodging to the south.
The longitudinal section (Fig. 154) shows the
crypt, or lower church. This was not, as has been
frequently asserted, actually hollowed out of the
rock ; it was, however, very ingeniously contrived in
the fifteenth century over the ruins of the Roman-
esque church in the space between the declivity of
the mount and the artificial plateau of the earlier
architects. The substructures of the Romanesque
church which were enlarged by Robert de Thorigni
in the thirteenth century are indicated in this diagram.
They are of gigantic proportions, especially towards
the west.
Fig. i 5 5 shows the so-called Galerie de VAquilon
(Gallery of the North Wind), one of the upper stories
of the claustral buildings to the north of the church
constructed by Roger II., eleventh abbot (1106-1122).
After the fire of 1203, when the abbey had
256 Gothic Architecture
become a feof of the royal domain, the Abbot
155. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. GALERIE DE L'AQUILON
{GALLERY OF THE NORTH WIND)
258
Gothic Architecture
Jourdain and his successors rebuilt it almost entirely,
with the exception of the church.
157. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. THE ALMONRY. PERSPECTIVE VIEW
LOOKING WEST. THE CELLAR BEYOND
As the peculiarities of the site made it impossible
to adhere strictly to the Benedictine system of direct
communication between the main buildings and the
Fortified Abbeys
259
church, the lieux reguliers, or accommodation reserved
for the monks, were disposed above the magnificent
building to the north of the church, which, from the
158. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. NAMES OF THE ARCHITECTS OR
SCULPTORS OF THE CHOIR
time of its foundation, was known as La Merveille
(the Marvel).
This vast structure fairly takes rank as the
grandest example of combined religious and military
architecture of the finest mediaeval period.
260 Gothic Architecture
The Merveille consists of three stories, two of
159. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. CELLAR. PERSPECTIVE VIEW
FROM WEST TO EAST. THE ALMONRY BEYOND
which are vaulted. The lowest contains the almonry
Fortified A bbeys 2 6 1
and cellar ; the intermediate story the refectory
and the knights' hall ; the third the dormitory
and cloister. The building consists of two wings
running east and west ; the apartments are super-
posed as follows : — In the east wing the almonry, the
refectory, and the dormitory ; in the west the cellar,
the knights' hall, and the cloister.1
This splendid structure is built entirely of granite.
It was carried out by one continuous effort, under
the inspiration of an incomparably bold and learned
design of the Abbe Jourdain, to which his successors
religiously adhered.
The undertaking was entered upon in 1203 and
finished in 1228, the final achievement being the
cloister, the architects or sculptors of which are
commemorated by an inscription in the spandril of
one of the arcades in the south walk.
To fully appreciate this stupendous monument,
we must realise the extraordinary energy which
enabled its architects to complete it in the com-
paratively short space of twenty-five years. We
must take into account the conditions of its growth,
its situation on the very summit of a rugged cliff,
cut off from the mainland at times by the sea, at
other times by an expanse of treacherous quicksand.
We must consider the enormous difficulties of trans-
porting materials, seeing that all the granite used
was quarried by the monks from the neighbouring
coast. It is true that an unimportant quota of the
stone was dug from the base of the rock itself. But
though the passage across the sands was by this
1 Description de VAbbaye dti Mont St. Michel et de ses Abords,
by Ed. Corroyer ; Paris, 1877.
262
Gothic Architecture
means avoided, the difficulties of raising great masses
of stone to the foot of the Merveille, the foundations
of which are over 160 feet above the sea-level, had
l6o. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. REFECTORY
still to be met. It seems certain that the east and
west buildings of which the Merveille consists were
built at the same time, for though certain differences
Fortified A bbeys 263
are perceptible in the form of the exterior buttresses,
they evidently result from the interior formation of
the various apartments. A study of the plans,
l6l. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. CHAPTER-HOUSE, CALLED
THE HALL OF THE KNIGHTS
sections, and facades of the buildings is convincing
on this head, and the general arrangements, notably
that of the staircase, all point to the same conclusion.
264 Gothic Architecture
This staircase is a spiral in the thickness of the
buttress which, with its crowning octagonal turret,
forms the point of junction between the two buildings.
It winds from the almonry of the eastern ground-
floor to the knights' hall on the west, passing
through the dormitory of the eastern block to
terminate in the northern embattlement above.
The eastern and northern facades of the Merveille
are models of severe and virile beauty ; a massive
162. ST. MICHAEL'S MOUNT, CORNWALL
grandeur characterises them, especially striking and
impressive in the northern front as viewed from the
sea. The vast walls of granite (the material used
throughout, save in the inner walk of the cloister)
are pierced with windows varying in shape according
to the character of the rooms they light. Those of
the dormitory are very remarkable. They are long
and narrow, and affect the aspect of loopholes,
deeply splayed outwards ; the peculiar form of the
honeycombed window-heads suggests a reminiscence
Fortified Abbeys 265
of Arab types seen by the French Crusaders in
Palestine. The thrusts of the interior vaulting are
met on the exterior by massive buttresses, the
vigorous profiles of which contribute greatly to the
nobility of the general effect.
These formidable facades were practically forti-
fications, but the Merveille was further defended to
the north by an embattled wall, flanked by a tower
which served as a post for watchmen, to which the
covered ways running round the base of the western
buildings converged.
In the middle, on a level with the north-west
angle of the Merveille, a chatelet, or miniature keep,
now destroyed, guarded the rugged passage between
embattled walls which led to the Fountain of St.
Aubert, and was known as the Passage du Degre
(passage of the stairway).
The various buildings of the abbey which were
added in the fourteenth century, after the construc-
tion of the Merveille, are : the abbot's lodging, with
its offices on the south, and certain military works
which completed the defensive system. In the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries these were gradu-
ally extended to the walls of the town, as we shall
see in Part III., " Military Architecture."
PART III
MILITARY ARCHITECTURE
CHAPTER I
CIRCUMVALLATION OF TOWNS
THE distinctive character of military architecture
in the Middle Ages must be sought in defensive
fortification. In all other respects its constructive
methods were identical with those employed in
architectural works generally. The few ornamental
features of military buildings, as, for instance, the
interior vaults and the profiles of consoles and
cornices, diverge but slightly from the accepted
types of such features in the churches, monasteries,
and domestic structures of the period.
The Latin, Roman, Gallo- Roman, Romanesque,
and Gothic architects were versed in every depart-
ment of the art they practised. The same architect
was called upon to construct the church and the
fortress, the abbey, and the ramparts which were
often its necessary complement, the donjon, and
castle, the town hall, the hospital, the rural barn, and
the urban dwelling. He was responsible not only
for the inception of every class and form of building,
but for its successful elaboration ; on him alone the
responsibility of its execution rested ; no scientific
specialist checked his conclusions and verified his
270 Gothic Architecture
calculations as in our own time. The system by
163. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. GATE-HOUSE
which the architect and the engineer have each
CircuiHvallation of Towns 271
their separate functions and responsibilities in the
construction of the same building was unknown.
The builder, or mason, as some would have him
called, was an architect in the fullest sense ; he him-
self traced the diagrams of his conceptions, and
directed the execution of every detail, careful alike
of stability and beauty.
It is a curious and disheartening phenomenon
that such a direct contravention of the principles of
mediaeval art as the modern system of divided
responsibility implies, should obtain only among the
French, the very people to whom Western Europe
owes its initiation into those principles. In
England, in Belgium, in Holland, Switzerland, and
Germany the architect is also the engineer ; the
science and the art of his craft are inseparable.
" This intimate union of qualities gives an in-
dividuality to certain productions of these nations
which we might well lay to heart and make the
subject of serious comparative study. We must
needs admit to begin with that we ourselves have
become disciples rather than pioneers in a great
movement." x
The one preoccupation of the modern engineer
seems to be the satisfaction of imperious necessity.
He is inclined to neglect all that mathematics can-
not give him. And yet he has brought about a
very sensible progress by his mathematical applica-
tion of modern science. He has unquestionably
excelled in industrial masterpieces perfectly adapted
to the needs of the moment, if wanting in the
1 " L'Art a 1' Exposition, " /. 'A nhitecture, by Ed. Corroyer ; Paris.
L? Illustration, for 25th May 1889.
272 Gothic Architecture
qualities that make for immortality. We accept
with qualified admiration his marvellous bridges and
kindred works in metal — marvellous yet ephemeral ;
but we accept them merely as a temporary substitute
for the more solid if less showy stone bridges of our
early architects.
We would not have the servant of yesterday
the master of to-morrow. We protest against the
degradation of the architect from his high and noble
estate to the rank of a mere decorator, however
skilful. We would not witness the extinction of the
ancient French traditions which inspired so many
masterpieces, and to which we look as the source of
many yet to come.
It appears, moreover, that the general acceptation
of the word ingtnieur (engineer) is a totally mistaken
one. It is derived from the mediaeval term engigneur,
which was very differently applied.
The architect and the engineer of our own day
are both constructors, but with a difference. The
architect loves and cultivates his art ; the engineer,
with few exceptions, despises, or affects to despise,
his.
In the Middle Ages their functions were perfectly
distinct. The architect constructed what the en-
gigneur used his utmost cunning to destroy. The
architect built ramparts and strengthened them with
towers ; the engigneur undermined them if attacking,
or countermined them if defending. It was his
business to invent or direct the use of engines of war,
such as rams, mangonels, arblasts, and machines for
the slinging of enormous projectiles, or grenades.
He constructed the portable wooden towers which
Circumvallation of Towns 273
the besieging party brought up against the walls for
an escalade, directed the sappers who undermined
them, and, in fact, superintended the manufacture of
all such offensive engines as were necessary in the
conduct of a siege, a process which, before the
invention of firearms, necessitated preparations as
prolonged and tedious as they were complicated and
uncertain. In short, the architect was the constructor
of fortifications, the engigneur their assailant or de-
fender. It was not until the time of Vauban that
military engineers were called upon to exercise
functions so much more extensive. At an earlier
164. CITY OF CARCASSONNE. RAMPARTS TO THE SOUTH-EAST
period there were, however, specialists in construction
who undertook such works as the circumvallation
of Aigues-Mortes, but their labours had little in
common with those of modern engineers.
Before the feudal period the fortifications of
camps consisted either of earthworks, of walls built
of mud and logs, or of palisades surrounded by
ditches, in imitation of the Roman methods of
castrametation. The enceintes of towns fortified by
the Romans were walls defended by round or square
towers. These walls were built double ; a space of
several yards intervened, which was filled up with
the earth dug from the moat or ditch, mixed with
T
274
Gothic Architecture
rubble. The mass was levelled at the top and
paved to form what is technically known as a
covered way, or terrace protected by an embattled
wall rising from the outer curtain.
That portion of the enceinte of Carcassonne which
was built by the Visigoths in the sixth century is
thus constructed on the Roman model. " The ground
on which the town is built rises considerably above
165. CITY OF CARCASSONNE. NORTH-WEST RAMPARTS.
VISIGOTHIC TOWER (FIRST ON THE LEFT)
ROMANO-
that beyond the walls, and is almost on a level with
the rampart. The curtains 1 are of great thickness ;
they are composed of two facings of dressed stones
cut into small cubes, which alternate with courses of
bricks ; the intervening space is filled not with earth,
but with a concrete formed of rubble and lime." 2
The flanking towers which rise considerably above
the curtains were so disposed that it was possible to
1 The wall space between the towers.
2 Viollet-le-Duc, La Cite de Carcassonne.
CircumvaUation of Towns 275
isolate them from the walls by raising drawbridges.
Thus each tower formed an independent stronghold
against assailants.
Fig. 1 6 5 shows a portion of the north - west
ramparts of the city of Carcassonne, with the first
round tower ; to the left of the drawing is the
Romano - Visigothic tower, flanking right and left
the curtains of the same period.
In accordance with the Roman tradition the
enceinte of a town, formed, as we have seen, of
ramparts strengthened by towers, were further de-
fended by a citadel or keep, of which we shall have
more to say in the following chapter. This keep com-
manded the whole place, which was usually situated
on the slope of a hill above the bank of a river.
The bridge which communicated with the opposite
bank was fortified by a gate-house or tete de pont, to
guard the passage.
The circumvallation of towns often consisted of a
double enclosure, divided by a moat. By the close
of the twelfth century architects had caught the
inspiration of the great military works of the
Crusaders in the East, and military architecture had
progressed on the same lines as religious and mon-
astic architecture.
The territories, conquered by the Crusaders in
the course of establishing the Christian supremacy
in the East, had been divided into feofs as early as
the twelfth century. These soon boasted castles,
churches, and monastic foundations, of the Cistercian
and Premonstrant orders among others.
According to G. Rey, the following abbeys and
priories were built in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem
276 Gothic Architecture
at this period :— -The monasteries of Mount Sion,
Mount Olivet, Jehoshaphat, St. Habakkuk, and St.
Samuel, etc., and in Galilee, those of Mount Tabor
and Palmaree. The military organisation was
regulated by the Assises de la haute Cour (Assizes of
the Supreme Court), which determined the number
of knights to be furnished by each feof for the
defence of the kingdom, and in like manner, the
number of men-at-arms required from each church
and each community of citizens. . . . The middle of
the twelfth century was the period at which the
Christian colonies of the Holy Land were most
flourishing. Undeterred by the wars of which Syria
was the theatre, the Franks had promptly assimi-
lated the Greek and Roman tradition as manifested
in Byzantine types of military architecture. The
double enclosure flanked by towers, one of the main
features of Syrian fortresses built by the Crusaders,
was borrowed from the Greeks. Many of their
strongholds, notably Morgat, the so-called Krak of
the knights, and Tortosa, were of colossal proportions.
They may be divided into two classes. In the first,
the buildings are of the Prankish type, and seem
to be modelled on the French castles of the eleventh
and twelfth centuries. The flanking towers are
nearly always round ; they contain a defensive
story, while their summits and those of the inter-
vening curtains are crowned with battlements in the
French fashion. Other features subsequently intro-
duced were : the double enceinte, borrowed from the
Byzantines, the inner line of which commanded the
outer, .and was sufficiently near to allow its defenders
to engage, should assailants have carried the first
Circumv dilation of Towns
277
barrier ; secondly, stone
machicolations in place
of the wooden hourds or
timber scaffoldings which
were retained in France
till the close of the
thirteenth century ; and
finally, the talus, a device
by which the thickness
of the walls was tripled
at the base, thus affording
increased security against
the arts of the sapper and
the earthquake shocks so
frequent in the East.
The buildings of the
second class belong to
the school of the Knights
Templars. Their charac-
teristic features are the
towers, invariably square
or oblong in shape, and
projecting but slightly
from the curtains. The
fortress of Kalaat-el-Hosn,1
or Krak of the knights,
commanded the pass
through which ran the
roads from Horns and
Hamah to Tripoli and
1 P. tude snr les Monuments de
I' Architecture Militaire des croises
en Syne, by G. Key ; Paris, 1871.
278 Gothic A rch itecture
Tortosa, and was a military station of the first
importance. Together with the castles of Akkar,
Arcos, La Colee, Chastel-Blanc, Areynieh, Yammour,
Tortosa, and Markab, and the various auxiliary
towers and posts, it constituted a system of defence
designed to protect Tripoli from the incursions of
the Mahometans, who retained their hold on the
I66A. FORTRESS DE KALAAT-EL -HOSN IN SYRIA (KRAK OF THE
KNIGHTS). AS RESTORED BY M. G. REY
greater part of Syria. . . . The Kraky which was
built under the direction of the Knights Hospitallers,
has a double enceinte^ separated by a wide ditch
partly filled with water. The inner wall forms a
reduct, and rising above the outer enclosure com-
mands its defences. It also encompasses the various
dependencies of the castle, the great hall, chapel,
domestic buildings, and magazines. A long vaulted
Circumvallation of Towns
279
passage, easy of defence, was the only entrance to
the place. To the north and west the outer line
consisted of a curtain flanked by rounded turrets,
and crowned by machicolations, which formed a
continuous scaffolding of stone along the greater
part of the enceinte.
The action of the East upon the West was
167. CITY OF CARCASSONNE. PLAN (THIRTEENTH CENTURY)
manifested in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
by the application to the fortification of Carcassonne
and Aigues - Mortes of methods in use among the
Crusaders in Syria.
This oriental influence is apparent at Carcassonne
in the double enceinte borrowed from Syrian fortresses.
The city of Carcassonne stands upon a plateau
commanding the valley of the Aude, the site of an
280
Gothic A rch itecture
ancient Roman castellum. In the sixth century it
fell into the hands of the Visigoths, who fortified it.
It increased considerably in extent during the tenth,
eleventh, and twelfth centuries, but in the time of
Simon de Montfort (1209) and of Raymon de
Trancavel (1240) the enceinte was not nearly so
important as it became under St. Louis. By the
middle of the thirteenth century the king had begun
168. CITY OF CARCASSONNE. RAMPARTS. SOUTH-WEST ANGLE •
the construction of defensive works on a vast scale,
and built the outer enceinte, which still exists, as
may be seen on the plan (Fig. 167) taken from
Viollet-le-Duc's Cite de Carcassonne.
The primary object of the enceinte was to secure
the place against a sudden attack during the com-
pletion or enlargement of its interior defences. The
additions of St. Louis, which were carried on by
Philip the Bold, rendered Carcassonne impregnable
Circumvallation of Towns
281
in the general estimation. " As a fact, it was never
invested, and did not open its gates to Edward the
Black Prince till 1355, when all Languedoc had
submitted to him." J
Oriental influences are equally evident at Aigues-
Mortes. The Genoese Guglielmo Boccanera, who
constructed the enceinte, was apparently familiar with
169. RAMPARTS OF AIGUES-MORTES, NORTH AND SOUTH
the system of fortification adopted by the Crusaders
in Syria. The machicolations which here make
their first appearance in Languedoc (in the reign of
Philip the Bold), proclaim the filiation of Aigues-
Mortes to the Syrian fortresses. Italian influences
are also perceptible in the square plan of the flanking
towers. French architects had always preferred the
round tower, as more solid in itself, and less open
1 Viollet-le-Duc, La Cite de Carcassonne.
282
Gothic Architecture
to attack from sappers, who, in advancing against
a building of this form, were fully exposed to the
missiles of the defenders from the curtains adjoin-
ing ; while, on the other hand, the angles of the
square tower gave a certain protection to assailants
advancing against its front.
The ramparts of Avignon, which date from the
170. RAMPARTS OF AVIGNON. CURTAIN, TOWERS, AND MACHICOLATIONS
fourteenth century, seem to have been constructed
on Italian methods. The curtains are flanked by
square towers, open towards the town, and sur^
mounted by embattled parapets corbelled out from
the walls, and machicolated so as to command their
bases.
In the thirteenth century walls and towers were
provided with movable wooden scaffoldings, as
Circumvallation of Towns
283
shown at A in the figure. Spaces were left in the
masonry of the walls for the insertion of wooden
beams, which, projecting from the curtain, supported
an overhanging gallery. This, being pierced with
traps or apertures in the flooring, commanded the
base of the wall, and was an important element in
defensive operations. But as it was found that these
timber galleries were
easily set on fire by
assailants, they were
replaced in the
fourteenth century
by stone machicola-
tions, as shown at B,
consisting of corbels,
supporting an em-
battled parapet.
Between the inner
face of the parapet
and the outer face
of the curtain the
supporting corbels
alternated with
openings for the
defence of the base, as already described. This
arrangement, among the earliest examples of which
are the square towers of Avignon, was soon generally
adopted by architects in the construction of city
ramparts.
" The art of fortification, which had made great
advances at the beginning of the thirteenth century,
remained almost stationary to the end of it. During
the Hundred Years' War, however, it received a fresh
MACHICOLATIONS
284 Gothic Architecture
impetus. When order had been restored in the
kingdom, Charles VII. set about the restoration or
reconstruction of many fortresses recaptured from
the English. In the defensive works of such towns
and castles, and in various new undertakings of a
like nature, we recognise the method and regularity
proper to an art based on well-defined principles,
and far advanced towards mastery." 1
In the Abbey of Mont St. Michel the successive
modifications applied to military enceintes from the
171. RAMPARTS OF ST. MALO (FIFTEENTH CENTURY)
thirteenth to the fifteenth century, are illustrated in
the fullest and most interesting manner.
Of the fourteenth century fortifications, which
surrounded the original town at the summit of the
rock, connecting the ramparts with the Merveille on
the north, and the abbey buildings on the south,
some fragments still remain. The tower on the
north is intact. The walls are crowned with machi-
colations, in accordance with the then novel system
of massing the defences at the top of the ramparts.
The gate of the enceinte was to the south-east,
1 Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire, vol. i.
C^rc^imvallat^on of Towns 285
judging from the miniatures in the livre cTheures of
Pierre II., Duke of Brittany, which show the arrange-
ment of the original enceinte at the close of the
fourteenth century.
The abbey was at this time governed by Pierre
Le Roy, one of its ablest abbots and most famous
constructors. He rebuilt the summit of the Tour
des Corbins (inerveille]^ restored, and re-roofed the
abbey buildings to the south of the church, which,
begun by Richard Justin in 1260, were carried on
at intervals by his successors till they were partially
destroyed by the fire of 1374. He completed the
eastern defences by the addition of the square tower
at O on the plan (Fig. I 5 i), in which he built several
rooms for the accommodation of his soldiers. The
tower is known as the Tour Perrine, in memory of
its author. We have seen that the abbots gradually
became great feudal chieftains ; the Abbot of Mont
St. Michel was further commandant of the place
for the king ; and he was empowered to bestow
feofs on the nobles of the province, who bound
themselves in return to keep guard over the mount
in certain contingencies, enumerated in the following
rendering of a Latin text : — *
" The tenure of these vavassories was by faith
and fealty, and their holders were bound to furnish
relief and thirteen knights, each of whom was to
come in person to guard the gate of the abbey when
necessary — that is to say, in time of war ; each to
keep guard for the space of the ebb and flow of the
sea — that is to say, during the rising and falling of
1 Ed. Corroyer, Description de VAbbaye du Mont St. Michel et de
ses Abords.
286 Gothic Architecture
the tide ; and each to be provided with gambeson,
casque, gauntlets, shield, lance, and all requisite arms ;
and further to present themselves thus armed yearly
at the feast of St. Michael in September."
In the early years of the fifteenth century he
built the gate-house and crenellated curtain which
connects it with the Merveille, to the north of the
guard -room, Bellechaise (see Fig. 163, beginning
of this chapter). The gate-house was placed in front
of the northern fagade of Bellechaise (D, Fig. 150);
an open space between this and the south wall of
the new structure formed a wide machicoulis for the
protection of the north gate (that of Bellechaise},
which, by the erection of the new building, had been
transformed into a second interior entrance. The
gate-house or chatelet is a square structure, flanked
at the angles of the north front by two turrets,
corbelled out upon buttresses. In general appearance
they resemble a pair of huge mortars standing on
their breeches. Between the pedestals of these
turrets was the doorway and the inclined vault over
the staircase leading to the guard -room. This
entrance was defended by a portcullis worked from
within on the first story, and by three machicoulis
at the top of the curtain, between the battlements of
the turrets. For the further protection of the gate-
house Pierre Le Roy built the barbican which covers
it to the east and north, and also commands the
great staircase (Grand Degre) on the north. He
modified the ramparts by the addition of the tower
known as the Tour Claudine at the north-east angle
of the Merveille. In the lower story of this tower
he constructed a guard-room, the postern of which
Circumv dilation of Towns
287
communicated with the Grand Degre, and by a series
of ingenious and unique combinations was so con-
trived as to command all the approaches.1
In 1411 the Abbot Robert Jolivet was nominated
lord of the abbey by Pope John XXIII. After his
election by the monks he was made captain of the
garrison by the king, but continued to live in Paris.
In 1416, however, he hastened to his abbey, which
was threatened by the English, who had possessed
themselves of Lower Normandy after the battle of
172. MONT ST. MICHEL. SOUTH FRONT (AS IT WAS IN 1875)
Agincourt in 1415. Whilst the English were busy
fortifying Tombelaine, Robert Jolivet completed his
walls and certain towers round about the town, which
still exist. To meet the expenses of his undertaking
the abbot obtained a grant from the king of fifteen
hundred livres from the revenues of the Viscounty of
Avranches, besides a subsidy from the Master of the
Mint at St. L6.
At the time when Robert Jolivet was building
1 Ed. Corroyer, Description de VAbbaye du Mont St. Michel, etc. ;
Paris, 1877.
288
Gothic Architecture
Circumvallation of Towns 289
the new ramparts, from about 1415 to 1420, the
town had greatly increased towards the south, and
even setting aside the dangerous proximity of the
English at Tombelaine, some more extensive system
of defence than that afforded by the fortifications of
the fourteenth century was imperatively needed to
secure the place against attack. Robert Jolivet
incorporated his new walls on the east with those of
the preceding century, which, following the escarp-
ments of the cliff, descend to the beach, and are
protected by the northern tower. These walls he
flanked with an additional tower projecting con-
siderably from the surface, which was destined to
command the adjoining curtains and protect the
main line of his defences. He then carried his walls
round to the south of the rock and strengthened
them by five other towers. The last of these, known
as the Tour du Rot, forms the south-eastern projec-
tion of the place, and commands the western gate of
the town.
The walls and their sloping bases are defended
by stone machicolations above, the consoles of which
support open crenellated parapets. Several of the
towers were roofed, and afforded shelter for the
defenders of the ramparts. After leaving the Tour
du Roi the walls turn off at a right angle and
unite themselves to the abrupt declivities of the rock
by means of a series of steps and covered ways,
commanded by a fortified guard-room. Even the
inaccessible peaks of the rock itself are fortified and
connected with the defences of the abbey on the
south.
At the beginning of the fifteenth century, and still
u
290 Gothic Architecture
more notably towards its close, firearms had been
successfully used in various sieges, and had made
such rapid progress that the whole system of attack
and defence was transformed. Towers gave way to
bastions, the terraces of which became batteries,
while the battlements of the earlier mode were re-
placed by epaulments. Machicolations which were
now merely a traditional decoration at last dis-
appeared altogether, and military science gradually
took the place of architecture, for which there was
henceforth little scope in this particular field.
CHAPTER II
CASTLES AND KEEPS, OR DONJONS
THE first French castles of the mediaeval period
seem to have been built for the purpose of arrest-
ing invasion and affording shelter to communities
decimated by the raids of the Normans. They con-
sisted of simple intrenchments more or less extensive.
Surrounded by a fosse or ditch formed of earth-
works, the scarp of which was defended by a palisade,
they had much in common with the camps of the
ancient Romans. In the centre of the enclosure
rose the motte (mote or mound), a conical elevation,
either natural to the ground, or artificially formed
on the model of the Roman prcetorium. This was
surmounted by a building, generally of wood, which
served as a post of observation and a retreat less
accessible than the enceinte itself.
In these rudimentary dispositions we recognise
the germ of those feudal keeps and castles which
were such important features of mediaeval architec-
ture, notably during the Gothic period.
Defensive works of this nature sprang up at
various points of the royal domain which were ex-
posed to the incursions of the Scandinavian pirates ;
292
Gothic Architecture
but the temporary concessions of Charles the Bald
were claimed as definitive by those to whom they
had been made. " When, therefore, that feeble
monarch proclaimed the heredity of the feofs at
Quierzy-sur-Oise in 877, he did but sanction that
which was already an accomplished fact. . . . When
the feudal system was firmly established, the nobles
174. CASTLE OF ANGERS
turned their attention to the maintenance of their
usurpations alike against the kings of France,
strangers, and neighbours. To this end they care-
fully chose the best strategic positions in their terri-
tories, and fortified them in the most durable fashion
at their command. The imposts they levied were
considerable, and their serfs were subject to endless
exactions." * Stone castles were accordingly built
1 Anthyme St. Paul, Histoire JMomunentale de la France.
Castles and Keeps, or Donjons 293
which, in general arrangement, adhered to primitive
models. In 980 Frotaire had raised no less than
five around Perigueux, his episcopal town.
In 991 Thibault File-Etoupe built a fortress on
the hill of Montlhery, near the royal residences of
Paris and Etampes, which was very formidable to
the first five kings of the house of Capet. Later,
175. CARCASSONNE ; CITADEL. VIEW FROM THE NORTH-EASTERN
ANGLE. (SEE PLAN, FIG. 167)
when it became a royal possession, it was one of the
chief bulwarks of the city.
In the Middle Ages the castle bore the same
relation to the fortified town as did the keep to the
feudal castle, and the history of one is bound up in
that of the other.
In a fortified town the castle was the lodging of
the leader and his soldiers. It was connected with
the ramparts of the place, and had one or more
294
Gothic Architecture
special outlets ; it was further provided with defences
on the side of the town itself, so that upon occasion
it became an isolated stronghold.
The Castle of Carcassonne is a famous example
of such offensive and defensive fortification. It was
built in the first years of the twelfth century, and is
composed of various lodgings for the chief and his
176. LOCHES CASTLE. KEEP
garrison, defended east and north, on the side
towards the city, by towers and curtains (Fig. 175).
At the south-west angle independent reducts and
towers guard the courtyards and approaches. The
west front overlooks the open country, and here was
placed the gate, which was defended by a series of
formidable devices so ingenious as to preclude all
possibility of surprise.
Castles and Keeps, or Donjons 295
During the Romanesque and Gothic periods the
castle was a miniature town, with its own fortified
enceinte, composed of walls reinforced by towers
which served as refuges at various points of the
circumference, and formed so many reducts for the
arrest of assailants.
The keep was the citadel of this miniature town,
the temporary lodging of the lord whose vassals
lived in the internal offices, and whose soldiers occu-
pied the gate-house buildings and the towers of the
ramparts. The noble sought to give his special
habitation the most formidable aspect possible, and
thereby to strike terror to the beholder, a very neces-
sary device in those days of conflict when the friend
of night was often the implacable foe of morning.
" In times of peace the keep was the receptacle for
the treasure, arms, and archives of the family ; but
the lord did not lodge there ; he only took up his
quarters in the keep with his wife and children in
time of war. As it was not possible for him to
defend the place alone, he surrounded himself with
a band of the most devoted of his followers who
shared his dwelling. From thence he exercised a
scrupulous surveillance over the garrison and its
approaches, for the keep was always placed at the
most vulnerable point of the fortress, and he and
his bodyguard held the horde of vassals and retainers
in due subservience ; as they were able to pass in
and out at all hours by secret and well-guarded pass-
ages, the garrison was kept in ignorance of the exact
means of defence, the lord, as was natural, doing all
in his power to make them appear formidable." 1
1 Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire, vol. v.
296 Gothic Architecture
Castles and keeps of stone were generally built
upon the natural scarp of some spur commanding
two valleys and near the banks of a river ; the
primitive mounds of the feudal fortresses were
abandoned ; as we have already remarked, these
were in many cases artificial, and would have been
quite inadequate to the support of the huge masses
of masonry of the new architecture.
" By the close of the tenth century and the open-
ing years of the eleventh, Foulques Nerra was rais-
ing castles throughout his own territories in Anjou,
and on every available point of vantage he could
wrest from his neighbour, the Count of Blois and
Tours ; the latter built fortresses to resist the
aggressor and complete the network of strongholds
begun by his father, Thibault the Trickster, one of
the most turbulent nobles of his day." 1
The keep of Langeais, on a precipitous hill over-
looking the Loire, was founded by Foulques Nerra
at the close of the tenth century ; the walls, which
are still standing on three sides, show traces of
Gallo-Roman methods of construction ; the dressed
stones are of small size, and brick and stone are
used conjointly for the voussoirs of the window
arches.
A large number of castles and keeps were built
in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, among others
those of Plessy, Grimoult, Le Pin, and La Pomme-
raye, the last on a mound surrounded by deep
moats which separate three lines of circumvallation
from each other ; Beaugency - sur - Loire, the vast
keep of which was four stories high ; and Loches,
1 Anthyme St. Paul, Histoire Monumentah de la France.
Castles and Keeps, or Donjons 297
which is ascribed to Foulques Nerra, but which
seems to belong rather to the twelfth century, at
which period military architecture had made a great
advance. The keep of Loches is perhaps the finest
of all such structures in France ; in height it is
nearly i oo feet ; the ramparts seem to date from
177. FALAISE CASTLE. KEEP
the thirteenth century ; the form of the towers on
plan is a pointed arch, a shape adopted as offering
greater resistance at the part most frequently
attacked by the sapper.
At Falaise, where the castle like that of Dom-
front is built on a rugged promontory, the ramparts
are later than the keep, the architectural details of
298
Goth ic A rch itectii re
which point to the twelfth century. This hypothesis
is supported by a passage in the Chronicle of Robert
du Mont, quoted by M. de Caumont. In 1123
Henry II. rebuilt the keep and ramparts of Arques,
and carried out similar restorations at Gisors,
Falaise, Argentan, Exmes, Domfront, Amboise, and
Vernon.
178. LAVARDIN CASTLE. KEEP
Other keeps of equal interest in point of situa-
tion, plan, or details of construction are : — Ste.
Suzanne, Nogent-le-Rotrou, Broue, L'Islot, Tonnay-
Boutonne, Pons, Chamboy, Montbazon, Lavardin,
Montrichard, and Huriet in the Bourbonnais. All
these, in common with those first described, are
square or rectangular on plan. From the end of
the twelfth century onwards the cylindrical form
Castles and Keeps, or Donjons 299
predominates in the plan of keeps and towers. On
the whole, it offered the best resistance to the
T~T
179. KEEP OF AIGUES-MORTES. TOUR DE CONSTANCE
mediaeval assailant. The convex surface was of
equal strength all round, and as we have seen in
the preceding chapter, the circular trace for towers
300 Gothic Architecture
gave the garrison the best chance of defending their
bases from the curtain, and of opposing the work of
sappers and miners.
The great advance made in architecture by the
general adoption of an expedient so simple and
Castles and Keeps •, or Donjons 301
easy of execution as the vault on intersecting arches
manifested itself very strongly in military structures.
The heavy wooden floors of the earlier keeps, which
were so apt to catch fire, were replaced by less
ponderous vaults, binding the circular walls firmly
together, and forming a flooring for the various stories
less unsteady and infinitely more durable than the
huge beams and joists of earlier days.
A further improvement was the pointed roof,
round on plan, now generally adopted as better
calculated to withstand projectiles or combustibles
which shattered the angles of the roof in the old
square towers, and set fire to the timbers.
The form of keeps, however, varied considerably
throughout the twelfth century. At Houdan the
keep is a great tower strengthened by four turrets ; at
.ttampes it is composed of four clustered towers,
forming a quatrefoil on plan ; the vaulted stories
are marked by many curious features, among others
a deep well, the opening of which is in the second floor.
Some historians date this building from the eleventh
century ; there are indications, however, in the details
ot the architecture and sculptures, which point to the
early part of the reign of Philip Augustus.
The keep of Provins, which belongs to the twelfth
century, has certain very original features. It rises
from a solid mound of masonry, and has a circular
enceinte. The base of the keep itself is square, and
is flanked at each angle by a turret. An octagonal
tower surmounts the square base, and is connected
with the flanking turrets by flying buttresses. The
keep of Gisors is also octagonal in form, one of its
octagons being at a tangent to the circular enceinte
302
Goth ic A rch itectu re
which crowns the feudal motte or mound. It was
built in the twelfth century, and was considerably
augmented by the line of walls and square towers
which Philip Augustus drew round the mound.
The Chateau Gaillard, built at the close of the
twelfth century on an eminence commanding the
Seine at Les Andelys, has several peculiarities of
arrangement. The round keep is first enclosed 'by
a circular enceinte, or rather by a square, the angles
of which have been rounded. This in its turn is
1 8 1. CASTLE OF CHINON. SOUTH FRONT
surrounded by an elliptic enclosure connected with
the defences of the castle, and consisting of a series
of segmental towers united by very narrow curtains.
In this massive structure the art of the architect
manifests itself only in the robust solidity of the
masonry. It is the keep in its purely military
character. No trace of decoration mitigates its
austerity.
Philip Augustus, having possessed himself of the
Chateau Gaillard, fortified Gisors on the same
formidable scale, and proceeded to build the castle
of Dourdan as well as his own palace fortress of the
Castles and Keeps, or Donjons 3°3
Louvre, in Paris. Upon the death of the king,
Enguerrand III. began to build a fortress at Coucy,
which he completed in less than ten years (1223-
z— -
182. CASTLE OF CLISSON. KEEP
1230). Its grandiose proportions and formidable
system of defence surpassed everything that had gone
before. Coucy was, in fact, the architectural manifesta-
tion of that haughty ambition to which Enguerrand
Gothic Architecture
is said to have given free expression during the
minority of his sovereign.
Next in importance to the castles and keeps of
the thirteenth century, already enumerated, are the
following : — The White Tower of Issoudun ; the
Tower of Blandy ; the octagonal keep of Chatillon-sur-
Loing, Semur ; the royal fortresses of Angers, built
by St. Louis ; Montargis, Boulogne, Chinon, and
Saumur ; the Tour Constance or keep of Aigues-
Mortes, ascribed to St. Louis ; the castle of Najac,
. ^
183. VILLENEUVE-LES-AVIGNON. CASTLE OF ST. ANDRE
built by his brother, Alphonse of Poitiers ; the
castles of Bourbon 1'Archambault and Chalusset,
and the castle of Clisson, rebuilt or begun by
Olivier I., Lord of Clisson, after his return from the
Holy Land, etc.
In the fourteenth century military architecture
developed chiefly on reconstructive lines. Ancient
fortresses were reorganised in accordance with the
new methods of attack and (consequently) of defence,
and the weak points brought to light by recent
sieges were dealt with. The same process was
Castles and Keeps, or Donjons 305
applied to the construction of towers which had
hitherto been furnished with several rows of loop-
holes, an excellent expedient for the defence of
184. CASTLE OF TARASCON
curtains and approaches, but subject to this draw-
back, that it directed attention to the most vulner-
able points. The first effect of the use of cannon
in warfare was to increase the thickness, of the
walls ; subsequently, such structural modifications were
X
306 Gothic Architecture
adopted as were required by the novel method of
massing all the defences at the summit of machi-
colated walls. The principal castles of this period
were Vincennes, near Paris, built by Philip of Valois
and Charles V., and the vast fortified palace at
Avignon, constructed by the Popes Benedict XII.,
Clement VI., Innocent VI., and Urban V., of which
we shall have more to say in Part IV. Gaston
Phcebus, Count of Foix and Beam, built square
keeps in the Bastide of Beam, at Montaner, and at
Mauvezin, besides circular keeps at Lourdes and at
Foix.
Among keeps and castles completed or entirely
built in the fourteenth century, Anthyme St. Paul
enumerates those of Roquetaillade, Bourdeilles,
Polignac, Briquebec, Hardelot, Rambures, Lavardin
(the foundations of which were laid in the twelfth
century), Montrond, Turenne, Billy, Murat, and
Herisson, the curious keep of Montbard, the keeps
of Romefort, Pouzauges, Noirmoutier, and many
others.
At the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the
fifteenth century Louis of Orleans, son of Charles
V., took advantage of the madness of his brother
Charles VI. to fortify various positions on which he
relied for the furtherance of his ambitious schemes.
In 1393 and the years immediately following he
acquired various estates in Valois : Montepilloy,
Pierrefonds, and La Ferte-Milon, the castle of which
he rebuilt entirely. He also bought the domain of
Coucy in 1400, after the death of the last male
descendant of Enguerrand III.
Coucy, Pierrefonds, and La Ferte-Milon have
Castles and Keeps, or Donjons 307
been so exhaustively described in special works,
notably those of Viollet-le-Duc, that we need not
reproduce them here. We have cited them as
characteristic types of those colossal fortresses and
keeps, admirable alike in grandiose proportion and
refinement of detail which are the supreme expression
of feudal power.
185. VITRE CASTLE
Several other castles were built in Albigeois,
Auvergne, Limousin, Guyenne, La Vendee, and
Provence, notably at Tarascon. The keeps of
Treves in Anjou also date from this period.
Important castles sprang up all over Brittany
in the fifteenth century. Such were Combourg,
Fougeres, Montauban, St. Malo, Vitre, Elven,
Sucinio, Dinan, Tonquedec, etc.
308 Gothic Architecture
Many of these buildings which date from the
close of the century were remarkable for their
ingenuity of arrangement and richness of decoration.
But though worthy of all attention from the artistic
point of view, they do not come within the scope of
our present study — that of military architecture in
the Gothic period.
CHAPTER III
GATES AND BRIDGES
THOUGH confining ourselves to a brief historical
abstract of the so-called Gothic period in architec-
ture, without reference to Roman examples, we have
said enough in the foregoing studies on castles and
keeps, and the circumvallation of towns, to give
some idea of the importance attached by architects
to the gates which secured the enceintes, and the
bridges which afforded an approach.
Gates. — Following the example of those Prankish
architects whose works in Syria after the first Crusade
seem to have exercised such far-reaching influence,
French builders of the reigns of Philip Augustus
and St. Louis reduced the entrances of fortresses
and fortified enceintes to the smallest number
practicable. Their construction was based upon a
system calculated to repulse any ordinary attempt
to carry the place by direct attack ; as a rule,
fortresses were taken rather by ruse, surprise, or
treason than by regular siege.
During the twelfth, and more especially the
thirteenth century, the gates were the points most
strongly fortified. They were approached over a
3io
Gothic Architecture
bridge, by raising a movable portion of which, how-
ever, entrance might be barred on the very threshold.
The narrow gateway passage was defended by two
projecting towers pierced with loopholes, and con-
nected by a curtain. The whole structure formed a
1 86. CITY OF CARCASSONNE. GATE-HOUSE OF THE CASTLE
fortified gate-house, known as a chatelet^ which had
to be carried before an assailant could penetrate to
the fortress beyond. The passage was further de-
fended by a single or double portcullis, a grated
timber framework like a harrow, cased with iron, the
uprights of which were spiked at the bottom. The
passage was also defended by machicolations or
Gates and Bridges 311
holes in the roof, through which the garrison could
hurl down missiles on the heads of their enemies,
should the latter have forced the gate.
The castle-gate of Carcassonne which was built
about 1 1 20 still exists, and is a good example of
such arrangements.
The minute precautions adopted by architects
to guard against surprise are very manifest in this
example. A sudden attempt was often successful,
especially if favoured by traitors among the defenders
themselves.
The difficulties of passage were increased by the
multiplication of portcullises, the windlasses of which
were worked from different stories of the tower, so
as to prevent collusion between different parties of
the garrison, which was often composed largely of
mercenaries. In the gate-house of Carcassonne the
first portcullis was raised or lowered by means of
chains and counter-weights worked from a windlass
on the second floor ; the second portcullis was
worked in like manner from the first floor, in a
place entirely cut off from communication with that
above, to which access could only be obtained by a
wooden staircase in the castle courtyard.
In the thirteenth century military architects
further provided against surprises by defensive out-
works. The gate of Laon, at Coucy, so admirably
described by Viollet-le-Duc, is a famous example.
These outworks, which were called barbicans, were
designed to protect the great gate and its approaches.
Around the walls of the city of Carcassonne a
second line of ramparts had been drawn by St.
Louis, in which only a single opening gave access to
312
Gothic Architecture
the lists (Fig. 187) — that is to say, the space between
the inner and outer enclosures. He afterwards
built a huge tower, known as the Barbican, to the
west of the castle, with which it was connected by
•^^^r--^.^~~--^ -=*-
187. CARCASSONNE. GATEWAY OF THE LISTS, KNOWN AS THE
PORTE DE L'AUDE
crenellated walls, and by inner cross-walls, so arranged
in a kind of echelon that the open spaces on one
side were masked by the projections on the other
(see plan, Fig. 167). The tower was destined
to cover sorties from the garrison, and to keep
open communication by the bridge across the
Gates and Bridges 313
Aude. It was rather an outwork than a barbican
such as Philip the Bold built before the Porte
Narbonaise, on the east of the city, towards the
close of the thirteenth century.
The Porte Narbonaise bears a general resemblance
to the main gate of the castle, subject, however, to
the great advance made in military architecture in the
course of a century. The gateway towers are pro-
188. CITY OF CARCASSONNE. GATE KNOWN AS THE PORTE NARBONAISE
vided with spurs, an invention directed against the
attack of miners, which had the further advantage of
interfering with the action of a battering-ram, by
exposing those who worked it to missiles from the
adjacent parts of the curtain. The gate opened
immediately upon the lists ; it was defended by the
crenellated semi-circular barbican, which was united
on either side to the embattled parapet of the lists.
Access to the barbican was obtained only by a
narrow passage preceded by a bridge, the latter
314 Gothic Architecture
easily defended by a redan which adjoined the
postern of the barbican.
The gate itself was provided with two portcullises
like those of the castle gate ; behind the first were
massive folding-doors, and over it a wide machicolation.
The constructive methods employed in the build-
ing of fortified gates were modified as military
architecture progressed on lines already considered
189. RAMPARTS OF AIGUES-MORTES. GATE KNOWN AS THE PORTE DE LA
GARDETTE. DRAWBRIDGE. (TO THE RIGHT OF THE DRAWING
THE TOUR CONSTANCE, BUILT BY ST. LOUIS)
by us in the first chapter of this section, when deal-
ing with defensive methods generally, which, in the
fourteenth century, seem to have been in advance of
those of attack. A steady improvement in details
went on until the invention of gunpowder came in
to profoundly modify the conditions alike of defence
and assault.
The gateways of fortified enceintes were modified
in the fourteenth century not only by alterations in
Gates and Bridges
315
the plan of towers, the substitution of stone machi-
colations for the wooden hourds or scaffoldings of
parapets, the addition of portcullises, folding -doors,
and the machicoulis of the vaulted passage, but
further by the in-
vention of the draw-
bridge. A draw-
bridge, it may be
hardly necessary to
say, consisted of
a wooden platform
suspended by chains
to cross-beams
poised on uprights
on the principle of
a see -saw ; when
lowered, the bridge
afforded a passage
across the moat.
It was raised by
depressing the inner
ends of the lever-
beams which
pivoted upon a ful-
crum, and thus
brought the plat-
form up vertically
against the front
of the building, where it formed an outer door which
an attacking party had either to batter in or to
bring down by cutting the chains.
It will be readily perceived that such a bridge
was infinitely more effectual and more to be depended
190. RAMPARTS OF DINAN. GATE KNOWN
AS THE PORTE DE JERZUAL
3i 6 Gothic Architecture
upon than the portable bridge mentioned in our
description of the castle gate of Carcassonne. The
latter had to be raised piece by piece, a prolonged
operation impossible of execution in case of a sudden
surprise.
Aigues-Mortes seems to have been one of the
first fortresses to which the new methods were applied.
The gates east, west, and south are constructed on
the twelfth-century system, as exemplified at Car-
cassonne. But the northern gate, known as the
Porte de la Gardette, which was either made or
altered in the fourteenth century, still shows the
grooves for the beams of the drawbridge, and the
pointed arch of the doorway is enframed by a square
rebate destined for the platform when raised.
The use of drawbridges became very general in
the fourteenth century, and gave rise to various
ingenious combinations. The gate at Dinan, known
as the Porte de Jerzual^ which probably dates from
the close of the century, is a curious example. It
is not placed between two towers in the manner then
usual, but is pierced through the actual face of a
tower. In this case, the inner prolongation of the
lever -beams formed a solid panel like the platform
of the bridge itself. It was worked through a hole
in the roof of the entrance archway, being raised
with the help of a chain, and falling through its
own preponderant weight. The horizontal pivot on
which it turned rested on the brackets shown in
Fig. 1 90 ; the external sections of the lever-beams
sank in the usual manner into the vertical grooves
above the arch, and when the bridge was up, the
solid panel joining the inner ends of the levers
Gates and Bridges
317
doubled the protection it gave. In case of alarm,
the chain had simply to be let go, and the panel
falling by its own weight, the bridge rose, and the
barricade was complete.
191. VITRE CASTLE. GATE-HOUSE
By the fifteenth century drawbridges were in
universal use ; an interesting development was the
result. This was the introduction of a smaller gate
or postern in the curtain between the towers, by the
side of the great gateway. Each of the two
apertures was furnished with its own drawbridge.
Gothic Architecture
That of the centre, which was reserved for horsemen
and vehicles, was worked by two beams or arms, as
we have seen, while the smaller footbridge of the
postern was raised by means of a single beam, the
chain of which was attached to a forked upright.
192. ENCEINTE OF GUERANDE. GATE OF ST. MICHEL
The castle of Vitre, which was built, or at least
completed at the close of the fourteenth or beginning
of the fifteenth century, illustrates the system in the
gateway of its chdtelet.
The gate-house, known as the Porte St. Michel,
at Guerande, which was built together with the
enceinte by John V., Duke of Brittany, in 1431, still
Gates and Bridges 319
preserves the lateral grooves which indicate the shape
and arrangement of the postern drawbridge.
When raised, the two drawbridges closed the
apertures of gateway and postern, while the open
gulf of the great ditch, either empty, or full of water,
cut off the approach to the entrance.
The Abbey of Mont St. Michel, which we have
already studied under various aspects, has further
information to give us with regard to the construc-
tion of fortified gateways. In accordance with con-
temporary usage, the Abbot Pierre Le Roy built a
gate -house or bastille (Fig. 163), the entrance of
which was guarded by a portcullis and a wTide
machicoulis ; he masked this gate-house by a barbican,
which was connected north and south with the great
stairway leading to the abbey. The northern stair-
case is rendered specially interesting by the ingenious
arrangement of its gates, which opened within the
barbican. The apertures were filled by a panel
which worked horizontally, on a system necessitated
by the exceptional situation of the abbey, where the
military, as well as the domestic buildings, were
superposed, communicating with each other only by
an elaborate series of staircases and inclines. The
doors pivoted upon horizontal axes. Resting upon
salient jambs in the embrasures of the doorways,
they opened in a direction parallel with the slope of
the steps, and could be shut at the least alarm, being
carried into place by their own weight. They were
kept fastened by lateral bolts, the slots of which still
exist in the jambs.1
1 Ed. Corroyer, Description de VAbbaye du Mont St. Michel et de
ses Abords ; Paris, 1877.
320
Gothic Architecture
The main gate of the ramparts, which was built
between 1415 and 1420, is to the west of the place,
193. RAMPARTS OF MONT ST. MICHEL. GATEWAY KNOWN AS THE
PORTE DU ROI
in the curtain flanked by the tower known as the
Tour du Roi. This gate and the lateral postern
Gates and Bridges 321
gave access to the town, their drawbridges forming
a passage across the moat when lowered, and when
raised, an initial barrier to assailants. Above the
gates was the warder's lodging, beneath which the
vaulted passage and the postern communicated
directly with an outer guard-room in the ground-
floor of the Tour du Rot. In addition to the first
barrier, formed by the raised platform of the draw-
bridge, the main entrance was secured by double
doors, and by an iron portcullis, which still remains
in its lateral grooves. The great arch is crowned
by a tympanum, on which the united arms of the
king, the abbey, and the town were carved.
The works designed for the defence of rivers
flowing through fortified towns, or of the inlets of
harbours, are closely allied to the military archi-
tecture of gates. At Troyes the river arches in the
town ramparts were guarded by gratings or port-
cullises of iron. At Paris the passage of the Seine
was barred by chains stretched across the river from
wall to wall, and upheld in the middle of the stream
by piles or firmly anchored boats. At Angers the
walls of the town abutted on two towers known as
the Haute Chaine and the Basse Chaine (the Higher
and Lower Chains), containing windlasses for the
chains, which at night were stretched across the
Maine at its passage through the enceinte.
Seaports were defended at the mouth by towers
on either shore, between which chains, worked from
within, could be stretched to bar the passage. The
harbour of La Rochelle is thus protected. According
to some archaeologists of authority, the tower known as
the Tour de la Chaine (to the left of the drawing) is
Y
322
Gothic
older than that of St. Nicholas (on the right), which is
supposed by them to have been built in the sixteenth
century on the foundations of an earlier tower con-
temporary with that on the other side of the Channel.
The piles upon which these towers stand seem to
have given way in part, and to have caused a per-
ceptible inclination of the Tower of St. Nicholas.
The suggestion made in a very fanciful modern
design, that the two towers were once united by a
194. ENTRANCE TO THE PORT OF LA ROCHELLE. TOWER OF ST.
NICHOLAS, AND TOWER CALLED TOUR DE LA CHAINE. BEFORE
THE RESTORATION
great arch, is wholly without foundation. Such a
useless structure would have entailed defensive works
equally useless, seeing that a chain stretched from
tower to tower at high tide — at low tide the harbour
was inaccessible — would have been perfectly effectual
against any vessels of that period attempting to
force a passage.
Bridges. — As is the case with all other archi-
tectural buildings, the origin of bridges dates back to
the Romans, by whom they were often decorated
with triumphal arches. The bridge of St. Chamas
Gates and Bridges
323
in Provence, known as the Pont Flavien (Flavian
Bridge), is an example which seems to date from the
first centuries of the Christian era.
The triumphal arches were in later times replaced
by fortifications ; they became tctes de pont, bastilles,
or crenellated gate-houses, the function of which was
not, like that of the arches, the decoration of the
structure or the glorification of its founder, but the
defence of the passage across the river, and the
195-
BRIDGE AT AVIGNON. RUINS OF THE BRIDGE KNOWN AS THE
PONT DE ST. BENEZET
protection of the fortress with which it com-
municated.
Among the bridges constructed by mediaeval
architects, that of St. Benezet, the Bridge of Avignon,
seems to be the most ancient. This bridge, which
was begun about 1180, and completed some ten
years later, is equally remarkable for its architectural
details, and the structural problems solved by its
builders. It crosses, or rather used to cross, the
Rhone — for though the arm towards the Rocher des
Doins is the narrower, it is the deeper — on nineteen
arches, extending from the foot of the Doms, on the
324 Gothic Architecture
Avignonese bank, to the Tower of Villeneuve, on the
right bank, after a slight deflection southward.
The gate-house on the left bank, some fragments
of which still remain, is said to have been built by
the Popes in the fourteenth century, for the purpose
of levying tolls, a perquisite shared by them with the
King of France.
The Bridge of Avignon seems to have been one
of the first constructed by the fraternity of the
Hospitallers pontifs, which was founded in the twelfth
century for the double object of building bridges and
succouring travellers. The head of the order at the
time of the building of the Rhone bridge was St.
Benezet. It must have numbered architects of
ability among its members, for the construction of
the Bridge of Avignon is very remarkable. Each of
the elliptical arches is composed of four independent
arches in simple juxtaposition one with another.
This device ensures elasticity, and as a consequence
stability. The solidarity of the whole is rendered
complete by the masonry of the spandrils, which
recall the architectural portions of the aqueduct,
known as the Pont du Gard ; its width is about 1 6
feet. The arches spring from piers furnished on
either face with acute spurs designed to break the
force of the stream and the impact of floating ice
in the winter.
The spandril above each pier is pierced with a
round arch, to give free passage to the water during
those floods which at times completely submerge
the piers.
The bridge in its present ruined condition has
only four arches. On the pier nearest to the left
Gates and Bridges 325
bank the ancient chapel, dedicated to St. Nicholas,
is still standing. Access to it is obtained by means
of a flight of corbelled steps rising from the founda-
tion to the entrance, and by an overhanging landing-
stage, resting at one end against the pier, at the
other against the flank of the arch.
The old bridge at Carcassonne seems to be con-
temporary with that of Avignon, but its arches are
196. BRIDGE OF MONTAUBAN, KNOWN AS THE PONT DBS CONSULS
semicircular, their keystones are bound into the
intrados, and their piers are spurred to the level of
the platform, where they form recesses or refuges,
which the narrowness of the bridge rendered very
necessary.
Among bridges of the thirteenth century we
may mention that at Beziers, where the arches,
both pointed and semicircular, resemble those of
Carcassonne in construction ; but here the piers
only rise above the summers of the arches by the
height of two or three courses, and their spandrils
326
Gothic Architecture
are pierced to give free passage to the current during
floods.
The bridge which spanned the Rhone at St.
Savournin du Port, known as the Pont St. Esprit,
was the work of a Clunisian abbot about 1265. It
resembled the Bridge of Avignon in the^construction
of the piers with their pierced spandrils ; the arches,
however, were semicircular. The platform, which
is some 16 feet across, was barred at either end
by toll-gates ; that nearest to the little town was
connected with the tcte de pont, which, in after times,
197. BRIDGE OF CAHORS, KNOWN AS THE PONT DE VALENTRE
was incorporated with the fortress commanding the
course of the Rhone above the bridge.
The question of tolls was an important one in
those days, and gave rise to frequent disputes. The
towers and gate-houses of bridges were toll-bars as
well as defensive outworks.
The bridge at Montauban, known as the Pont des
Consuls, which was begun at the close of the thirteenth
century, remained unfinished till the beginning of
the fourteenth, when Philip the Fair gave such help
as was needed for its completion, on condition that
he should be allowed to raise three towers on the
bridge, with a view to the appropriation of the tolls.
Gates and Bridges
327
The Bridge of Montauban is built entirely of
brick. It consists of seven pointed arches, resting
on spurred piers, which are pierced with arches, also
pointed, and rising to the same height as the main
arches, to provide for the frequent floods of the
Tarn.
The Bridge of Cahors is one of the most beauti-
ful of fourteenth - century examples. It is still of
198. BRIDGE OF ORTHEZ
great interest in spite of the various restorations it
has undergone, chiefly of late years.
This bridge, which is known as the Pont de
Valentre^&s begun in 1308 by Raymond Panchelli,
Bishop of Cahors from 1300-1312, and cannot
have been finished before 1355. It consists of six
slightly pointed arches ; the piers, which rise to the
level of the parapet, forming lateral refuges, are
triangular above bridge and square below. At each
end the bridge was commanded by a crenellated
328 Gothic Architecture
structure, forming a gate-house or tcte de pent on
199. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. FORTIFIED BRIDGE CONNECTING
THE LOWER CHURCH WITH THE ABBEY
cither bank. In the middle rose a lofty tower with
Gates and Bridges 329
gates, by means of which passage might be barred
and assailants checked in the event of a surprise of
either gate-house.
The Bridge of Orthez has strong affinities with
that of Cahors. It must date from about the same
period, and there is every reason to suppose it was
defended, not only by the central tower, but by
tetes de pont, one of which at least must have been
destroyed to make way for the railroad from Bayonne
to Pau.
Bridges were of great importance in the Middle
Ages, both as public highways and military outworks.
At certain points, notably at the confluence of two
rivers, they were strongly reinforced by very con-
siderable defences, as at Sens, Montereau, etc.
At Paris, Orleans, Rouen, Nantes, and a large
number of other towns traversed by rivers, bridges
were not only important as military defences, but of
great interest as architecture.
Mont St. Michel shall furnish us with our last
example, a bridge of the fifteenth century. Though
it spans no stream, it is none the less remarkable.
In the details of this bridge — its embattled platform
uniting the lower church to the abbey, its machi-
colated parapet guarding the inner passages — we re-
cognise an art consummate as that which stirs our
enthusiasm in the vast proportions and perfect
execution of the splendid choir, the whole proclaim-
ing the versatile genius of those great builders who
welded into one noble monument a triad of master-
pieces— religious, monastic, and military.
PART IV
CIVIL ARCHITECTURE
CHAPTER I
BARNS, HOSPITALS, DWELLING-HOUSES, AND
"H<5TELS" OR TOWN-HOUSES OF THE NOBILITY
CIVIL architecture could boast no special charac-
teristics before the close of the thirteenth century.
Its earlier buildings bore the impress of religious
and monastic types, as was natural at a period when
architecture was practised almost exclusively by
monks and by the lay disciples trained in their
schools.
It was not until the following century that
domestic architecture threw off the trammels of
religious tradition, and took on the character appro-
priate to its various functions. Artists began to
seek decorative motives in the scenes and objects
of daily life, no longer borrowing exclusively from
sacred themes, and convention in form and detail
was abandoned in some degree for the study of
nature.
Barns. — Throughout the Romanesque and Gothic
periods, barns, hospitals, and houses were constructed
in the prevailing style. We propose, of course, to
deal only with buildings possessing real architectural
features.
334
Gothic Architecture
The barns or granaries of mediaeval times were
rural dependencies of the abbeys, but were built
200. TOWN-HALL AT ST. ANTONIN (TARN ET GARONNE). THE UPPER
PART OF THE BELFRY WAS REBUILT ABOUT 1860
outside the enclosure of the monastery proper, and
formed part of the priory or farm. The entrance of
the barn was a large door, opening upon the yard
Barns, Hospitals, Dwelling-houses^ etc. 335
in the centre of the front gable end ; access was
also obtained by means of smaller doors in the side
walls, and often a postern was constructed beside
the main entrance for ordinary use. The great
central doors were then only thrown open for the
201. BARN AT PERRIERES (CALVADOS). END OF TWELFTH CENTURY.
(AFTER CAUMONT)
passage of carts, which, entering at the front, passed
out through a similar door in the opposite gable
end, as at the barn of Perrieres, which, though
situated in Normandy, was a dependency of the
Abbey of Marmoutier, near Tours.
Such barns were generally large three -aisled
336
Gothic Architecture
buildings, the central aisle divided from those on either
side by an arcade, or pillars of wood or stone, which
supported the pointed timber roof covering the whole.
20IA. BARN AT PERRIEKES. SECTION
In some of these barns it was the practice to
pile wheat, barley, or rye in the centre and in one of
the side aisles ; in others the central aisle was kept
free for passage, and
the grain was stored
in the sides.
The facades differ
only in unimportant
details. They con-
sist of vast gable
ends, following the
lines of the roof,
and strengthened
by pilasters. A large doorway, with a small postern to
the side of it, occupies the centre of the base, and
the apex is pierced with narrow openings to light,
or rather to ventilate, the interior.
20IB. BARN AT PERRIERES. PLAN
Barns, Hospitals, Dwelling-houses, etc. 337
Tithe-barns were very generally constructed on
this plan. When large and important they had
two stories, as at Provins.
These were not as a rule vaulted, but the
granaries, or greniers d'abondance, were often built
with three stories, that of the ground-floor, and even
202. TITHE-BARN AT PROVINS
the one above it, being vaulted. The granary of
the Abbey of Vauclair, in the department of Aisne,
built towards the close of the twelfth century, is a
•very interesting example of such structures.
Some idea of the importance of religious estab-
lishments at this period may be gathered from the
foregoing details. The great abbeys were miniature
towns, and their dependencies, the priories, con-
Z
338
Gothic Architecture
sisted of vast farms, round which large villages
soon grew up. The cul-
tivators of these great
holdings combined agri-
cultural labours with their
religious exercises, and
the priors in especial
were not only priests, but
perhaps even in a greater
degree stewards or bailiffs,
whose duty it was to collect
payments in kind, such as
tithes or other revenues,
to store these, together
with the crops of their
own raising, and finally to
administer the wealth of
every description — lands,
woods, rivers, and ponds —
belonging to the abbey.
Hospitals. — A large
number of charitable in-
stitutions, called in the
Middle Ages maisons
dieu, hotels dieu, hos-
pices, hospitals, and lazar-
houses, were founded in
the eleventh century, and
greatly developed in the
twelfth and thirteenth.
A hospital was attached
to most of the large abbeys or their dependencies. The
cities also owned hospitals founded or served by monks.
Barns, Hospitals, Dwelling-hoiises, etc. 339
Lazar-houses had multiplied throughout Western
Europe by the end of the twelfth century, from
Denmark to Spain, from England to Bohemia and
Hungary ; but these buildings gave little scope to
the architect. They consisted merely of an enclos-
ure surrounding a few isolated cells, and a chapel,
204. HOSPITAL OF ST. JOHN AT ANGERS (TWELFTH CENTURY). GREAT
HALL, AS RESTORED BY A. VERDIER
attached to which were the lodgings of the monks
who tended the lepers.
But many of the hospices or hospitals built
from the end of the twelfth to the fourteenth century
are magnificent buildings, in general arrangement
much resembling the great halls of the abbeys.
It must be borne in mind that hospitality in the
Middle Ages was obligatory; each monastery, there-
fore, had its eleemosynary organisation, which included
340
Gothic Architecture
special buildings for the accommodation of monks
whose business it was to tend the sick and to distri-
bute alms to them and other travellers and pilgrims.
Barns, Hospitals, Dwelling-houses, etc. 341
We learn from Viollet-le-Duc that so early as
the Carlovingian period taxes were levied in aid
of the poor, the sick, and pilgrims. Charlemagne
had enjoined hospitality in his ordinances and
206. LAZAR-HOUSE AT TORTOIR (AISNE, FOURTEENTH CENTURY).
FROM DRAWINGS BY A. VERDIER
capitularies, and it was forbidden to refuse shelter,
fire, and water to any suppliant.
The communes vied with kings, nobles, abbots,
and citizens in the discharge of such duties.
Hospices and hospitals were founded on every hand,
either in deserted buildings, or in specially con-
structed edifices.
342 Gothic Architecture
Refuges were also built on roads much frequented
by pilgrims to shelter belated travellers, and
hospices were constructed outside the walls and
close to the city gates.
Pilgrimages were much in vogue in the Middle
Ages, especially throughout the thirteenth and four-
teenth centuries. The sanctuaries of St. Michael
in Normandy, and of St. James of Compostella
in Spain, were the most frequented. At the begin-
ning of the thirteenth century a hospice was founded
outside Paris, near the Porte St. Denis, which was
dedicated to St. James. This hospice, with its
chapel, was served by the confraternity of St.
Jacques aux Pelerins (St. James of Pilgrims), and
offered gratuitous shelter each night to pilgrims
bound for Paris. Its buildings covered two acres ;
they included a great hall of stone, vaulted on
intersecting arches, and measuring some 132 feet by
36, for the accommodation of the sick.
In a file of accounts of the fifteenth century,
concluding with an appeal for funds, it is stated that,
for the convenience of pilgrims — y a lieu pour ce faire
XVIIJ Hz qui depuis le premier jour d'aoust MCCCLX VIIJ
jusques au jour de Mons. S. Jacques et Christofle
ensuivant on estes loges et heberges en rJiospital de
ceans xvm vic iuixxx pelerins qui aloient et venoient
au Mont Saint Michel et austres pelerins. Et encore
sont loges continuellement chascune nuict de XXXVI a
XL povres pelerins et austres povres, pourquoy le povre
Jiospital est moult charge et en grant neces.site de liz,
de couvertures et de draps.1
1 " Eighteen beds have been in use, and from the first day of August
1368 to the feast of SS. James and Christopher following (July 25?
Barns, Hospitals, Dwelling- houses, etc. 343
In the first years of the fourteenth century several
hundreds of hotels dieu, hospitals, and lazar-houses
received help from the King of France. St. Louis
founded the Hospice des Quinze- Vingts for the blind,
and in many towns hospitals were erected for the
insane, the old, and the infirm, in addition to the
usual lazar-houses. Special hospitals had already
been established for women in labour, and a chapel
was founded for their
benefit in the crypt
of the Ste. Chapelle
of Paris, dedicated
to Our Lady of
Travail, of Tombe-
laine, in Normandy.1
Several hospitals
of the Gothic period
still exist. That of
St. John at Angers
is one of the most
remarkable. Itcom-
prises a great hall,
divided into three
aisles, and vaulted on intersecting arches, and a
chapel dating from the close of the twelfth or begin-
ning of the thirteenth century. The fine barn at
1369) this hospital has lodged and sheltered 16,690 pilgrims journeying
to or from St. Michael's Mount, besides others. And it has further
given shelter each night to some thirty-six to forty poor pilgrims and
other needy persons, whereby the poor hospital is heavily burdened
and in sore straits for lack of beds, sheets, and blankets."— Ed.
Corroyer, Description de FAbbaye du Mont St. Michel et de ses Abords ;
Paris, 1877.
1 Idem.
207.
HOSPITAL AT TONNERRE.
OF THE GREAT HALL
SECTION
344 Gothic Architecture
Angers is of the same period ; the plan and details
of construction are very curious, and resemble those
of the barns and granaries already described.
The Hotel Dieu of Chartres dates from about the
same period.
The hospital of Ourscamps, near Noyon, is very
similar as to the scheme of construction which seems
to have been one generally adopted by the religious
architects of the twelfth, and more notably of the
thirteenth century. ' The grandiose proportions of
the vast building recall the great vaulted halls of
contemporary abbeys, such as those of St. Jean
des Vignes at Soissons, and of the merveille at Mont
St. Michel. Certain individual features characterise
it as a hospice specially designed for the sick, the
poor, and pilgrims.
The Hospice of Tonnerre appears to have
been rebuilt in the fourteenth century. The vast
design is very impressively carried out. The
great hall, over 60 feet wide by some 300 long, is
covered with an open timber roof, boarded in so
as to form a semicircular vault, which is singularly
effective.
The internal arrangements are very ingenious.
A wooden gallery in the half-story commanded a
view into each unceiled cubicle, by means of which
it was possible to keep constant watch over the
patients without disturbing them.
The hospital of Beaune has been so often described
as to call for little comment. The painted timber
vault of the great hall seems to have been imitated
from that of Tonnerre. Its distinctive character has
unfortunately been destroyed by the construction of
Barns, Hospitals, Dwelling-houses, etc. 345
a ceiling, the joists of which rest on the tie-beams of
the original skeleton. But the inner court is intact,
with the arcade and well and wash-house so familiar
from descriptions and illustrations. Another pictur-
esque and often described feature is the great roof on
the south side, with its double row of dormer windows
surmounted by a rich ornamentation of hammered
lead.
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the practice
of vaulting the great halls of hospitals with stone
was abandoned. It became usual in France and in
Flanders to cover the vast aisles with timber roofs,
the boarded vaults of which were either pointed or
barrel-shaped.
The term maladrerie was applied to the small
lazar-houses, numbers of which were built in France
in the neighbourhood of abbeys or of priories remote
from towns and great religious centres.
The Maladrerie du Tortoir, not far from Laon, on
the Route de la Fere, is a type of such rural hospitals.
Both in plan and in the details of construction it
recalls the hospital of Tonnerre, more especially in
the ingenious arrangement of the interior.
In the planning of these charitable institutions
mediaeval architects exhibited the same skill and
ingenuity which distinguished their treatment of
religious monuments. Viollet-le-Duc has pointed out
the strange illogicality of such a theory as that which
would make artists who showed extraordinary subtlety
in religious buildings responsible for so much coarse-
ness in civil structures. We must not hold them
accountable for the destruction of their well-planned
hospitals from the sixteenth century onwards, and
346 Gothic Architecture
the substitution of buildings, the main preoccupation
of whose architects was to provide accommodation
for as many patients as possible. Louis XIV.
endowed the hospitals built in his reign with the
revenues of the lazar - houses and maladreries, for
which there was no further occasion, leprosy having
disappeared from his dominions. But his hospitals
leave much to be desired from the hygienic point of
view ; the mediaeval hospitals, on the other hand,
have a monumental simplicity of appearance, and
offer a liberal supply of light, air, and space to their
patients. We do not assert the superiority of the
cellular system commonly adopted in hospitals from
the twelfth to the fifteenth century, over that of the
open wards of our own times, but we may be
permitted to point out its great moral advantages.
And, as our learned authority remarks, the system
owed its adoption to a noble delicacy of charitable
feeling in the mediaeval founders and builders of
our maisons dieu.
Houses and Hotels •, or Town-Houses of the Nobility.
—The history of human habitations is a subject of
such interest that to treat it adequately a special
work would be necessary. Such an undertaking
has, moreover, been admirably carried out by a
famous architect.1
We must refrain from discussion of prehistoric
or Merovingian dwellings, or of those rural hovels,
the typical variations of which, in different countries
1 Ch. Gamier, Member of the Institute, whose picturesque embodi-
ment of research, in his reconstruction of human habitations from the
lacustrine period to our own times, attracted so much attention at the
Exhibition of 1889.
Barns, Hospitals, Dwelling-houses, etc. 347
and climates, offers so wide a field for study. To
keep within the limits assigned us by the arbitrary
term Gothic Architecture, we must confine our rapid
sketch to the architectural period which dates from
the middle of the twelfth to the close of the fifteenth
century.
Nothing remains of habitations constructed in
208. HOUSE AT CLUNY (TWELFTH CENTURY)
France before the twelfth century, save the vague
and scanty records of ancient texts, manuscripts,
and bas-reliefs. But we may reasonably infer that
the houses of the period were built of wood, as was
natural in a country containing great tracts of forest.
We know that most of the important buildings were
timber structures, which explains the fact that
numbers of twelfth -century churches were founded
on the sites of earlier buildings destroyed by fire.
348
Gothic Architecture
Roman, Gallo- Roman, and Merovingian houses
were arranged to suit the habits of the times ; they
were lighted by windows opening upon an inner
courtyard, in accordance with the ancient custom of
separating the women's apartments from the rest of
the habitation.
But by the end of the twelfth century the urban
dwelling was adapted to the needs of a family. The
208A. HOUSE AT CLUNY (TWELFTH CENTURY)
doors and windows of the house were made to over-
look the street. The building consisted generally of
a hall or shop, in which a handicraft was carried on,
or manufactured goods were offered for sale. It
was lighted by a wide arcade of round or pointed
arches, and was either on a level with the street, or
raised above it by the height of some few steps. A
back room, opening upon a courtyard, served for
kitchen and dining-room. To the left of the facade
Barns, Hospitals, Dwelling-houses, etc. 349
a little door gave access to a staircase which led to
the first floor, where was a large solar or living-room
and an apartment overlooking the courtyard. Above
these were the chambers occupied by the inmates of
the house.
The architecture of such houses varies according
to the climate, the materials of the country, and the
customs of the inhabitants. The houses had no
209, 210. HOUSES AT VITTEAUX (COTE D'OR), AND AT ST. ANTONIN
(TARN ET GARONNE, THIRTEENTH CENTURY)
special individuality as long as the windows were
treated merely as apertures for the admission of light;
but directly these began to take on a certain elabora-
tion, and such features as mouldings or sculptures were
introduced in the facades, a system of decoration
was borrowed from the neighbouring churches or
abbeys of monkish architects, a consequence either
of the far-reaching influence of monastic schools, or
of the spirit of imitation and force of habit.
Certain houses at Cluny, which date from the
350 Gothic Architecture
twelfth century, exemplify the style. They are built
211. HOUSE AT PROVINS (FOURTEENTH CENTURY)
almost entirely of stone. The arcading recalls
Barns, Hospitals, Dwelling-houses, etc. 351
various details of monastic buildings which the con-
212. HOUSE AT LAON (FOURTEENTH CENTURY)
structors very naturally took as models.
352 Gothic Architecture
The same may be said of the other houses, of
213. HOUSE AT CORDES. ALBIGEOIS (FOURTEENTH CENTURY)
which we give drawings as illustrating the urban
Barns, Hospitals, Divelling- houses, etc. 353
type of the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. It is
easy to trace the successive developments of religious
and monastic architecture in the domestic buildings
of the period.
It is not until the close of the fourteenth century,
and more notably in the fifteenth, that such influences
gradually die out, and change, if not progress, becomes
evident in the altered form of the arcades, which no
longer resemble those of cloisters or churches, but
have elliptic or square apertures. These, in the
windows, are no longer subdivided by a stone tracery
of ornamental cusps and foliations, but merely by
plain mullions and transoms, forming square com-
partments which it was possible to fill with movable
glazed sashes of the simplest construction.
The facades are generally of durable materials,
such as stone or brick, and the use of wood is re-
stricted to the floors and the roofs.
Houses of the fifteenth century in the Northern
departments, where stone is scarce, were built mainly
of wood, the more solid material being used only on
the ground -floor. The overhanging upper stories
were of timbers, the interstices being filled in
with brick. The principal members, such as corbel
tables, beams, ledges, and window - frames, were
decorated with mouldings and sculptures. The
fagade usually terminated in a gable, the projecting
pointed arch of which followed the lines of the
timber roof. In other cases it was crowned by richly
decorated dormer windows. In rainy districts the
roof was covered with slates or shingles.
It was usual in the North to detach each house
at the upper story, even when it was not practic-
2 A
354 Gothic Architecture
able to allow a narrow passage or space between.
214. HOUSE AT MONT ST. MICHEL (FIFTEENTH CENTURY)
This was not merely a concession to the vanity of
the citizen, to his desire to make his independent
Barns, Hospitals, Dwelling-houses, etc. 355
gable a feature of the street. It was also a pre-
2I£. WOODEN HOUSE AT ROUEN (FIFTEENTH CENTURY)
356 Gothic Architecture
cautionary measure against fires, which were frequent
2 1 6. WOODEN HOUSE AT ANDELYS (FIFTEENTH CENTURY)
and disastrous in cities built mainly of wood, and
Barns, Hospitals, Dwelling-houses > etc. 357
possessing but very rudimentary appliances where-
with to meet such a catastrophe.
The fifteenth and notably the sixteenth centuries
were marked by the building of a new class of
dwellings, the maisons nobles, or town-houses of the
nobles, who, down to this period, had lived entirely
217. HOTEL LALLEMAND AT BOURGES (END OF THE FIFTEENTH
CENTURY)
in their fortified castles. These great seignorial
mansions differ essentially from the houses of the
citizens. The hotel occupied a considerable space, in
which a courtyard and even gardens were included.
The house of the citizen or merchant was built flush
with the street, whereas the hotel was placed in an
inner court, often richly decorated, and the street-
front was devoted to stables, coach-houses, servants'
358
Gothic Architecture
lodgings, and the great entrance which gave access
to the court and the main building.
The names at least of some famous Parisian hotels
of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries have survived,
such as the hotels des Tournelles, de St. Pol, de
218. JACQUES CCEUR'S HOUSE AT BOURGES. VIEW FROM THE PLACE
BERRY (FIFTEENTH CENTURY)
Sens, de Nevers, and de la Tremoille, the last
destroyed in 1840. The Hotel de Cluny, which
dates from 1485, is a very curious example, and of
remarkable interest, as having been preserved almost
intact.
Several great houses of the same period still exist
at Bourges. Among others, the Hotel Lallemand,
Barns, Hospitals, Dwelling-houses, etc. 359
built towards the close of the fifteenth century, the
inner court of which is especially noteworthy, and
the still more famous hotel or chateau of Jacques
Cceur.
This beautiful structure dates from the second
half of the fifteenth century, and is built in part on
the ramparts of the town. It is so well known that
it will be unnecessary to describe or illustrate the
famous portals and inner court. But the fagade on
the Place Berry, though less sumptuous, is hardly less
interesting. Here we have the two great towers of the
fortified enceinte, with their Gallo-Roman bases, and
between them the corps de logis or main buildings of
the mansion, which retain many features of the feudal
castle, and bear witness to the wealth and power of
Charles VII.'s ill-used favourite, the famous banker,
whose splendid fortunes suffered such undeserved
eclipse.
; CHAPTER II
TOWN-HALLS, BELFRIES, PALACES
THE social evolution which resulted in the en-
franchisement of the communes had its origin in the
eleventh century, though the consummation of this
great political change was of much later date.
Down to the fourteenth century the efforts of
the communes to exercise the rights conferred on
them in charters wrung from their feudal lords received
incessant checks. The opposition they encountered is
hardly to be wondered at, seeing that every concession
in their favour tended to diminish the despotic
authority of those from whom it had been won. No
sooner, therefore, was a charter rescinded and a
commune abolished than the instant demolition of
the town -hall and belfry was demanded. Hence
very few town-halls of earlier date than the fourteenth
century have survived.
Town-halls. — A few of the great Southern cities
owned town-halls so early as the twelfth century, among
them Bordeaux, where the building was of the Roman
type, and Toulouse, whose town-hall was practically
a fortalice.
But by far the greater number of the infant
Town-halls •, Belfries, Palaces . 361
communes were sunk in poverty, and so over-
219. TOWN-HALL OF PIENZA, ITALY (END OF THE FOURTEENTH
CENTURY)
whelmed with dues and taxes that they had no
margin for communal buildings.
362 Gothic Architecture
In the fourteenth century even the commune of
Paris could boast only the most modest of town-
halls. In 1357 Etienne Marcel, provost of the
merchants, bought from the collector of the salt-
tax a small two - gabled building which adjoined
several private dwellings. We may, therefore, con-
clude that down to this period the town - hall
was in nowise distinguished from an ordinary
habitation.
At the close of the century Caen possessed a
town-hall of four stories.
During the thirteenth century many new towns
and communes had been founded by the Crown, the
nobles, and the clergy, the depositaries of power in
the Middle Ages.
In the North, Villeneuve le Roi, Villeneuve le
Comte, and Villeneuve 1'Archeveque owed their
existence, material and communal, to these powers
respectively.
In the South the war of the Albigenses had
devastated and even destroyed many cities. The
authorities recognised the necessity of repeopling
the districts so cruelly decimated. The great nobles,
spiritual and temporal, reconcentrated the scattered
population by grants of lands for the building of
new towns, and sought to establish them permanently
by apparently liberal concessions in the form of
communal franchises.
According to Caumont and Anthyme St. Paul,
these new towns or bastides may be identified by
their names, or by their regularity of plan, or by both
combined.
Certain names indicate a royal foundation or
Town-halls, Belfries, Palaces 363
dependency, as Realville or Monreal ; others point
to privileges conferred on the town, as Bonneville,
La Sauvetat, Sauveterre, Villefranche, or even La
Bastide, and Villeneuve.
A third class borrow the names of French and
occasionally of foreign provinces or towns. Anthyme
220. TOWN-HALL AND BELFRY AT YPRES (BELGIUM)
St. Paul gives a list of such in the Annuaire de
Varcheologie francaise, — Barcelone or Barcelonnette,
Beauvais, Boulogne, Bruges, Cadix, Cordes (for
Cordova), Fleurance (for Florence), Bretagne,
Cologne, Valence, Mielan (for Milan), La Franchise
and Francescas, Grenade, Libourne (for Leghorn),
Modene, Pampelonne (for Pampeluna), etc.
A new town or bastide is usually rectangular in
364 Gothic Architecture
plan, and measures some 750 by 580 feet.
Sauveterre d'Ayeyron is an example. In the centre
is a square, into which a street debouches on each
side, thus dividing the town into four parts. The
square is surrounded by galleries or cloisters, of
round or pointed arches, covered with a timber roof
or vault, with or without transverse arches, whence
the term Place des Converts, still common in some
Southern towns.
In the centre of the square stood the town-hall,
the ground-floor of which wras used as a public
market. Montrejeau is one of the towns in which
this regularity of construction is observed, also
Montpazier, the streets of which are lined with wide
arcades of pointed arches. Other examples are to be
found at Eymet, Domme, and Beaumont, Libourne,
Ste. Foy, and Sauveterre de Guyenne, Damazan, and
Montflanquin, Rabastens, Mirande, Grenade, Isle
d'Albi, and Realmont, etc. Several bastides in
Guyenne were founded by the English. Finally,
the lower town of Carcassonne} founded in 1 247,
and Aigues-Mortes, founded in 1248, also belong to
the class of bastides or new towns.1
" The series of Southern bastides, inaugurated in
1222 by the foundation of Cordes-Albigeois, was
brought to a close in 1344 by a petition of the
town - councillors of Toulouse, in answer to which
the king forbade any further settlements. Two
hundred at least of the bastides still exist in
Guyenne, Gascony, Languedoc, and the neighbour-
ing districts. Several of these were unprosperous, and
are still small villages. In some cases their close
1 See Part III., " Military Architecture."
Town-halls, Belfries, Palaces 365
proximity tended greatly to their mutual dis-
advantage." x
221. MARKET AND BELFRY AT BRUGES (BELGIUM)
1 Anthyme St. Paul, Histoire Momtmentale de la France.
366 Gothic Architecture
It is worthy of remark that civil architecture had
222. TOWN-HALL OF BRUGES (BELGIUM)
Town-halls, Belfries, Palaces 367
so greatly developed by the fifteenth century as to
react in its turn upon the religious art to which it
owed its birth. It gave to religious architecture
certain new forms, such as the elliptic arch, adopted
at the close of the fifteenth and throughout the
following century, at which period civil architecture
reached its apogee.
The Southern communes preserved their franchises
till the sixteenth century, that disastrous era of re-
ligious warfare which involved the destruction of
innumerable buildings.
The town-hall of St. Antonin (Tarn et Garonne)
is perhaps the only surviving one of the period.
With the exception of the belfry, it is an almost
perfect type of the architecture of this class in the
thirteenth century, to which date it may probably be
assigned (Fig. 200).
The little town of St. Antonin, which had obtained
its communal charter in 1136, suffered much for its
fidelity to Raymond VI., Count of Toulouse. During
the war of the Albigenses it was twice taken by
Simon de Montfort, whose son, Guy de Montfort,
sold it to St. Louis in 1226. It was at this period,
no doubt, that the present building was erected. It
has the characteristic feature of the civic monument,
the belfry, which, in the Middle Ages, was the
architectural expression of municipal authority and
jurisdiction.
The building is a simple rectangular structure,
over which the square tower rises to the right. The
ground -floor is a market, communicating with an
adjoining market-place, and with the narrow street
which passes under the belfry. The grande salle or
368 Gothic Architecture
municipal hall occupies the first story, together with
223. TOWN-HALL AT LOUVAIN (BELGIUM)
a smaller apartment in the tower. The second
story is divided in the same manner.
Town-kails, Belfries, Palaces 369
We have already called attention to the far-
reaching influence of French art as manifested in
religious architecture so early as the close of the
twelfth century. Such influences were no less
paramount in developments of civil architecture,
and we find municipal buildings of the fourteenth
century in Italy — at Pienza and other towns — in
which not only analogies but points of identity with
the thirteenth -century example of St. Antonin are
distinctly traceable.
The municipal buildings of the North, the most
perfect types of which are those of Germany and
Belgium, are nearly uniform in plan. A belfry
rises from the centre of the facade, flanked right
and left on the first story by the great civic
halls. The ground-floor is a market for the sale of
merchandise.
The cloth-hall of Ypres (so named since the con-
struction of a new town -hall in the seventeenth
century) is one of the most beautiful of such ex-
amples. The building was begun in 1202, but was
not completed till 1304. The fagade measures 440
feet in length, and has a double row of pointed
windows. It terminates at each angle in a very
graceful pinnacle, and the centre is marked by a
noble square belfry of vast size, the oldest portion of
the building, the foundation-stone of which was laid
by Baldwin IX. of Flanders in 1200.
The belfry of Bruges, which was begun at the
close of the thirteenth century, and completed some
hundred years later, is another most interesting ex-
ample of the civic buildings of its period.
The structure consists of a market and the usual
2 B
Gothic Architecture
municipal halls, crowned by the lofty belfry, the
original height of which was 350 feet.
224. BELFRY OF TOURNAI (BELGIUM)
The hotel de ville or town-hall of Bruges, which
Town-halls, Belfries, Palaces 371
replaced an earlier municipal building in the Place
du Bourg, dates from between 1376 to 1387. Its
225- BELFRY OF GHENT (BELGIUM)
architectural character differs entirely from that of
37 2 Gothic Architecture
the belfry. Its elegant design and the richness of
its ornamentation give it the appearance father of a
sumptuously decorated chapel than of a civic building.
We may close the list of Belgian town -halls of
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries with that of
Louvain. The design and general scheme of
elaborate decoration are akin to those of the hall of
Bruges, and it bears the same ecclesiastical impress.
It was built between 1448 and 1463 by Mathieu
de Layens, master mason of the town and its outskirts •,
and is a rectangular building of three stories. The
gable ends are pierced with three rows of pointed
windows, and adorned with a rich profusion of
mouldings, statues, and sculptured ornament. The
steep roof has four tiers of dormer-windows. The
angles are flanked by graceful open-work turrets,
with delicate pinnacles, and similar turrets receive
the ridge of the roof at either end. The lateral
fagades are adorned with three rows of statues and
allegorical sculptures, covering the whole with a
wealth of exquisite tracery. Its lace-like delicacy
has suffered considerably from the action of weather,
and it was found necessary to renovate a considerable
portion of the ornament in 1 840.
Belfries. — In the early days of the enfranchise-
ment of the communes, it became customary to call
the community together by means of bells, which at
that period were confined to the church towers, and
which it was unlawful to ring without the consent of
the clergy. It may easily be conceived to what
incessant broils the new order gave rise, the clergy
as a body being strongly opposed to the separatist
tendency of measures which attacked their feudal
Town-halls, Belfries, Palaces 373
rights. The municipalities finally put an end to
internecine warfare in this connection by hanging
bells of their own over the town-gates, a custom
which was superseded towards the close of the
twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth century by
the erection of towers for the civic bells. Such was
the origin of the belfry, the earliest material ex-
pression of communal independence.
The structure usually formed part of the town-
hall, but was sometimes an isolated building. The
isolated belfry was a great square tower of several
stories, crowned by a timber roof protected either
by slates or lead. The great bells hung in one
story, and above them the little bells of the carillon.
A lodging, opening upon a surrounding gallery,
was constructed in the upper story for the accom-
modation of the watchman, whose duty it was to
warn the inhabitants of approaching danger and to
give notice of fires. The bells rang at sunrise and
curfew.
The chimes (carillon) marked the hours and their
subdivisions, and at festival seasons mingled their
joyous notes with the deep and solemn voice of the
great bell.
The custom of tolling the great bell to give notice
of a fire still obtains in many villages of the North,
the greater number of which have preserved their
belfries in spite of the modifications they have under-
gone at different periods.
The belfry tower usually contained a prison, a
hall for the town-councillors, a muniment room, and
a magazine for arms. It was long the only town-
hall of a commune.
374 Gothic Architecture
We shall find examples of these early municipal
226. BELFRY AT CALAIS (FRANCE)
buildings among the isolated belfries of Belgium,
such as that at Tournai, founded in 1187, and
Town-halls, Belfries, Palaces 375
rebuilt in part at the close of the fourteenth century,
and that of Ghent, the square tower of which dates
from the end of the twelfth century. Its spire is a
modern addition.
A few buildings of this particular class still exist
in France. Such is the belfry of Calais, the square
tower of which was built during the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. It is crowned by an octagonal
superstructure, begun at the close of the fifteenth
century, and completed in the early years of the
seventeenth. The belfry of Bethune, which dates from
the fourteenth century, is another. It consists of a
square tower reinforced at three of its angles by a
hexagonal turret, corbelled out from the wall. The
fourth turret is of the same shape, but here the projec-
tion is carried up from the ground-floor, and contains
the spiral staircase which communicates with the
various stories of the tower, and terminates on
the embattled parapet above. The building
is completed by a pyramidal spire of great
elegance, crowned by the watchman's tower. The
plan and details of this superstructure proclaim
it the source whence the gable turrets of
Louvain were derived. The great bells hang
in the uppermost story, the smaller ones of the
carillon in the story below. On each facade at
the summit of the tower a great dial marks the
hours, as was customary from the fourteenth century
onwards, when town-clocks first came into general
use. '
/
The towns of Auxerre, Beaune, Amiens, Evreux,
and Avignon still possess their belfries.
To the belfry of Amiens, which dates from the
376 Gothic Architecture
thirteenth century, a square dome was added some
227. BELFRY OF BETHUNE (FRANCE)
hundred years ago. But the great bell of the
fourteenth century has been preserved.
Town-halls, Belfries, Palaces 377
The belfry of Evreux retains its fifteenth-century
228. BELFRY OF EVREUX
character almost in its entirety. That of Avignon,
a monument of the close of the fifteenth century, was
378
Gothic Architecture
happily spared when the town-hall was replaced by a
modern structure.
229. BELFRY OF AVIGNON
The gate-house of the hotel de ville at Bordeaux,
known as the grosse cloche, is an example of the
Town- halls, Belfries, Palaces 379
more ancient usage. Here we find the bell hung
.1
230. BELFRY GATE AT BORDEAUX, KNOWN AS LA GROSS1- CLOCHE
over the gateway, as already described. The belfry
of Bordeaux, which appears to date from the fifteenth
380 Gothic Architecture
century, is very remarkable. It consists of two
towers connected by a curtain through which is an
arched passage. A second arch protects the great
bell in the upper story, and the whole is surmounted
by a central roof, flanked right and left by the
conical crowns of the lateral turrets.
Markets, warehouses, and exchanges were often
annexes of the town -halls. A few examples of
such buildings have been preserved, but those of the
third class are extremely rare. A specimen, re-
markable both for construction and decoration, which
recall the Spanish architecture of the fourteenth
century, still exists at Perpignan. It is a house
known as La Loge^ built in 1396, which originally
served as exchange to the cloth merchants of French
Catalonia and Roussillon.
Palaces. — In the Middle Ages the name palace
was, given to the dwelling of the sovereign. Its
chief feature was the basilica or judgment-hall.
The great nobles followed the royal example
and constructed palaces in the capitals of their feofs,
as at Dijon, Troyes, and Poitiers, which are the
most important of such examples.
The town-houses of archbishops and bishops were
also called palaces.
The courts, parliaments, and tribunals of the
executive were held in the palace of the suzerain or
the bishop, where certain of the buildings were open
to the public. The important feature, the great
hall (grand salle), occupied a vast covered space in
which the plenary courts were held, the vassals
assembled, and banquets were given. It communi-
cated with galleries or ambulatories. A chapel was
Town-halls, Belfries, Palaces
381
always included in the plan of the palace, which
consisted of the lodging of the lord and his followers ;
offices, often of great extent ; rooms for the storing
of archives ; magazines, prisons, and innumerable
auxiliary buildings, divided by courtyards, and in
some cases by gardens.
231. CLOTH HALL AT PERPIGNAN, KNOWN AS LA LOGE
A
In Paris the palace proper, which was in the He
de la Cite, consisted of buildings constructed from
the time of St. Louis to the reign of Philip the Fair.
From the reign of Charles V. it was specially de-
voted to the administration of justice.
The only remains of the buildings of St. Louis
are the Ste. Chapelle, the two great towers with their
intervening curtain on the Quai de PHorloge, and
the square clock tower at the angle of the quay.
382
Gothic Architecture
The best examples of seignorial castles are :
Troyes, which was built by the Counts of Champagne,
and inhabited by them till they removed to Provins
in the thirteenth century ; and the palace of the
Counts of Poitiers at Poitiers, one of the most
232. BISHOP S PALACE AT LAON
interesting of such buildings ; it was burnt by the
English in 1346, and repaired or rebuilt at the close
of the fourteenth century by the brother of Charles
V., Jean, Duke of Berry, to whom we owe, among
other architectural works, the curious fireplace of
the great vestibule, called the Salle des Pas Perdus,
in the Palais de Justice.
Town-halls, Belfries, Palaces
383
The bishops' palaces were differently planned.
They usually adjoined the cathedrals, with which
they communicated either on the north or the south,
according to the facilities afforded by the site. The
characteristic symbol of episcopal power which, in
the earlier centuries of the Middle Ages, claimed
jurisdiction both in spiritual and temporal matters,
233. ARCHBISHOP'S PALACE AT ALBI. PLAN
was the great hall, in later days the synod house and
the council chamber of the executive. The bishop's
palace in Paris, rebuilt by Maurice de Sully in
1 1 60, preserved this mediaeval feature, which is
even more conspicuous at Sens, in the magnificent
annexe known as the salle synodale (synod house).
The canons' lodgings were also in close proximity
to the cathedral, but on the side opposite to the
bishop's palace. They were surrounded by an en-
384
Goth ic A rch itectu re
closure, the gates of which were fastened at night.
It was the duty of the canons to aid the bishop in
his ministrations. They lived together in annexes
which communicated with the cathedral by means of
galleries and cloisters.1
The bishops' palaces were often remarkable for
their elaborate construction. Fragments of the
234. ARCHBISHOPS PALACE AT ALBI. GENERAL VIEW
primitive buildings are still preserved in the palaces
of Beauvais, Angers, Bayeux, and Auxerre.
The ancient episcopal palace of Laon 2 marks a
development in thirteenth -century architecture. It
is a good example of that system of construction by
which the palace was connected with the city ram-
parts and formed a secondary line of defence.
1 See Part II., "Monastic Architecture," the cloisters of Puy-en-
Velay and Elne in Roussillon.
2 The episcopate was transferred to Soissons in 1809.
Town-halls, Belfries, Palaces
385
This system was also adopted at Narbonne. At
the close of the thirteenth and during the fourteenth
century the palace was transformed into a fortress,
the importance of which bore witness to the power
of its bishops. After Avignon, it is perhaps the
most imposing of episcopal dwellings.
From this time onward the bishops' palaces in-
creased greatly in size, their dimensions extending
235' PALACE OF THE POPES AT AVIGNON. PLAN
proportionately with those of the great cathedrals of
the period. The importance of the episcopal build-
ings and their dependencies was on a par with the
wealth and power of their owners. Some idea of
their magnificence may be gathered from the private
chapel of the archbishop at Rheims, which dates
from the middle of the thirteenth century.
The archbishop's palace at Albi has all the
character of a feudal castle. Its buildings are pro-
tected by a keep, and encircled by walls and towers
2 c
386 Gothic Architecture
connected both with the ramparts of the city, and
with that more important fortalice, the cathedral
itself, the tower of which is, in fact, a formidable
keep.1
The transformation of church and palace into
fortresses by an elaborate system of defence was
necessitated by the wars which ravaged the district,
and from which Albi suffered more cruelly than any
other town.
The palace of the popes at Avignon which
Pope Benedict XII. began to build in the fourteenth
century, and the bishop's palace at Narbonne, are
among the finest specimens of ecclesiastical fortifica-
tion in the Middle Ages.2
The Popes, having established themselves at
Avignon in the fourteenth century, built a huge
mansion on the rock known as the Rocher des Doms,
which overlooks the Rhone. In 1336 Benedict XII.,
having destroyed his predecessor's palace, laid the
foundations of the immense fortified pile now in
existence. The plans were the work of the French
architect, Pierre Obrier. The building was added
to by the successors of Benedict XII., Popes
Clement VI., Innocent VI., and Urban V., and was
completed, or at any rate made efficient for de-
fence, by 1398, when Pedro de Luna, who became
pope under the title of Benedict XIII., sustained a
memorable siege therein.
The whole building, which covers a very consider-
able area, was completed in less than sixty years.
Its formidable mass was further strengthened by
1 See Part I., Cathedral of Albi, Figs. 70-73.
2 For the Palace of the Popes, see Albert Lenoir and Viollet-le-Duc.
Town- halls, Belfries, Palaces 387
the fortified enceinte of the town, some three miles
in circumference.
In general conception, in the architectural skill
of its construction, and in its tasteful decoration,
the Palace of the Popes at Avignon bears away the
palm from all contemporary buildings in Germany and
Italy, where French influences were paramount.
236. PALACE OF THE POPES AT AVIGNON. GENERAL VIEW
This noble monument is absolutely and entirely
French. No finer combination of religious, mon-
astic, military, and civil types could be desired in
illustration of the art we have agreed to term
Gothic Architecture, but which might be more truly
entitled : Our National Architecture in the Middle Ages.
Justice indeed demands this tardy homage. Our
vast churches, our superb cathedrals, our mighty
castles and palace fortresses, the masterpieces that
388 Gothic Architecture
fill our museums — manifestations of artistic power
which should move us, not to servile imitation but
to fruitful study, — all were the creations of native
architects.
That expansive force which made our national
art the great civilising medium of the Middle Ages
was derived from our own early architects, civil
and religious. The principles and practice of
monumental art were carried by French architects
into all countries, though the results of their
teaching are more conspicuous in Italy and Germany
than elsewhere. Native builders and artists estab-
lished the supremacy of French art throughout
Western Europe, and even in the East. And
though the foreign evolution, which marked the
sixteenth century, did indeed exercise a transient
influence in France, it must be remembered that
the way had been prepared for this apparently
novel movement by those French artists who have
carried the fame of our beloved country throughout
the civilised world.
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L|L|Q Gothic architecture, ed. by
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