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Title: Gothic Architecture

Author: Édouard Corroyer

Editor: Sir Walter Armstrong

Translator: Florence Simmonds

Release date: May 10, 2017 [eBook #54701]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOTHIC
ARCHITECTURE ***

CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL FROM A DRAWING BY A.
BRUNET-DEBAINES

GOTHIC

ARCHITECTURE

BY

ÉDOUARD CORROYER
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-duc. 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 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 1

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 in the East 105
10. Towers and Belfries—Choirs—Chapels 128
11. Sculpture 153
12. Painting 179

PART II
MONASTIC ARCHITECTURE

1. Origin 205
2. Abbeys of Cluny, Citeaux, and Clairvaux 215
3. Abbeys and Chartreuses or Carthusian Monasteries 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 "Hôtels" or
Townhouses of the Nobility 333
2. Town-halls, Belfries, and Palaces 360

ILLUSTRATIONS
Canterbury Cathedral. By A. Brunet-Debaines Frontispiece
FIG. PAGE

Plan of a cupola of the Abbey Church of St.
1. Front at Périgueux 17
Pendentive of a cupola of the Abbey Church of
2. St. Front at Périgueux 18
3. Diagonal section of a pendentive 19
4. Plan of a cupola of Angoulême or Fontevrault 20
5. Section of a bay of the cupolas of Angoulême 20
Section of a bay in the Church of St. Avit-
6. Sénieur 21
7. Plan of vault on intersecting arches 21
8. Section of an intersecting arch 22
Plan of a bay in the nave of St. Maurice at
9. Angers 24
Transverse section of the nave of St. Maurice at
10. Angers 25
11. Plan of a bay of the nave. Ste. Trinité, Laval 26
Section of two bays of the nave. Ste. Trinité,
12. Laval 27
Comparative sections of Churches of
13, 14. Angoulême and Angers 28
View in perspective of nave vault. St. Maurice
15. at Angers 29
Plan of a summer of the nave vault. Ste. Trinité,
16. Laval 30
17. Plan of one of the nave piers. Ste. Trinité, Laval 30
18. Plan of the nave, St. Maurice, Angers 33
19. Plan of La Ste. Trinité, Angers 34

20. Section of a bay. Ste. Trinité, Angers 35
21. Transverse section of a bay. Ste. Trinité, Angers 37
Section of a single-aisled Church vaulted on
22. intersecting arches with buttresses 38
Section of a three-aisled Church vaulted on
23. 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
Church of Tournai, Belgium. Exterior view of
27. north transept towards the Scheldt 46
Monastery Church at Moissac. Vault of the hall
known as the Salle des Capitaines above
28. the porch 47
Church of Tournai, Belgium. Interior of north
29. transept 47
Soissons Cathedral, south transept. Section of
30. flying buttress 48
Perspective view of south transept, Soissons
31. Cathedral 49
32. Cathedral of Laon. Plan 52
33. Cathedral of Laon. Interior of the nave 54
34. Cathedral of Laon. Main façade 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
Notre Dame de Paris. Flying buttresses and
39. 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
Rheims Cathedral. Flying buttresses of the
46. 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
Chartres Cathedral. Rose window of north
52. transept 78
53. Mans Cathedral. Plan 80
54. Mans Cathedral. Flying buttresses of the apse 81
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
61. 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
Church of St. Francis at Assisi. Apse and
68. cloisters 103
Church of St. Ouen at Rouen. Central tower
69. and apse, south front 106

70. Albi Cathedral. Plan 108
71. Albi Cathedral. Section of the nave 111
72. Albi Cathedral. Aps 113
73. Albi Cathedral. Donjon tower and south front 114
74. Church of Esnandes. A fortified church 116
Abbey of Mont St. Michel. Flying buttresses of
75. 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. Alençon Cathedral. West front 122
Façade of the Cathedral of St. Sophia. Island of
79. Cyprus 123
80. Cathedral of St. Nicholas. Island of Cyprus 124
81. Cathedral of St. Nicholas. Island of Cyprus 126
82. Church of St. Sophia. Island of Cyprus. Ruins 127
83. Steeple, Vendôme 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
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
Rheims Cathedral. Principal door. Statue and
97. ornament 157

Rheims Cathedral. Principal door. Statue and
98. ornament 158
Notre Dame de Paris. Principal door. Running
99. leaf pattern 159
Notre Dame de Paris. Principal door. Running
100. 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
Amiens Cathedral. Choir stalls. Carved
105. ornament 165
Abbey of Mont St. Michel. Ornament of
106. cloisters 166
Wooden Statuette (thirteenth century). Ateliers
107. of La Chaise Dieu, Auvergne 167
108, 108a. Two ivory statuettes. School of Paris 168, 169
Wooden Statuette (fourteenth century). School
109. of Paris 170
Two ivory diptychs (fourteenth century).
110, 110a. School of the Ile-de-France 171
Ivory diptych and plaque (fourteenth century).
111, 111a. School of the Ile-de-France 172, 173
Head in silver gilt repoussé. Ateliers of the
112. Goldsmith's Guild of Paris 174
Group carved in wood (fifteenth century).
113. School of Antwerp 175
Wooden statuette, painted and gilded (fifteenth
114. century) 176
Wooden statuette, painted and gilded (sixteenth
115. century) 177
Paintings in Cahors Cathedral. Horizontal
116. projection of the cupola 180

Paintings in Cahors Cathedral. One of the
117. prophets in the cupola 182
Paintings in Cahors Cathedral. Fragment of
118. central frieze of cupola 184
Painted windows of the early twelfth century.
119, 120. From St. Rémi, Rheims 187
Painted window of the twelfth century. Church
121. of Bonlieu, Creuse 188
Painted window of the thirteenth century.
122. Chartres Cathedral 189
Painted window of the thirteenth century.
123. Chartres Cathedral 190
Painted window of the thirteenth century.
124. Church of St. Germer, Troyes 191
Painted windows of the fourteenth century.
125. Church of St. Urbain, Troyes 193
Painted glass of the fourteenth century.
126. Cathedral of Châlons-sur-Marne 194
Painted window of the fifteenth century.
127. Évreux Cathedral 195
Enamel of the eleventh century. Plaque cover
128. of a MS. 196
Enamel of the thirteenth century. Plaque cover
129. of an Evangelium 198
Enamel of the twelfth century. Reliquary shrine
130. of St. Thomas à Becket 199
Enamel of the sixteenth century. Our Lady of
131. Sorrows 200
Abbey of Mont St. Michel. Cloister (thirteenth
132. 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. Étienne at Caen. Façade 228
137. St. Alban's Abbey (England) 230
138. Abbey of Montmajour. 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. Cathedral of Puy-en-Velay. Cloisters 237
144. Abbey of La Chaise Dieu (Auvergne). Cloisters 239
145. Chartreuse of Villefranche de Rouergue. Plan 242
Chartreuse of Villefranche de Rouergue.
146. 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
Abbey of Mont St. Michel. Plan at the level of
150. the entrance 249
Abbey of Mont St. Michel. Plan at the level of
151. the lower church 250
Abbey of Mont St. Michel. Plan at the level of
152. the upper church 252
Abbey of Mont St. Michel. Section from north
153. to south 253
Abbey of Mont St. Michel. Section from west
154. to east 254
Abbey of Mont St. Michel. Crypt known as the
155. Galerie de l'Aquilon 256
156. Abbey of Mont St. Michel. North front 257
157. Abbey of Mont St. Michel. The almonry 258
Abbey of Mont St. Michel. A tympanum of the
158. cloisters 259
159. Abbey of Mont St. Michel. The cellar 260

160. 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
166. Fortress of Kalaat-el-Hosn. Section 277
166a. Fortress of Kalaat-el-Hosn. General view 278
City of Carcassonne. Plan of the thirteenth
167. century 279
City of Carcassonne. Ramparts, south-west
168. angle 280
169. Ramparts of Aigues-Mortes, north and south 281
170. Ramparts of Avignon. Curtain and towers 282
170a. Machicolations 283
171. Ramparts of St. Malo 284
172. Mont St. Michel. South front 287
173. Mont St. Michel. As restored on paper 288
174. Castle of Angers 292
175. Carcassonne. Citadel 293
176. Loches Castle. Keep 294
177. Falaise Castle. Keep 297
178. Lavardin Castle. Keep 298
179. Keep of Aigues-Mortes 299
180. 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. Vitré Castle 307
186. City of Carcassonne. Castle gate 310

187. City of Carcassonne. Gate of the Lists 312
City of Carcassonne. Gate known as the Porte
188. Narbonaise 313
189. Ramparts of Aigues-Mortes. Drawbridge 314
Ramparts of Dinan. Gate known as the Porte
190. de Jerzual 315
191. Vitré Castle. Gate-house 317
Ramparts of Guérande. Gate known as the
192. Porte St. Michel 318
Ramparts of Mont St. Michel. Gateway known
193. as the Porte du Roi 320
194. Entrance to the Port of La Rochelle 322
195. Bridge at Avignon 323
196. Bridge of Montauban 325
197. Bridge of Cahor 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 Perrières (Calvados) 335
201a. Barn at Perrières (Calvados). Section 336
201b. Barn at Perrières (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) 340
206. Lazar-house at Tortoir (Aisne) 341
207. Hospital at Tonnerre. Section 343
208, 208a. 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. Hôtel Lallemand at Bourges 357
218. Jacques Cœur'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 Béthune (France) 376
228. Belfry of Évreux (France) 377
229. Belfry of Avignon (France) 378
Belfry gate known as La Grosse Cloche,
230. 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 archæological 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 architecture which, by
virtue of the archæologic convention of 1825, we agree to label
Romanesque, undoubtedly borrowed its essential elements from the
Romans and Byzantines, modifying and perfecting 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
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 Mediæval Architecture.[1]
[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 mediæval
architecture" cannot be allowed.—Ed.

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 buildings 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 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 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 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 principles 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 of
parts. From 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 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 knowledge 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 formulæ of the innovators were gradually transformed
into recognised rules, and this knotty problem of construction 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 the 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
traditions 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. 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
content to work out that theory of evolution already put forward by us in
L'Architecture Romane. We propose merely to offer a synthesis of that
architectural 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 architecture, 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 evidences of artistic progress, not in its admirable buildings alone,
but in those masterpieces of painting 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 system the revolutionary action of which upon art can
scarcely be over-estimated.[2]
[2] L'Architecture Romane, by Ed. Corroyer; Quantin, Paris, 1888.

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 reasonably 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 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 Angoulême and of Fontevrault may be

cited in proof. "We here recognise the main preoccupation 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."[3]
[3] L'Architecture Romane, by Ed. Corroyer; Quantin, Paris, 1888.

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 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 pendentives of the cupolas into independent
arches which performed exactly the same functions, thus logically working
out an architectonic principle of amazing simplicity, the success of which
was so rapid 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 innumerable 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.
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[4] 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.
[4] 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.

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 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 archæeologic 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, mediæval 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
in the Roman vault the stones at the line of intersection, 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
century. We shall find it in the dressed stone cupola of St. Front, and more
especially in its pendentives.
Fig. 1 gives the plan of one of the cupolas of St. Front. It is composed of
four massive transverse arches, the thrusts of which are received upon four
piers united by 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.

1. PLAN OF A CUPOLA OF THE ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. FRONT
AT PÉRIGUEUX

2. PENDENTIVE (MARKED A) OF A CUPOLA OF THE ABBEY
CHURCH OF ST. FRONT

Fig. 3 is a section through one of the pendentives of St. Front, following
the line A B in Fig. 1. It shows that the first six courses are cut so as to
make what is called a tas de chargé; the upper surfaces are horizontal, the
faces curved to the radius 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 mediæval architects, the
construction of 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
Périgueux.

3. SECTION OF A PENDENTIVE ON THE DIAGONAL A TO B IN
PLAN, FIG. 1

The construction of the churches of Angoulême and Fontevrault in the
first years of the twelfth century shows that the architects were attempting
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 points of support.

Fig. 4 gives the plan of one of the cupolas of Angoulême or of
Fontevrault, both being built on precisely similar plan, with the exception of
the number of bays to the nave.

4. PLAN OF A CUPOLA OF ANGOULÊME OR FONTEVRAULT

Fig. 5 gives the section of a bay in one of these churches, and illustrates
the considerable difference already existing between the mother cupola of
St. Front and its offspring. The cupola on pendentives begins to show a
certain attenuation, and we shall presently note a fresh step forward towards
the solution of that problem so persistently grappled with by the mediæval
architect—how to reduce the weight of the vault.

5. SECTION OF A BAY OF THE CUPOLAS OF ANGOULÊME

The Church of St. Avit-Sénieur furnishes a most instructive example.
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.
The Church of St. Pierre at Saumur marks a further step onwards in the
construction of vaults derived from the cupola.[5]
[5] L'Architecture Romane, by Ed. Corroyer.

6. SECTION OF A BAY IN THE CHURCH OF ST. AVIT-SÉNIEUR

Finally, the architects of Maine and Anjou achieved the long-desired
consummation. Under their treatment the pendentives resolved themselves
into their actively useful elements, the visible signs of which were diagonal
or intersecting arches, salient and independent, set in precisely the same
manner as the pendentives of the cupola (Fig. 3), and performing identical
functions (Fig. 8).

7. PLAN OF VAULT ON INTERSECTING ARCHES

The vault proper is no longer formed of concentric courses, as in the
mother cupola. It consists thenceforward of voussoirs cut normally 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
speaking, the intersecting arches, nor do they any longer neutralise their
active functions. These fillings, on the other hand, have, like the

intersecting arch, gained a new independence. 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 transverse 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). 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 Ile-de-France and elsewhere (see B,
Fig. 8), but embrace them (as at A).

8. SECTION OF AN INTERSECTING ARCH

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 architects of
Aquitaine and neighbouring provinces had excited the emulation of the Northern
builders, more especially those of the Ile-de-France. Evidences 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 than of the revolution that had been
effected in church vaulting generally.

9. PLAN OF A BAY IN THE NAVE OF ST. MAURICE AT ANGERS

10. TRANSVERSE SECTION OF THE NAVE OF ST. 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 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 Angoulême and Fontevrault. It is in no way allied to the
Northern buildings.

11. PLAN OF A BAY OF THE NAVE IN THE CHURCH OF LA STE.
TRINITÉ AT LAVAL

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 intersecting arches in the place of pendentives, the architects of
the day having realised by this time the progress we have explained and
demonstrated 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 compose a stone skeleton,
each unit of which has been cut and dressed to fill the exact place it occupies in the
whole.

12. LONGITUDINAL SECTION OF TWO BAYS IN THE NAVE OF LA STE. TRINITÉ
AT LAVAL

If we compare the sections (Figs. 13 and 14) of the churches of Angoulême 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
place of domes with pendentives, a development worked out by the more perfect
and reasoned application of the same architectural principle.

13 AND 14. COMPARATIVE SECTIONS OF THE CHURCHES OF ANGOULÊME AND ANGERS

15. VIEW IN PERSPECTIVE OF THE NAVE VAULT OF ST.
MAURICE AT ANGERS

The Church of Laval, built simultaneously with 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 combinations, and the methodical accuracy of
the execution.

16. PLAN OF A SUMMER OF THE NAVE VAULT OF LA STE.
TRINITÉ AT LAVAL

17. PLAN OF ONE OF THE PIERS OF THE NAVE OF LA STE. TRINITÉ AT
LAVAL

The arches which compose the ossature of the vaults become independent in
their functions, as at Angers, immediately upon leaving the abacus, an essential
characteristic of the new system. The lateral points of support are composed of
piers proper and of clustered columns, crowned by corbelled capitals, 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 arrangement 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.
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 pendentives 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 important—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.
André at Bordeaux, begun in 1252 on the cupola plan, but modified and
finally crowned with a groined and ribbed vault; St. Caprais at Agen, which
shows the same modifications, and lastly, the immense brick nave of St.
Étienne at Toulouse, which measures 64 feet—all demonstrate the
progression of the new principles in the second half of the twelfth century.

18. PLAN OF THE NAVE, ST. MAURICE AT ANGERS

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 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. Trinité, 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 construction 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 transverse arch,
with its supporting shafts, in the centre of each bay. This divides the bay
into two equal parts, and, cutting the diagonal ribs at their intersection,
supports them at the critical point.
Fig. 19 gives the plan of these vaults, the system of which was eagerly
seized upon by the Northern architects, and the great abbey church of
Noyon
appears to have been the first-fruits of this new development of the Angevin
idea.

19. PLAN OF THE CHURCH OF LA STE. TRINITÉ AT ANGERS

20. LONGITUDINAL SECTION OF A BAY OF LA STE. TRINITÉ
AT ANGERS

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.

21. TRANSVERSE SECTION OF A BAY OF LA STE. TRINITÉ AT
ANGERS

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 traditions, and disregarding
the statical conditions which ensured the solidity of the ancient buildings,
they invented a system of construction which is, as it were, merely a
skeleton in stone, a stone version of the timbered roof; its characteristic
expression was
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 weight-
carrying portions, the failure of which would involve the ruin of the whole,
being outside the building, 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.

22. SECTION OF A SINGLE-AISLED CHURCH VAULTED ON
INTERSECTING ARCHES WITH BUTTRESSES

23. SECTION OF A THREE-AISLED CHURCH VAULTED ON
INTERSECTING ARCHES WITH FLYING BUTTRESSES

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 abutment in the form of
detached semi-arches or flying buttresses. The crowns of these semi-arches

impinged 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 abutments, 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 construction 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.[6] It bears the name of
triforium because—or so we are told—each 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.
[6] See L'Architecture Romane, by Ed. Corroyer; Maison Quantin, Paris, 1888,
chaps. i. iii. and iv.

Towards the close of the eleventh 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,
meeting 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.[7]
[7] L'Architecture Romane, by Ed. Corroyer; Paris, Maison Quantin, 88, chap. xvii.

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 Switzerland, 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.

24. DURHAM CATHEDRAL. TRANSVERSE SECTIONS

In France we shall find no example more deeply interesting than Noyon, which
at the date of its 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 Ile-de-
France. In this curious building we find a fusion of the antique tradition developed
by the Normans in their triforiums, and of the Angevin methods, as manifested in
the groined vaults derived from domes: methods further perfected by the example
of La Ste. Trinité at Angers; in other words, by the adoption of intersecting arches

planned on a square, the thrusts of all being received on the main piers, reinforced
by an 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.

25. ABBEY CHURCH AT NOYON. PLAN

26. TRANSVERSE SECTION OF NOYON CHURCH

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 transepts
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 with abutments. Tournai, therefore, cannot be held to have begotten Noyon,
for here we have groined vaults, the intersecting arches 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 arrangement above
cited had in no sense modified the methods of abutment followed by the architects
of the twelfth century even after the adoption of the vault on intersecting arches.
These, as will be remembered, consisted in buttressing the walls and piers of the
nave by cross walls or by arches concealed beneath the roofing of the side aisles.

27. CHURCH OF TOURNAI, BELGIUM. EXTERIOR VIEW OF THE NORTH
TRANSEPT TOWARDS THE SCHELDT

28. MONASTERY CHURCH AT MOISSAC. VAULT OF THE HALL
KNOWN AS THE HALL OF THE CAPTAINS ABOVE THE PORCH

29. CHURCH OF TOURNAI, BELGIUM. INTERIOR OF THE
NORTH TRANSEPT

We find at Soissons the first application of an architectural system, the special
feature of which is the flying buttress.
The south transept of Soissons Cathedral was evidently suggested by Noyon.
This is apparent in the adoption of the two-storied side aisle and in the semi-
circular plan. But the method of vaulting common to both churches has a greater
refinement at Soissons. Reduced to its simplest expression of strength by the
attenuation 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 laterally by interior arches collaborating with the arcs-doubleaux of 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, springing
from above the roof of the triforium and its buttresses and marking each bay. Thus
was born the 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.

30. SOISSONS CATHEDRAL. SOUTH TRANSEPT. SECTION OF
FLYING BUTTRESS

31. PERSPECTIVE VIEW OF SOUTH TRANSEPT, SOISSONS CATHEDRAL[8]
[8] 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.

The flying buttress, in combination with the intersecting arch, gave 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 not invite our
imitation. They are monuments to the ingenuity of the twelfth and thirteenth
century 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 mediæval 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 foundation 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
mediæval 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 trustworthy records or upon contemporary readings of existing
data, the result is too often a confusion among vanished monuments, or a
contradiction between the buildings as they now exist and the historic records
which relate to them.

32. CATHEDRAL OF LAON. PLAN

33. CATHEDRAL OF LAON. INTERIOR OF THE NAVE

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 archæological, 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 century
that great cathedral churches in any considerable numbers were conceived and
continuously executed.[9]
[9] 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.
We have, however, confined ourselves, for the purposes of our present synthesis, to the
churches and cathedrals of 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 because they
illustrate in a remarkable degree the various transitions we desire to study.

34. CATHEDRAL OF LAON. MAIN FAÇADE

The great abbey churches founded towards the 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
formulæ, just as the method of construction adopted in the main vault
demonstrates the persistent influence of the dome.[10]

[10] See chap. i., "The Influence of the Cupola on Gothic Architecture."

The admirably constructed main vault is square on plan, each square
containing two transverse compartments, 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 nevertheless
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 transverse and
diagonal arches. But it was far from logical to reinforce the intermediate piers
supporting nothing but the auxiliary transverse arches by abutments 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.

35. CATHEDRAL OF LAON. THE EAST END

36. CATHEDRAL OF LAON. SECTION OF THE NAVE

Notre Dame de Paris was begun towards the close of the twelfth century, and
finished, save for 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 in the sex-partite
groining. The same illogical system of abutments obtains as at Laon.
This vast building, consisting of a nave and double side aisles of equal height
sweeping round the semi-circular choir, seems to be one of the first five-aisled
cathedrals; its grandiose arrangement, the boldness of its combinations, and the
perfection of its detail mark the considerable progress made by the architects of
the Ile-de-France.

37. NOTRE DAME DE PARIS. PLAN

The method of construction here adopted has a peculiar significance. The
upper internal galleries, vaulted on diagonal 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 side aisles and forms the 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.

38. NOTRE DAME DE PARIS. SECTION OF THE NAVE

The Norman tradition which had obtained in the Ile-de-France passed away in
the first years of the thirteenth century. At Châlons-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 arrangement 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.

39. NOTRE DAME DE PARIS. FLYING BUTTRESSES AND
SOUTH TOWER

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, the
intermediate one receiving only the auxiliary transverse arch already fully
described. Yet here again the exterior flying buttresses are all of equal solidity in
spite of the varying strain. This arrangement, prudent if illogical, shows once
more with what distrust architects 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 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
equal strength, and so fail to proclaim their true functions, the interior thrusts
varying considerably.

40. SENS CATHEDRAL. PLAN OF A BAY. VAULT IN SQUARE COMPARTMENTS OF TWO BAYS

41. SENS CATHEDRAL. SECTION OF A BAY OF THE NAVE

42. SENS CATHEDRAL. INTERIOR VIEW OF LATERAL BAYS

The arrangement at Bourges, which appears to have been mainly built, if not
actually finished, in the first half of the thirteenth century, differs from that of
Sens. The structure is one of five aisles, 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 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 glaring here than elsewhere, the
flying buttresses themselves being of exaggerated dimensions and of double span,
embracing the two side aisles.

43. BOURGES CATHEDRAL. SECTION OF THE NAVE

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 1211, 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 equilibrium—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 formulæ. 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.

44. RHEIMS CATHEDRAL. PLAN

The perils inherent in such a system are more apparent at Rheims than
elsewhere, because of the colossal proportions of the building. The
arrangement of the flying buttresses, however, is more logical than at Laon,
Paris, Sens, and Bourges, by reason of the quadripartite arrangement of the
main vault. The thrusts being equally distributed among the supporting
piers, each flying buttress performs an identical office; their equal strength
and solidity is therefore perfectly appropriate and logical. But though
theoretically correct in its disposition of 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 and passive; active, taking into
account the constant 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, 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 façade, and in the perfect harmony
of the ornamentation, where sculpture, capitals, friezes, crockets, and
floriations are so many types of mediæval decorative art at its best.
The Cathedral of Amiens, which dates from about 1220, 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.

45. RHEIMS CATHEDRAL. SECTION OF THE NAVE

46. RHEIMS CATHEDRAL. FLYING BUTTRESSES OF THE
CHOIR

The Rémois 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 arrangement which had no solid

bearing, as may be seen by following the direction of the dotted line X in
Fig. 48. The boldness, or rather the imprudence of such
an arrangement is patent, for the failure of anyone of the courses, or the
decay of any part of the pier into which the corbels are keyed, would
necessarily involve a rupture in the flying buttresses, on which the stability
of the main vault depends. The disintegration 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 equilibrium, are exemplified at Beauvais. The
architects who built the choir, about the year 1225, 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 bays, and at
the same time strengthening the vault by auxiliary transverse arches. They
exaggerated the height of the archivolts and of the large windows, 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. 51 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.

47. AMIENS CATHEDRAL. PLAN

48. AMIENS CATHEDRAL. SECTION THROUGH THE NAVE

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 29th 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 by 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 more modest dimensions. They had neither the
exaggerated height nor the structural audacities of their exemplars. Few of
these churches and cathedrals, the reconstruction of which on the new
system generally began with the choir, which was
added to the primitive nave, were completed by those who initiated their
erection. The most highly favoured in this respect were finished in the
course of the fourteenth century; but in the greater number of cases the
work dragged slowly on, and reached its end some two centuries after its
inauguration. Reconstructive undertakings were constantly impeded 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 archæological study, offering as they do
distinct evidence of the various transformations which were successively
accomplished from the so-called Romanesque period to the Gothic.

49. BEAUVAIS CATHEDRAL. APSE

50. BEAUVAIS CATHEDRAL. NORTH FRONT

51. BEAUVAIS CATHEDRAL. TRANSVERSE SECTION

52. CHARTRES CATHEDRAL. ROSE WINDOW OF NORTH
TRANSEPT

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
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 choir 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
iron chains. Such expedients are a sufficient criticism of the ingenious but
precarious system adopted by the architects of Mans.

53. MANS CATHEDRAL. PLAN

54. MANS CATHEDRAL. FLYING BUTTRESSES OF THE APSE

55. MANS CATHEDRAL. SECTION OF THE CHOIR

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 Coutances, a monument of the eleventh
century, was rebuilt in the early
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 disposition
of its collateral vaults. But the façade is purely Norman, not merely in

general design, but in the details of the composition, facsimiles of which
may be found in England.

56. COUTANCES CATHEDRAL. NORTH TOWER

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 ornamentation, all proclaim its affinity to the
great churches which rose contemporaneously with it on either side of the
Channel, in Normandy, and in England. It is very probable that it was built

by the same architects or their immediate disciples, working on the more
ancient 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 Bec.

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
neighbouring 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.

57. RODEZ CATHEDRAL. WEST FRONT

58. BORDEAUX CATHEDRAL. CHOIR AND NORTH FRONT

59. LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL. WEST FRONT

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 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. 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 a contemporary description of
their magnificence, which, in a truly Gascon vein, compares them to the
Egyptian pyramids, among other world-renowned marvels.
"In 1272 Toulouse and Narbonne entered the lists against Amiens,
imitating its plan, and proposing 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 retreated, leaving the port on
which the wealth of the inhabitants mainly depended high and dry.
Fortunately 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 l'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 130 feet by 90, and the transept was not even begun.
"The Cathedrals of Lyons, of St. Maurice at Vienne, and of St. Étienne 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."[11]
[11] Anthyme St. Paul, Histoire Monumentale de la France; Paris Hachette
and Co., 1884.

The great cathedrals constructed in England in the thirteenth century bear
witness to the expansion 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.[12]
[12] 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.—Ed.

English builders assimilated the constructive principles of the architects
of Anjou and of the Ile-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 façade 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 same architects, as they certainly were carried out by
pupils or disciples of the same master-builders.[13]
[13] It is difficult to believe that Mons. Corroyer is in earnest in comparing
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 line 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.

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 Grossetête, an
Englishman by birth, who had, however, 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.

60. LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. PLAN

61. LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. WEST FRONT

The lantern-tower at the intersection of the western transept, which had
fallen in 1235, was either rebuilt or finished by Bishop Grossetête about
1240. 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
characteristics 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 grace and strength of
French architecture, which may fitly be compared with gold, in its union of
the supple and the durable, of solidity and power of resistance equal to
those of the less precious metal, with an adaptability to artistic ends far
greater.

62. LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. TRANSEPT

63. LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. APSE AND CHAPTER-HOUSE

In the façade and the west towers English characteristics predominate,
but the choir and the apse 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 façades of Bourges.[14] All three
are veritable masterpieces, worthy of the most brilliant period of French
mediæval architecture.
[14] 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 1170 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.

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 of 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 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 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.

65. COLOGNE CATHEDRAL. SOUTH FRONT

"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 140 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 treatment of details."[15]
[15] W. Lübke, Essai d'Histoire de l'Art.

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 important Swedish building
which dates from the end of the thirteenth century. The Cathedral of Upsala
has this peculiarity, that it was designed and even begun by a French
architect, one Estienne de Bonneuil,
who, on 30th August 1287, received the royal authority to betake himself to
Upsala to construct the cathedral.[16]
[16] Charles Lucas, Les Architectes français à l'Étranger (from the journal,
L'Architecture).

In Spain the chief monuments of thirteenth-century Gothic architecture
which betray the influence 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 Léon, 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 openwork 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 characteristically Spanish in their use of motives
only to be explained by the vitality of the Saracenic traditions.

66. BURGOS CATHEDRAL. WEST FRONT

Innumerable churches were built in Italy during the so-called Gothic
period, principally towards its
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 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.

67. CATHEDRAL OR DUOMO OF SIENA. WEST FRONT

68. CHURCH OF ST. FRANCIS AT ASSISI. APSE AND
CLOISTERS

It is the opinion of some archæologists that the true parent of the
Cathedrals of Siena and Orvieto 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 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 characteristics 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.[17] 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.
[17] 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 religious monuments
been less rapid at this period, the wars which convulsed France in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries would have paralysed such undertakings 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, restoration, 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 tradition 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 during the wars, or had fallen into decay
through long neglect, consequent on the poverty of the community, were either rebuilt
or restored. The movement was, however, presently arrested by the 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."[18]
[18] Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire raisonné de l'Architecture française, etc., vol. i.

69. CHURCH OF ST. OUEN AT ROUEN. CENTRAL TOWER AND
APSE, SOUTH FRONT

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 disappear in the
fifteenth century. Thenceforward the lines of the intersecting arches of the vault, as of

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 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 remembered 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.[19]
[19] See chap. xii. "Decorative Painting on Walls and Glass."

It must be borne in mind that the great constructive 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 importance 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, resistance, or defiance. Their
conservatism is comprehensible enough in view of the strong Gallo-Roman tendencies
which governed architectural activity throughout the district. The builders of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries did indeed accept the Angevin intersecting arch, an
invention the admirable simplicity of which was its own recommendation. But this
concession was without prejudice 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.[20]
[20] L'Architecture Romane, by Ed. Corroyer; Paris, Maison Quantin, chaps. iii. and vii.

Towards the close of the thirteenth, and throughout 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
continuous 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 Lodève, Perpignan, Condom, Carcassonne,

Gaillac, Montpezat, Moissac, etc., were built in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
on the single-aisled plan. That of Perpignan has
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.

70. ALBI CATHEDRAL. PLAN

71. ALBI CATHEDRAL. SECTION OF THE NAVE

The Cathedral of Ste. Cécile at Albi is a monumental 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 exception 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.

72. ALBI CATHEDRAL. APSE

73. ALBI CATHEDRAL. DONJON TOWER AND SOUTH FRONT

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 main building was finished
towards the close of the fourteenth century, and the whole as it now stands was
completed in the last years of the fifteenth and early part of the sixteenth century, by
the addition of the baldacchino of the southern porch, or principal entrance, of the
stone rood loft, and choir 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 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 magnificence 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 military character of the architecture. The
formidable aspect of the building is much enhanced by the 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 their turn are carried on to ramparts,
crowning the escarpments which, to the north, rise from the Tarn.[21]
[21] See "Civil Architecture," Part IV. chap. ii.

A few fortified churches still exist—such, for example, 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 Béziers, Narbonne, and many others of the
thirteenth and fourteenth century had been surrounded by defensive outworks
rendered necessary by religious 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.

74. CHURCH OF ESNANDES (CHARENTE INFÉRIEURE). A
FORTIFIED CHURCH OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY

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 considerable that the choir
only was completed during the
first years of the sixteenth century.[22] 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 standing out from the main wall. But the mason's work is negligent,
especially in the flying buttresses, which were so carefully treated by the architects of
the thirteenth century. The lines are attenuated by a multiplicity of mouldings to an
almost threadlike slenderness; the spring of the arches is undefined by capitals, 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[23] save for the arcadings of the cloister, is very remarkable, as is also
the ornamental sculp
ture; this is executed with extreme skill, in spite of the excess of detail with which it is
loaded.
[22] Description de l'Abbaye du Mont St. Michel et des ses Abords, by Ed. Corroyer;
Paris, 1877.
[23] See Part II., "Monastic Architecture."

75. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. FLYING BUTTRESSES OF
THE CHOIR (LATE FIFTEENTH CENTURY). FROM A DRAWING

BY THE AUTHOR

76. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. PLAN OF THE CHOIR
ABOVE THE LOWER CHAPEL

77. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. DETAILS OF THE APSE
(LATE FIFTEENTH CENTURY)

The decadence of Gothic architecture was manifest 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 buildings
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
Alençon Cathedral is a typical example of this development, the defects of which
were still further accentuated in the following century.

78. ALENÇON CATHEDRAL. WEST FRONT (FIFTEENTH
CENTURY)

"The qualities of the architecture of the decadence 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."[24]
[24] Anthyme St. Paul, Histoire Monumentale de la France; Paris, 1884.

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 evident traces of their influence, which is further
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.

79. FAÇADE OF THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. SOPHIA AT NICOSIA (ISLAND OF CYPRUS)

"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 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 Syria. We shall find the movement which originated in the twelfth century
progressing throughout the following centuries on the same lines; in other words,
drawing a continuous inspiration from France.[25]
[25] Melchior de Vogüé, Les Églises de la Terre Sainte.

"The island of Cyprus was conquered in 1191 by Richard Cœur 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 1571. Throughout the thirteenth century Cyprus was a refuge
for successive remnants of the Christian colonies of Syria. French predominance 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
development of the art in Cyprus as in France Architects 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.

80. CATHEDRAL OF ST. NICHOLAS AT FAMAGUSTA (ISLAND OF
CYPRUS). FAÇADE

81. CATHEDRAL OF ST. NICHOLAS AT FAMAGUSTA (ISLAND OF CYPRUS)

"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."
[26]

[26] Melchior de Vogüé, Les Églises de la Terre Sainte.

The Churches of St. Catherine and of the Armenians, the mosques of Emerghié and
of Arab 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 81), with its three portals and two towers;
the Church of St. Sophia at Famagusta (Fig. 82), the Premonstrant Monastery of
Lapaïs, remarkable 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 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 forgotten 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."[27]
[27] Melchior de Vogüé, Les Églises de la Terre Sainte.

82. RUINS OF THE CHURCH OF ST. SOPHIA AT FAMAGUSTA (ISLAND OF CYPRUS)

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.[28]
[28] Encyclopédie de l'Architecture et de la Construction, article "Clocher,"
by Ed. Corroyer.

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 development 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 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, schilla, nola; in French sin, esquielle,
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,
clocher, beffroi (or the English tower, steeple, belfry). But the denomination
clocher has a general application to all pyramidal structures rising above the
roof of a church.
The belfry was a tower, in most cases isolated, which contained 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 in the near neighbourhood of 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.

83. STEEPLE, VENDÔME (TWELFTH CENTURY)

In France the term campanile has a more general application, and is given
to the little pierced arcaded turrets which, in many churches, crown the
walls of the façade and shelter small bells.

84. GIOTTO'S TOWER AT FLORENCE

The most ancient belfries of the original provinces of France have great
analogies with Byzantine monuments as to form, even when differing in
detail. One of the most remarkable of these is the tower of St. Front at
Périgueux, which seems to date from the first years of the eleventh century.
It marked the sepulchre of the Saint, and apparently embraced two bays of
the original three-aisled Latin church of the sixth century, evident 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 they rise, and crowned 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.[29]
[29] L' Architecture Romane, by Ed. Corroyer; Paris, Maison Quantin, 1887.

The influence of this remarkable building was very considerable. It
served as a model to architects of the neighbouring provinces. The type was
improved upon in the tower of the Abbey Church of Brantôme by the
avoidance of the false bearings which mar the structure of St. Front, while
at St. Léonard, 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.[30]
[30] Ibid. 1888.

It is worthy of note that, in spite of the importance 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 relation 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
connection with cathedrals and abbeys, and the importance of such as were
attached even to simple parish
churches may be explained if we consider them mainly as denoting the
status of an enfranchised commune. The rivalries in connection with
neighbouring towers undoubtedly had their origin in conditions such as
these.

85. BAYEUX CATHEDRAL. TOWERS OF THE WEST FRONT

86. SENLIS CATHEDRAL. SOUTH TOWER OF WEST FRONT

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. Benoît-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 façade, the gable of the nave rising between them.

At the Abbey Church of Jumiéges a large projecting 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 the spire, ensuring the
solidity of the angles by a variety of ingenious combinations.
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 structures, such as St. Georges, Bocherville,
Coutances, etc. Of all the French provinces Normandy clung most
persistently to the lantern tower, and that of St. Ouen at Rouen is one of the
most interesting examples.

87. SALISBURY CATHEDRAL. STEEPLE

88. CHURCH OF LANGRUNE (CALVADOS). STEEPLE

In other provinces, notably Picardy, Champagne, Burgundy, and the Ile-
de-France, lantern towers were superseded by timber flèches cased in lead,
which rose at the intersection of the roofs of nave and transepts.
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. Trinité at Vendôme, and of Bayeux; those of the
Abbaye-aux-Hommes at Caen; the old tower of the Cathedral of Chartres,
and that of St. Eusèbe at Auxerre.

In the thirteenth century the height and decorative 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. Père, near Vézelay, 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.

89. CHURCH OF THE JACOBINS AT TOULOUSE. TOWER

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
façade; their actual functions as belfries became apparent only above the
level of the vaults. A beautiful example of this 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 openwork

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 façade; 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 important pinnacles.
Rheims may be said to mark in Gothic architecture 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 lightness of design. The points of
support were attenuated, 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
remained unfinished till the fifteenth and sixteenth, when Gothic art was in
full decadence.

90. CHURCH OF ST. PIERRE AT CAEN. TOWER

But we must not pass over unmentioned certain buildings famous for
boldness of construction and magnificence of decoration, 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 Norman edifices; and the tower of St. Michel
at Bordeaux, the spire of which was destroyed by a hurricane in 1768, and
has lately been restored to its primitive height of 365 feet; in Austria the
tower of St. Stephen, one of the most important of such buildings in that

country, finished in 1433; the tower of the Cathedral of Freiburg-im-
Breisgau (grand-duchy of Baden), one of the most beautiful and important
examples. It was mainly constructed towards the close of the fourteenth
century, but the openwork spire was added about the middle of the
following century.

91. CHURCH OF ST. MICHEL AT BORDEAUX. TOWER

The Cathedral of Antwerp in Belgium was begun in the middle of the
fourteenth century; the nave and the four side aisles were not completed till
a century later. The façade 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 completed in 1518. Its principal merit lies in its
boldness of construction and its unusual height of 410 feet, rather than in
purity of style or beauty of detail, the latter being a conglomerate made up
from every period of Gothic.

92. CATHEDRAL OF FREIBURG-IM-BREISGAU (GRAND-
DUCHY OF BADEN). TOWER

Choirs.—In Christian churches the choir[31] proper was an institution
long before the chapels.[32]
[31] L' Architecture Romane, by Ed. Corroyer; Paris, Maison Quantin, 1888.

[32] Encyclopédie de l'Architecture et de la Construction, article "Chœur-
Chapelle," by Ed. Corroyer.

93. ANTWERP CATHEDRAL

At the extremity of the basilica, in the centre of the chalcidium or
transept which gave to the basilican plan the form of a T or Tau—a figure
venerated by the Christians as symbolising the Cross—were placed the
altar, the
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 mediæval 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 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 examples of churches with two 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
considerable 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 jubé, 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 construction 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 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 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 consequence, to a
considerable augmentation of disposable surfaces in the interior. These
surfaces, mere curtains between the points of support, were ornamented
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 consequence 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 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
considerably 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 à 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 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.[33]
[33] L'Architecture Romane, by Ed. Corroyer; Paris, Maison Quantin, 1888.

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. Archæologists 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 Cœur's hôtel 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 Chapelle[34] was applied in the 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.
[34] 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.

The distinguishing feature of the Ste. Chapelle of Paris is its division into
two stories—the upper chapel, which communicated with the royal
apartments, and the lower chapel on the ground floor, which may have been
open to the public. Its construction is remarkable no less for the happy
boldness 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 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 independent 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 Prés; the plan of the vaults differs here
from that of the Ste. Chapelle of the palace. According to a drawing by
Alexander 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 Châalis, near Senlis, founded by Louis the Fat in 1136,
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 l'Abbé. 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
manifestations of the thirteenth century, and each followed the same path to decadence
less than two centuries later.
Statuary and ornamental sculpture were inseparable, being executed by the same
artists in pursuance of the same idea: the study of nature.
In obedience to the law of increasing development 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.
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

95. RHEIMS CATHEDRAL. STATUES OF WEST FRONT

96. RHEIMS CATHEDRAL. STATUES OF WEST FRONT

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 convention in statuary and sculptured
ornament which

had prevailed throughout the preceding century, in favour of the more ancient Roman
tradition. In this one respect they made a salutary return upon those antique principles
which they afterwards definitively abandoned.

97. RHEIMS CATHEDRAL. INTERIOR OF PRINCIPAL DOOR.
STATUE AND ORNAMENT

98. RHEIMS CATHEDRAL. INTERIOR OF PRINCIPAL DOOR.
STATUE AND ORNAMENT

The influence of Roman art upon French mediæval sculpture is unquestionable. Its
course may be traced through the relations existing between North and South long
before the Crusades, principally by means of the great religious communities, 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 survived
the incursions of the barbarians.
The origin of ornamental sculpture is no less venerable. Superficially, it would
seem to have drawn its inspiration mainly from the Romanesque epoch; but according
to modern savants[35] its source must be looked for in much remoter periods. Oriental
art, imported into Scandinavia, and there barbarised, 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 Renascence of the days of Charlemagne,

created, or at any rate greatly influenced Carlovingian art by their manuscripts and
miniatures. From Carlovingian art that of the so-called Romanesque period was born,
and this was in its turn the parent of the ornamental sculpture of the thirteenth century.
In the admirably decorative character of this art we recognise the influence of an
ancient tradition handed on from generation to 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.
[35] M. A. de Montaiglon, Professor at the École des Chartes.

The architects of the Ile-de-France, like those of Rheims, assimilated the principles
of the new art with the supple skill which characterised them, such assimilation
bearing rich fruit at Notre Dame de Paris in the sculptured figures of the west porch,
and no less in their accessory ornaments.

99. NOTRE DAME DE PARIS. PRINCIPAL DOOR. RUNNING LEAF PATTERN

100. NOTRE DAME DE PARIS. RUNNING LEAF PATTERN ON
ARCHIVOLTS OF NORTH DOOR

A most instructive comparative study is furnished by the north and south porches of
Chartres Cathedral. Here we find, in one building, examples of sculptures inspired by
the hieratic tradition of Byzantium, and of those which had been transformed and
naturalised by a return to antique ideals.

101. CHARTRES CATHEDRAL. STATUES OF THE NORTH
PORCH

At Amiens again certain of the sculptures were influenced by the new principles.
But in the greater part there is a prodigality of motive and looseness of execution
which indicate decline no less surely than the mistaken ingenuity of the structural
details.

102. CHARTRES CATHEDRAL. STATUES OF THE SOUTH
PORCH

Mediæval sculpture followed the fortunes of architecture, 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 days, but rapidly losing touch with the antique ideal, it lost measure
and proportion in its development. The wise laws of simplicity, essential to
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. "Sculpture was at its zenith. We are astounded
by the activity and fertility of thirteenth-century artists, who peopled façades and
embrasures with figures from seven to ten feet in height, and animated every
tympanum with countless statuettes. The façade of Notre Dame, by no means one of
the richest, has 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 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 amazing vigour and
originality."

103. AMIENS CATHEDRAL. CENTRAL PORCH OF WEST FRONT

104. AMIENS CATHEDRAL. STATUES IN THE SOUTH PORCH

105. AMIENS CATHEDRAL. CHOIR STALLS. CARVED ORNAMENT

The favourite themes of the thirteenth century had something in common with those
of the Romanesque epoch, though there is a sensible difference of treatment and
considerable progress in composition, which exhibited more of taste and learning and
less of eccentricity. But the satiric power and delight in caricature of our forefathers
still demanded an outlet. These found expression in many a caustic gibe at clergy,
princes, and rich burghers, and took substance in many a quaint gargoyle. A luxuriant
system of 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 by its introduction to complete the decorative effect.
Or such a system of decoration was the only sculpturesque motive employed; it was
then used with the utmost elaboration, and developed at the expense of statuary. Such
was the case in Burgundy and Normandy, in which provinces the latter art was of slow

growth. The Byzantine character of the scrolls, carved bands, and fantastic foliage of
Romanesque art disappeared; ornament took on a new independence, and began to
seek its types among native plant forms.
The carved leafage (Fig. 106) of the cloister arcades in the Abbey of Mont St.
Michel strikingly illustrate this departure. The very plants which inspired the
thirteenth-century sculptors still flourish at the foot of the ancient abbey walls.

106. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. CLOISTERS OF THE
THIRTEENTH CENTURY. CARVED ORNAMENT OF INTERIOR
SPANDRILS

107. WOODEN STATUETTE (HEIGHT 23⅝ IN.) THIRTEENTH
CENTURY. ATELIERS DE LA CHAISE DIEU, AUVERGNE

108. IVORY STATUETTE (HEIGHT 9⅞ IN.) THIRTEENTH
CENTURY. SCHOOL OF PARIS

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 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that the imitation of natural
forms became servile, tedious, and over-minute, and that the beauty of the whole was
sacrificed to exaggerated faithfulness of detail.[36]
[36] Anthyme St. Paul, Histoire Monumentale de la France; Paris, Hachette and Co.,
1884.

108A. IVORY STATUETTE (HEIGHT 9½ IN.) FIFTEENTH
CENTURY. SCHOOL OF PARIS

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. 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 to the severely paternal regulations of the
maîtrise, 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
but the most famous, testify to the vigorous talent of the fourteenth and fifteenth-
century image-carvers.

109. WOODEN STATUETTE (HEIGHT 10 IN.) FOURTEENTH
CENTURY. SCHOOL OF PARIS

110. IVORY DIPTYCH (HEIGHT 6⅜ IN.) FOURTEENTH CENTURY. SCHOOL OF PARIS

110A. IVORY DIPTYCH (HEIGHT 2¾ IN.) FOURTEENTH CENTURY. SCHOOL OF THE ILE-DE-
FRANCE

111. IVORY DIPTYCH (HEIGHT 4¾ IN.) FOURTEENTH CENTURY. SCHOOL OF PARIS

Flemish ateliers, which were kept up by the severe rules of the guilds, exercised a
salutary influence upon the Burgundian craftsmen. This is more especially true of the
great workshops of Antwerp and of Brussels, and perhaps also of those of Southern
Germany. Burgundian influences reacted in their turn upon the artists of the Ile-de-
France, notably in Paris (that brilliant centre of all artistic activities in 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
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 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.

111A. IVORY PLAQUE (HEIGHT 611/16 IN.) COVER OF AN
EVANGELIUM. FOURTEENTH CENTURY. SCHOOL OF THE ILE-
DE-FRANCE (SOISSONS)

112. HEAD IN SILVER GILT REPOUSSÉ. HALF-LIFE SIZE.
THIRTEENTH CENTURY. ATELIERS OF THE GOLDSMITH'S GUILD
OF PARIS

113. GROUP CARVED IN WOOD (HEIGHT 10¼ IN.) FIFTEENTH
CENTURY. SCHOOL OF ANTWERP

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 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 by iconographic convention that a certain
hieratic sentiment is perceptible in their works; but this is never allowed to outweigh
fitness of action and 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.[37]
[37] The statuettes, diptychs, etc., in wood, ivory, and vermeil, or silver-gilt, figured
from No. 107 to No. 115, belong to the author.

114. WOODEN STATUETTE, PAINTED AND GILDED (HEIGHT
1911/16 IN.) FIFTEENTH CENTURY. SCHOOL OF BRUSSELS

115. WOODEN STATUETTE, PAINTED AND GILDED (HEIGHT
1911/16 IN.) SIXTEENTH CENTURY. SCHOOL OF MUNICH

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 maîtrises,
institutions which only require a certain modification by the progressive leaven of
today, to become models for the imitation of all whose function it is to develop
national art.

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 painting 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 Græco-
Byzantine teachings."[38]
[38] Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire raisonné, vol. vii.

From the archæological 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.

116. PAINTINGS IN CAHORS CATHEDRAL. HORIZONTAL PROJECTION OF
THE CUPOLA WITH FORESHORTENED FIGURES AND THEIR
ARCHITECTURAL FRAMEWORK

Towards the close of the twelfth century sculpture and painting alike
entered on a new phase, resulting from that process of architectural
evolution we have been considering. The hieratic tradition was set aside for
the direct teaching and inspiration of nature. But as the mastery of the
painter increased, the mural spaces available for the application of his new
methods diminished rapidly, till, by the thirteenth century, the only wall
surfaces left to him were those beneath the windows, and some few

triangular spaces in the vault, where the interlacing network of arches
became gradually closer and closer. Finding themselves thus practically
excluded 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 (Périgueux) 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).

117. PAINTING IN CAHORS CATHEDRAL. FRAGMENT OF ONE
OF THE EIGHT SECTORS OF THE CUPOLA. THE PROPHET
EZEKIEL

Thanks to a discovery of mural paintings made in the Cathedral of
Cahors in 1890, of the greatest archæological importance, we are able to
verify these statements.
During the progress of certain works undertaken for the preservation of
the two domes, some paintings 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
divided by its pictorial scheme into eight sectors, separated by wide bands
of boldly-designed fruits and flowers. Fig. 116 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 the figures of the
circular frieze, where the hands have evidently been carefully studied from
nature.

118. PAINTINGS IN CAHORS CATHEDRAL. FRAGMENT OF THE CENTRAL FRIEZE OF
THE CUPOLA

Technically speaking, these paintings are not frescoes. "The medium
employed seems to have been egg, the white and yolk mixed, and the
method 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 command. 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
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."[39]
[39] From the technical notes of M. Gaïda.

According to the archæological 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 Raymond de Cornil,
1280-93, Sicard de Montaigu, 1294-1300, Raymond Panchelli,[40] 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 question of decorative works, the successors
of these bishops being fully occupied in maintaining the struggle against the
English invaders.
[40] Raymond Panchelli, or Raymond II., who in 1303 began to build the
Bridge of Valentré at Cahors.

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. 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 masterpieces 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 archæological value of
these convincing witnesses to the genius of our French mediæval painters.
The mural spaces available for fresco decoration having been gradually
suppressed, and decorative painting limited to the illumination of certain
subordinate members of the structure, the mediæval 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.

119, 120. PAINTED WINDOWS OF THE EARLY TWELFTH
CENTURY. FROM ST. RÉMI AT RHEIMS[41]
[41] Drawings lent by M. Ed. Didron, painter upon glass.

"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
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 execution, and an avoidance of naturalistic imitation. It should

aim neither at illusion nor perspective. Its scheme of colour should be frank,
energetic, comprising few tints, yet producing a harmony at once
sumptuous and soothing, which should compel attention, but seeks not to
engross it to the detriment of the setting. Like a mural mosaic, an Eastern
carpet, or the enamelled goldsmith's work of the twelfth and thirteenth
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 natural phenomena. Between
painted windows and pictures a great gulf is fixed; and the modern school,
the heir of the Italian Renascence, seeking to bridge it over, has seduced
decorative art from the safe paths of sound judgment."[42]
[42] Le Vitrail à l'Exposition de 1889, by Ed. Didron; Paris, 1890.

121. PAINTED WINDOW OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY.
CHURCH OF BONLIEU (CREUSE)

122. PAINTED WINDOW OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. CHARTRES
CATHEDRAL

The true functions of stained glass were never more admirably
understood than in the twelfth 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
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. When, in the thirteenth century, the

extreme austerity of religious buildings began to relax, the splendour of the
painted windows increased proportionately; but the coloration, though it
increased in glow and vigour, still preserved its complete harmony with its
surroundings. An additional richness 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 revolution 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.

123. PAINTED WINDOW OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. CHARTRES
CATHEDRAL

124. PAINTED WINDOW OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.
CHURCH OF ST. GERMER, TROYES

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 mediæval art. The transformation 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
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 camaïeu 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 eventually suppressed altogether.

125. PAINTED WINDOWS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
CHURCH OF ST. URBAIN AT TROYES

In the sixteenth century painted glass became to a certain extent
translucent pictures, in which architectural fitness was no longer respected.
Composition lost its simplicity. A subject spread from panel to panel,
regardless of the intervening tracery. Nevertheless, we forget the defects of
this luxuriant development, and cease to wonder at its popularity, in view of
that broad and vigorous execution and beauty of colour which give it a
special decorative value of its own.

126. PAINTED GLASS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. HEAD
OF ST. PETER. CATHEDRAL OF CHÂLONS-SUR-MARNE

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

characteristically displayed, and though the process is more specially
applicable to the ornamentation of goldsmith's work than to the decoration
of large surfaces, it is one of the most brilliant and exquisite of the auxiliary
arts.

127. PAINTED WINDOW OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
ÉVREUX CATHEDRAL

The earliest enamels are champlevé and cloisonné. By the champlevé
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 cloisonné, cloisons, or slender walls of metal were fixed upon the field
to separate flesh from draperies, and one tint generally from another. The
background, the cloisons, and the flesh were gilt and burnished; details
were defined by engraved lines, so that the draperies only were enamelled.

128. ENAMEL OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY. PLAQUE COVER
OF A MS. HEIGHT 4¾ IN., WIDTH 29/16 IN.

Fig. 128 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 vertically superposed, which
read downwards.
From the beginning of the thirteenth century enamels were executed by
the process known as taille d'épargne. 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 épargnés (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 attendant 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.

129. ENAMEL OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. PLAQUE COVER OF AN
EVANGELIUM. HEIGHT 72/16 IN., WIDTH 611/16 IN.

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
martyrdom of Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, the upper part
his apotheosis. It is crowned by a ridge roof of two sides.

130. ENAMEL OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY. RELIQUARY
SHRINE OF ST. THOMAS À BECKET

As is well known, Thomas à Becket was canonised two years after his
tragic death, which had 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.
In the details of the draperies and hands of those portions of Fig. 129
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 in Italy, and was commonly employed in France,
and
even in Germany throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, more
especially the latter. These enamels could only be executed on gold and
silver. 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; the pieces were
consequently very costly, and the demand for them proportionately
restricted.

131. ENAMEL OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. OUR LADY OF
SORROWS

The enamellers of the sixteenth century, especially 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 simplification 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 offshoots 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 way 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 Thebaïd;
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 themselves 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.[43] The
architectural evolutions and transformations which succeeded each other in
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries manifested themselves in both. Like the
cathedrals, the abbey churches were the creation of monkish architects, and
were carried out either under their immediate direction or that of their
pupils.
[43] See Part I., "Religious Architecture."

But a kindred field of study offers itself in the
abbeys themselves, their organisation and adaptation to the domestic needs
of their be-frocked inmates.

132. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. CLOISTER (THIRTEENTH CENTURY. FROM
A DRAWING BY ED. CORROYER)

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 religious 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 Lérins, 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 cultivation of the sciences
and arts, more especially architecture, in accordance with the immutable
laws of development and progress.
Lérins.—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 375-390
A.D. The members of the budding community 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 Lérins soon took rank as a school of theology, a
seminary or nursery whence the mediæval church chose the bishops and
abbots best fitted to govern her.
The school of Lérins was so esteemed for learning that it took an active
part in the great Pelagian controversy which agitated Christendom at the
time,[44] and zealously advocated the doctrines of semi-pelagianism, but
this tendency was finally subdued by St. Vincent of Lérins, whose ideas
were more orthodox. The theological teaching of Lérins seems to have
dominated, or at least to have directed religious opinion in Gaul down to the
sixth century.
[44] 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-pelagianism taught that man may begin the
work of his own amelioration, but cannot complete it without Divine help.

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 Charlemagne, 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 Besançon, 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 Lérins, 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 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
confraternity 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 Ligujé, and later of that of Marmoutier, 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 re-named St. Germain-
des-Près—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, architecture 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 admirable 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 generations, 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."[45]
[45] Albert Lenoir, L'Architecture Monastique; Paris, 1856.

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 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 monasteries were founded in
all the countries which made up his dominions. Charlemagne himself had
greatly contributed to the development of religious institutions 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.
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 contemporary 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-house, 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 provided for strangers; the storerooms were
connected with stables, cattle-stalls, and various outdoor 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
disturbance 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
characteristic 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 dependencies—is
most instructive. It fills us with admiration for the learning and judgment of
the monkish builders who, accepting the limitations imposed by climate,
locality, material, the numbers of their inmates, 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 had been subjected under those various influences
which manifested themselves in the glorious monuments 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 disregard the progress of their
contemporaries, and they promptly applied the new principles to the
construction or embellishment of their monasteries.

133. ABBEY OF CLUNY. GATEWAY

The Abbey of Cluny was founded in 909 by William, Duke of Aquitaine,
and declared independent by Pope John XI., 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
beginning 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 beginning 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 expansion 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 ignorance was in progress, a
social revolution had accomplished 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.
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 undertook 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.

134. ABBEY OF CLUNY. PLAN

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, an open space between two square towers. The
northern tower was built to receive the archives; that 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 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 reserved 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 Vézelay, one of the dependencies of Cluny, the Galilee,
which is found in all Benedictine abbeys, was built with aisles and towers on
the same scale as an ordinary church. It communicated 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.

135. ABBEY OF CLUNY. INTERIOR OF NARTHEX, WITH DOOR
LEADING INTO ABBEY CHURCH

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, 110 feet long and wider
than the first. The basilica, 110 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
placed immediately beyond the second transept at G, and the retro-choir and
altar at H. The choir, 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 1112, restored order for a
time, and established a chapter general, consisting of two hundred priors 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-Près,
St. Denis, St. Martin, Vendôme, 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 felt even in religious worship, and in the buildings
consecrated thereto."[46]
[46] Anthyme St. Paul, Histoire Monumentale de la France.

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 freestone, but without any sort of
extraneous ornament; the only towers allowed were small belfries,
sometimes of stone, but more usually of wood."[47]
[47] Ibid.

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
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 foundation. 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 religious 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.

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
archæological 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 monasteries had been built throughout
Western Europe by monks of various orders, in imitation of the great monastic schools
of Lérins, Ireland, and Monte Casino. Among the famous abbeys of this period may
be mentioned "Vézelay and Fécamp, 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. Étienne, at Caen; St. Pierre-sur-Dives,
Le Bec, Conches, Cerisy-la-Forêt,[48] and Lessay, in Normandy; La Trinité, at
Vendôme; Beaulieu, near Loches; Montierneuf, at Poitiers, etc."[49]
[48] L'Architecture Romane, by Ed. Corroyer, chap. iii. part ii.
[49] Anthyme St. Paul, Histoire Monumentale de la France.

The Abbeys of Fulda, 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 Bec, in Normandy. A large
number of monasteries were
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.

136. ABBEY OF ST. ÉTIENNE AT CAEN. FAÇADE

The mother abbey of Citeaux gave birth to four daughters—Clairvaux, Pontigny,
Morimond, and La Ferté.
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 embodiment of
mediæval 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 theological controversies of his century at
the Council of Sens in 1140, and in successful polemical disputations with Abélard,
the famous advocate of free will, and other heterodox philosophers who heralded the
Reformation of the sixteenth century. Somewhat 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 Manichæan 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 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.

137. ST. ALBAN'S ABBEY (ENGLAND)

138. ABBEY OF MONTMAJOUR (PROVENCE). CLOISTERS

During his lifetime the poor hermitage of the Vallée d'Absinthe (which name he
changed to Claire-Vallée, Clairvaux) had become a vast feudal settlement 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, Clairvaux was supreme over a hundred and sixty monasteries
in France and abroad. Fifty years after the death of St. Bernard the importance of the
order
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 dwellings adorned with paintings, and
boasting oratories which, as at Chaâlis, 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.

139. CHURCH AT ELNE IN ROUSSILLON. CLOISTERS

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, became in their turn vaster, richer, and more
sumptuous than those the magnificence of which they existed to rebuke. With this
difference, however: the ruin brought about by the luxury of the Cistercian
establishment was so complete that nothing of their innumerable monasteries was
spared by social revolution but a few archæologic fragments and historic memories.

140. ABBEY OF FONTFROIDE (LANGUEDOC). CLOISTERS

The influence of the Cistercian foundation extended 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 architectural
detail of the Abbey of Monreale; and in Germany, in the foundation of such abbeys as
those of Altenberg in Westphalia, and Maulbronn in 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 Revolution, 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 refectory, the chapter-house, the cellars, the storerooms, 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 manifestly even than Altenberg
does the Abbey of Maulbronn prove that simplicity marked the proceedings 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 Chaâlis, 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 Sénanque, Silvacane,
Thoronet, and Montmajour, near Arles, 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 Perche; Breuil-
Benoît, Mortemer, and Bonport, in Normandy; Boschaud, in Périgord; l'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 beginning 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
1119 by St. Norbert at Prémontré, near Coucy."[50]
[50] Anthyme St. Paul, Histoire Monumentale de la France.

To this order the monastery of St. Martin at Laon, and others in Champagne, Artois,
Brittany, and Normandy owed their origin.

142. ABBEY OF FONTEVRAULT. KITCHEN

143. CATHEDRAL OF PUY-EN-VELAY. CLOISTERS

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 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.
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, Arles, 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

reputation 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 reconstructed 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 architectural
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 orders,
such as the Augustinians and Carmelites, by way of balancing the power of the
Clunisians and Cistercians.

144. ABBEY OF LA CHAISE DIEU (AUVERGNE). CLOISTERS

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 monks of the
Dominican order,—and here they built in 1221 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 arrangement of the abbeys diverges more
and more from 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 architecture 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 contemporaneously 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 Benedictines 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 something 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 lodging, the
hostelry for guests and pilgrims, the laundry, the bakehouse, the cattle sheds,
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 Carthusian 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.
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'Encyclopédie de
l'Architecture et de la Construction, gives an exact idea of the monastery. Some of the

cells are still intact, also the refectory, and certain other portions of the primitive
structure.

145. CHARTREUSE OF VILLEFRANCHE DE ROUERGUE. PLAN

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 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 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 greatly, and became one of the
most famous of the order. It was in the lesser cloister of this monastery that the artist

Eustache Le Sueur painted his famous frescoes from the life of St. Bruno in the
beginning of the seventeenth century.

146. CHARTREUSE OF VILLEFRANCHE DE ROUERGUE. BIRD'S-EYE
VIEW

147. GRANDE CHARTREUSE. THE GREAT CLOISTER

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.

148. GRANDE CHARTREUSE. GENERAL VIEW

The French Carthusian monasteries of greatest 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 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.[51]
[51] See Part I., "Sculpture."

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.

CHAPTER IV
FORTIFIED ABBEYS

The monasteries built throughout the twelfth century 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 monasteries 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.[52]
[52] See Part III., "Military Architecture," Abbey of Mont St. Michel.

The Abbey of Tournus was, like Cluny, surrounded 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.

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 Tour Claudine. Ramparts. B.
Barbican. Entrance to the abbey. B′. Ruin of the stairway known as the
Grand Degré. 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 Merveille. J,
K. Almonry, cellar (of the Merveille). L. Formerly the abbatial buildings.
M. Gallery or crypt known as the Galerie de l'Aquilon (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.

151. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. PLAN AT THE LEVEL OF
THE LOWER CHURCH, THE REFECTORY, AND THE CHAPTER-
HOUSE, OR KNIGHTS' HALL.
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 ambulatory. G. Passage communicating with the
hostelry. H, I. Hostelry and offices (Robert de Thorigni). J. Chapel of
hostelry (St. Étienne). K, K′, L, M. Refectory. 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 connecting 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.

The Abbey of Mont St. Michel was founded in 708 by St. Aubert, according to
tradition. At the

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.[53] In the twelfth century they consisted of the church, which was built
between 1020 and 1135[54] and the monastic buildings proper (lieux réguliers), 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 1154 to 1186.
The monastery was not then fortified.
[53] Description de l'Abbaye du Mont St. Michel, by Ed. Corroyer; Paris, 1877. This
work was crowned by the Institute in 1879, at the Concours des Antiquités Nationales.
[54] See L'Architecture Romane, by Ed. Corroyer; Paris, Maison Quantin, 1888.

152. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. PLAN AT THE LEVEL OF
THE UPPER CHURCH, THE CLOISTERS, AND THE DORMITORY
Key to Plan.—A, 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, Merveille). N. Abbot's lodging. O. Accommodation for guests. P.
Courtyard of the Merveille. P´. Terrace of the apse. Q. Courtyard of the
church and great staircase.

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 mediæval name, Le Mont St. Michel au Péril 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 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 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 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 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 buildings which
gradually grouped themselves round this nucleus, such as the so-called Merveille
(Marvel) to the north, and the abbot's lodging to the south.

153. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. TRANSVERSE SECTION, FROM NORTH TO SOUTH[55]
[55] Description de l'Abbaye du Mont St. Michel et de ses Abords, by Ed. Corroyer;
Paris, 1877.

154. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. LONGITUDINAL SECTION, FROM WEST TO EAST

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 Romanesque
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. 155 shows the so-called Galerie de l'Aquilon (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).

155. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. GALERIE DE L'AQUILON
(GALLERY OF THE NORTH WIND)

156. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL, NORTH FRONT. GENERAL VIEW FROM THE SEA

157. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. THE ALMONRY.
PERSPECTIVE VIEW LOOKING WEST. THE CELLAR BEYOND

After the fire of 1203, when the abbey had become a feof of the royal domain, the
Abbot

Jourdain and his successors rebuilt it almost entirely, with the exception of the church.
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
church, the lieux réguliers, or accommodation reserved for the monks, were disposed
above the magnificent building to the north of the church, which, from the time of its
foundation, was known as La Merveille (the Marvel).

158. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. NAMES OF THE
ARCHITECTS OR SCULPTORS OF THE CHOIR

159. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. CELLAR. PERSPECTIVE
VIEW FROM WEST TO EAST. THE ALMONRY BEYOND

This vast structure fairly takes rank as the grandest example of combined religious
and military architecture of the finest mediæval period.
The Merveille consists of three stories, two of which are vaulted. The lowest
contains the almonry 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 superposed as follows:—In the east wing the
almonry, the refectory, and the dormitory; in the west the cellar, the knights' hall, and
the cloister.[56]
[56] Description de l'Abbaye du Mont St. Michel et de ses Abords, by Ed. Corroyer;
Paris, 1877.

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 Abbé 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.

160. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. REFECTORY

161. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. CHAPTER-HOUSE, CALLED
THE HALL OF THE KNIGHTS

To fully appreciate this stupendous monument, we must realise the extraordinary
energy which enabled its architects to complete it in the comparatively 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 transporting 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 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 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 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, sections, and

façades of the buildings is convincing on this head, and the general arrangements,
notably that of the staircase, all point to the same conclusion. 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.

162. ST. MICHAEL'S MOUNT, CORNWALL

The eastern and northern façades of the Merveille are models of severe and virile
beauty; a massive 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 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 façades were practically fortifications, 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 châtelet, 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 Degré
(passage of the stairway).
The various buildings of the abbey which were added in the fourteenth century,
after the construction 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 gradually 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 department 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 calculations as in our own time. The system by which the architect and
the engineer have each 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 himself
traced the diagrams of his conceptions, and directed the execution of every detail, careful alike of stability and
beauty.

163. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. GATE-HOUSE

It is a curious and disheartening phenomenon that such a direct contravention of the principles of mediæval 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 individuality 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."[57]
[57] "L'Art à l'Exposition," L'Architecture, by Ed. Corroyer; Paris. L'Illustration, for 25th May 1889.

The one preoccupation of the modern engineer seems to be the satisfaction of imperious necessity. He is
inclined to neglect all that mathematics cannot give him. And yet he has brought about a very sensible progress by
his mathematical application of modern science. He has unquestionably excelled in industrial masterpieces
perfectly adapted to the needs of the moment, if wanting in the 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 ingénieur (engineer) is a totally mistaken one. It is
derived from the mediæval 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 engigneur 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 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 defender. It was not until the time of Vauban
that military engineers were called upon to exercise functions so much more extensive. At an earlier 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.

164. CITY OF CARCASSONNE. RAMPARTS TO THE SOUTH-EAST

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
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 that beyond the
walls, and is almost on a level with the rampart. The curtains[58] 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."[59] The flanking towers which rise

considerably above the curtains were so disposed that it was possible to isolate them from the walls by raising
drawbridges. Thus each tower formed an independent stronghold against assailants.
[58] The wall space between the towers.
[59] Viollet-le-Duc, La Cité de Carcassonne.

Fig. 165 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.

165. CITY OF CARCASSONNE. NORTH-WEST RAMPARTS. ROMANO-VISIGOTHIC TOWER (FIRST
ON THE LEFT)

In accordance with the Roman tradition the enceinte of a town, formed, as we have seen, of ramparts
strengthened by towers, were further defended by a citadel or keep, of which we shall have more to say in the
following chapter. This keep commanded 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 tête 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 monastic 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 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 Palmarée. 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
assimilated 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 Frankish 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 intervening curtains are
crowned with battlements in the French fashion. Other features subsequently introduced 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 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.

166. FORTRESS OF KALAAT-EL-HOSN IN SYRIA (KRAK OF THE KNIGHTS). SECTION, AS
RESTORED BY M. G. REY

166A. FORTRESS DE KALAAT-EL-HOSN IN SYRIA (KRAK OF THE KNIGHTS). AS RESTORED BY M.
G. REY

The buildings of the second class belong to the school of the Knights Templars. Their characteristic features are
the towers, invariably square or oblong in shape, and projecting but slightly from the curtains. The fortress of
Kalaat-el-Hosn,[60] or Krak of the knights, commanded the pass through which ran the roads from Homs and
Hamah to Tripoli and Tortosa, and was a military station of the first importance. Together with the castles of
Akkar, Arcos, La Colée, 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 greater part of Syria.... The Krak, 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 commands its defences. It also encompasses the various

dependencies of the castle, the great hall, chapel, domestic buildings, and magazines. A long vaulted 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.
[60] Étude sur les Monuments de l'Architecture Militaire des croisés en Syrie, by G. Rey; Paris, 1871.

167. CITY OF CARCASSONNE. PLAN (THIRTEENTH CENTURY)

The action of the East upon the West was 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 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 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 Cité de Carcassonne.

168. CITY OF CARCASSONNE. RAMPARTS. SOUTH-WEST ANGLE

The primary object of the enceinte was to secure the place against a sudden attack during the completion or
enlargement of its interior defences. The additions of St. Louis, which were carried on by Philip the Bold, rendered
Carcassonne impregnable 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."[61]
[61] Viollet-le-Duc, La Cité de Carcassonne.

169. RAMPARTS OF AIGUES-MORTES, NORTH AND SOUTH

Oriental influences are equally evident at Aigues-Mortes. The Genoese Guglielmo Boccanera, who constructed
the enceinte, was apparently familiar with 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 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 adjoining; 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 fourteenth century, seem to have been constructed on Italian
methods. The curtains are flanked by square towers, open towards the town, and surmounted 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 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
machicolations, as shown at B, consisting of corbels, supporting an embattled 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.

170A. MACHICOLATIONS

"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 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."[62]
[62] Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire, vol. i.

In the Abbey of Mont St. Michel the successive modifications applied to military enceintes from the thirteenth
to the fifteenth century, are illustrated in the fullest and most interesting manner.

171. RAMPARTS OF ST. MALO (FIFTEENTH CENTURY)

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 machicolations, 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,
judging from the miniatures in the livre d'heures of Pierre II., Duke of Brittany, which show the arrangement 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 (merveille), 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. 151), 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:—[63]
[63] Ed. Corroyer, Description de l'Abbaye du Mont St. Michel et de ses Abords.

"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 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 façade 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 châtelet 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 Degré) 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 communicated
with the Grand Degré, and by a series of ingenious and unique combinations was so contrived as to command all
the approaches.[64]
[64] Ed. Corroyer, Description de l'Abbaye du Mont St. Michel, etc.; Paris, 1877.

172. MONT ST. MICHEL. SOUTH FRONT (AS IT WAS IN 1875)

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 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. Lô.

173. MONT ST. MICHEL. FORTIFICATIONS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY (AS RESTORED BY ED.
CORROYER)

At the time when Robert Jolivet was building
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
escarpments of the cliff, descend to the beach, and are protected by the northern tower. These walls he flanked with
an additional tower projecting considerably 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 Roi, forms the south-eastern
projection 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 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 replaced by epaulments. Machicolations which were now merely a traditional decoration at last
disappeared 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 mediæval period seem to have been built for the
purpose of arresting invasion and affording shelter to communities decimated by the
raids of the Normans. They consisted of simple intrenchments more or less extensive.
Surrounded by a fossé or ditch formed of earthworks, 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 prætorium.
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 mediæval architecture, notably during
the Gothic period.

174. CASTLE OF ANGERS

Defensive works of this nature sprang up at various points of the royal domain
which were exposed to the incursions of the Scandinavian pirates; 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
turned their attention to the maintenance of their usurpations alike against the kings of
France, strangers, and neighbours. To this end they carefully chose the best strategic
positions in their territories, 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."[65] Stone castles were accordingly built which, in general
arrangement, adhered to primitive models. In 980 Frotaire had raised no less than five
around Périgueux, his episcopal town.
[65] Anthyme St. Paul, Histoire Monumentale de la France.

In 991 Thibault File-Étoupe built a fortress on the hill of Montlhéry, near the royal
residences of Paris and Étampes, which was very formidable to the first five kings of
the house of Capet. Later, when it became a royal possession, it was one of the chief
bulwarks of the city.

175. CARCASSONNE; CITADEL. VIEW FROM THE NORTH-EASTERN ANGLE. (SEE PLAN, FIG. 167)

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 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 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.

176. LOCHES CASTLE. KEEP

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 occupied 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 necessary 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 passages, 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."[66]
[66] Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire, vol. v.

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 opening years of the eleventh, Foulques
Nerra was raising 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."[67]
[67] Anthyme St. Paul, Histoire Monumentale de la France.

The keep of Langeais, on a precipitous hill overlooking 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 Pommeraye, 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, 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 100 feet; the ramparts seem to date from 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.

177. FALAISE CASTLE. KEEP

At Falaise, where the castle like that of Domfront is built on a rugged promontory,
the ramparts are later than the keep, the architectural details of 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

179. KEEP OF AIGUES-MORTES. TOUR DE CONSTANCE

Other keeps of equal interest in point of situation, 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 predominates in the plan
of keeps and towers. On the whole, it offered the best resistance to the mediæval
assailant. The convex surface was of equal strength all round, and as we have seen in
the preceding chapter, the circular trace for towers gave the garrison the best chance
of defending their bases from the curtain, and of opposing the work of sappers and
miners.

180. PROVINS CASTLE. KEEP

The great advance made in architecture by the general adoption of an expedient so
simple and 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 Étampes 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 of 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 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 Château 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 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.

181. CASTLE OF CHINON. SOUTH FRONT

Philip Augustus, having possessed himself of the Château 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 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 (1223-1230). Its grandiose proportions and formidable system of defence
surpassed everything that had gone before. Coucy was, in fact, the architectural
manifestation of that haughty ambition to which Enguerrand is said to have given free
expression during the minority of his sovereign.

182. CASTLE OF CLISSON. KEEP

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 Châtillon-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, built by his brother,
Alphonse of Poitiers; the castles of Bourbon l'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.

183. VILLENEUVE-LES-AVIGNON. CASTLE OF ST. ANDRÉ

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 applied to the construction of towers
which had hitherto been furnished with several rows of loopholes, an excellent
expedient for the defence of curtains and approaches, but subject to this drawback,
that it directed attention to the most vulnerable points. The first effect of the use of
cannon in warfare was to increase the thickness of the walls; subsequently, such
structural modifications were adopted as were required by the novel method of
massing all the defences at the summit of machicolated 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
Phœbus, Count of Foix and Béarn, built square keeps in the Bastide of Béarn, at
Montaner, and at Mauvezin, besides circular keeps at Lourdes and at Foix.

184. CASTLE OF TARASCON

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 Hérisson, 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:
Montépilloy, Pierrefonds, and La Ferté-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 Ferté-Milon have 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. VITRÉ CASTLE

Several other castles were built in Albigeois, Auvergne, Limousin, Guyenne, La
Vendée, and Provence, notably at Tarascon. The keeps of Trèves in Anjou also date
from this period.
Important castles sprang up all over Brittany in the fifteenth century. Such were
Combourg, Fougères, Montauban, St. Malo, Vitré, Elven, Sucinio, Dinan, Tonquédec,
etc.

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 architecture, 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 Frankish 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.

186. CITY OF CARCASSONNE. GATE-HOUSE OF THE CASTLE

During the twelfth, and more especially the thirteenth century, the gates were the
points most strongly fortified. They were approached over a bridge, by raising a
movable portion of which, however, entrance might be barred on the very threshold.
The narrow gateway passage was defended by two projecting towers pierced with
loopholes, and connected by a curtain. The whole structure formed a fortified gate-
house, known as a châtelet, which had to be carried before an assailant could
penetrate to the fortress beyond. The passage was further defended 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 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 1120 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 outworks. 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.

187. CARCASSONNE. GATEWAY OF THE LISTS, KNOWN AS THE PORTE DE
L'AUDE

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 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 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 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.

188. CITY OF CARCASSONNE. GATE KNOWN AS THE PORTE NARBONAISE

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 provided 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 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 building of fortified gates were modified
as military architecture progressed on lines already considered by us in the first
chapter of this section, when dealing 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.

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)

The gateways of fortified enceintes were modified in the fourteenth century not
only by alterations in the plan of towers, the substitution of stone machicolations 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 invention of the
drawbridge. A drawbridge, 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 fulcrum, and
thus brought the platform 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.

190. RAMPARTS OF DINAN. GATE KNOWN AS THE PORTE DE
JERZUAL

It will be readily perceived that such a bridge was infinitely more effectual and
more to be depended 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 Carcassonne. 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. 190; 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 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. VITRÉ 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. 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 GUÉRANDE. GATE OF ST. MICHEL

The castle of Vitré, 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 châtelet.
The gate-house, known as the Porte St. Michel, at Guérande, which was built
together with the enceinte by John V., Duke of Brittany, in 1431, still 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 construction of fortified
gateways. In accordance with contemporary 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 wide 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
staircase 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.[68]
[68] Ed. Corroyer, Description de l'Abbaye du Mont St. Michel et de ses Abords; Paris,
1877.

193. RAMPARTS OF MONT ST. MICHEL. GATEWAY KNOWN AS
THE PORTE DU ROI

The main gate of the ramparts, which was built between 1415 and 1420, is to the
west of the place, in the curtain flanked by the tower known as the Tour du Roi. This
gate and the lateral postern 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 Roi. In addition to the first barrier, formed by the raised
platform of the drawbridge, 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 architecture of gates. At Troyes
the river arches in the town ramparts were guarded by gratings or portcullises 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 Chaîne
and the Basse Chaîne (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 archæologists of authority, the tower
known as the Tour de la Chaîne (to the left of the drawing) is 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 contemporary 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 perceptible inclination of the Tower of St. Nicholas.

194. ENTRANCE TO THE PORT OF LA ROCHELLE. TOWER OF ST. NICHOLAS, AND TOWER CALLED
TOUR DE LA CHAÎNE. BEFORE THE RESTORATION

The suggestion made in a very fanciful modern design, that the two towers were
once united by a 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 architectural buildings, the origin of bridges
dates back to the Romans, by whom they were often decorated with triumphal arches.
The bridge of St. Chamas 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
têtes 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 protection of the fortress with
which it communicated.

195. BRIDGE AT AVIGNON. RUINS OF THE BRIDGE KNOWN AS THE PONT DE ST. BÉNÉZET

Among the bridges constructed by mediæval architects, that of St. Bénézet, 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 Doms is the narrower, it
is the deeper—on nineteen arches, extending from the foot of the Doms, on the
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 Hospitaliers 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. Bénézet. 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 16 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 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 foundation 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.

196. BRIDGE OF MONTAUBAN, KNOWN AS THE PONT DES CONSULS

The old bridge at Carcassonne seems to be contemporary with that of Avignon, but
its arches are semi-circular, 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 Béziers, where the
arches, both pointed and semi-circular, 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 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 semi-circular. 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 tête de
pont, which, in after times, was incorporated with the fortress commanding the course
of the Rhone above the bridge.

197. BRIDGE OF CAHORS, KNOWN AS THE PONT DE VALENTRÉ

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.
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 beautiful of fourteenth-century examples.
It is still of great interest in spite of the various restorations it has undergone, chiefly
of late years.

198. BRIDGE OF ORTHEZ

This bridge, which is known as the Pont de Valentré, was 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 structure, forming a
gate-house or tête de pont on either bank. In the middle rose a lofty tower with gates,
by means of which passage might be barred and assailants checked in the event of a
surprise of either gate-house.

199. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. FORTIFIED BRIDGE
CONNECTING THE LOWER CHURCH WITH THE ABBEY

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 têtes 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 considerable 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 machicolated
parapet guarding the inner passages—we recognise an art consummate as that which
stirs our enthusiasm in the vast proportions and perfect execution of the splendid
choir, the whole proclaiming the versatile genius of those great builders who welded
into one noble monument a triad of masterpieces—religious, monastic, and military.

PART IV
CIVIL ARCHITECTURE

CHAPTER I
BARNS, HOSPITALS, DWELLING-HOUSES, AND "HÔTELS" OR
TOWN-HOUSES OF THE NOBILITY

Civil architecture could boast no special characteristics 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 appropriate 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.

200. TOWN-HALL AT ST. ANTONIN (TARN ET GARONNE). THE
UPPER PART OF THE BELFRY WAS REBUILT ABOUT 1860

The barns or granaries of mediæval times were rural dependencies of the abbeys,
but were built 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 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 passage of
carts, which, entering at the front, passed out through a similar door in the opposite
gable end, as at the barn of Perrières, which, though situated in Normandy, was a
dependency of the Abbey of Marmoutier, near Tours.

201. BARN AT PERRIÈRES (CALVADOS). END OF TWELFTH CENTURY. (AFTER
CAUMONT)

Such barns were generally large three-aisled 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.

201A. BARN AT PERRIÈRES. SECTION

201B. BARN AT PERRIÈRES. PLAN

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 façades differ only in unimportant details. They consist 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.
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 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.

202. TITHE-BARN AT PROVINS

203. GRANARY OF THE ABBEY OF VAUCLAIR

Some idea of the importance of religious establishments at this period may be
gathered from the foregoing details. The great abbeys were miniature towns, and their
dependencies, the priories, consisted of vast farms, round which large villages soon
grew up. The cultivators of these great holdings combined agricultural 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 institutions, called in the Middle Ages
maisons dieu, hôtels dieu, hospices, 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.
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 enclosure
surrounding a few isolated cells, and a chapel, attached to which were the lodgings of
the monks who tended the lepers.

204. HOSPITAL OF ST. JOHN AT ANGERS (TWELFTH CENTURY). GREAT HALL, AS RESTORED BY A.
VERDIER

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, therefore, had its eleemosynary organisation, which included special
buildings for the accommodation of monks whose business it was to tend the sick and
to distribute alms to them and other travellers and pilgrims.

205. ABBEY OF OURSCAMPS (OISE, THIRTEENTH CENTURY). HOSPITAL. AS RESTORED BY A.
VERDIER

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 capitularies, and it was forbidden to refuse shelter, fire, and
water to any suppliant.

206. LAZAR-HOUSE AT TORTOIR (AISNE, FOURTEENTH CENTURY). FROM DRAWINGS BY A.
VERDIER

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 constructed edifices.
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 fourteenth centuries. The sanctuaries of St. Michael in Normandy, and
of St. James of Compostella in Spain, were the most frequented. At the beginning 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 Pèlerins (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 liz qui
depuis le premier jour d'aoust MCCCLXVIIJ jusques au jour de Mons. S. Jacques et
Christofle ensuivant on estés logés et hebergés en l'hospital de céans XVm VIc IIIIxxX
pèlerins qui aloient et venoient au Mont Saint Michel et austres pèlerins. Et encore
sont logés continuellement chascune nuict de XXXVI à XL povres pèlerins et austres
povres, pourquoy le povre hospital est moult chargé et en grant nécessité de liz, de
couvertures et de draps.[69]
In the first years of the fourteenth century several hundreds of hôtels 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 Tombelaine, in Normandy.[70]
[69] "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, 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 l'Abbaye du Mont St. Michel et de ses
Abords; Paris, 1877.
[70] Idem.

207. HOSPITAL AT TONNERRE. SECTION OF THE GREAT HALL

Several hospitals of the Gothic period still exist. That of St. John at Angers is one of
the most remarkable. It comprises a great hall, divided into three aisles, and vaulted on
intersecting arches, and a chapel dating from the close of the twelfth or beginning of
the thirteenth century. The fine barn at 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 Hôtel 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 semi-
circular 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 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 picturesque 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 Fère, 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 mediæval 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 coarseness in civil structures. We must not hold them
accountable for the destruction of their well-planned hospitals from the sixteenth
century onwards, and 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 mediæval 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 mediæval founders and builders of our maisons dieu.
Houses and Hôtels, 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.[71]
[71] Ch. Garnier, Member of the Institute, whose picturesque embodiment 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.

We must refrain from discussion of prehistoric or Merovingian dwellings, or of
those rural hovels, the typical variations of which, in different countries 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.

208. HOUSE AT CLUNY (TWELFTH CENTURY)

Nothing remains of habitations constructed in 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.
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.

208A. HOUSE AT CLUNY (TWELFTH CENTURY)

But by the end of the twelfth century the urban dwelling was adapted to the needs
of a family. The doors and windows of the house were made to overlook 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 façade 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.

209, 210. HOUSES AT VITTEAUX (CÔTE D'OR), AND AT ST. ANTONIN (TARN ET GARONNE,
THIRTEENTH CENTURY)

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 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 elaboration, and such features as mouldings or
sculptures were introduced in the façades, 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 twelfth century, exemplify the style.
They are built almost entirely of stone. The arcading recalls various details of
monastic buildings which the constructors very naturally took as models.

211. HOUSE AT PROVINS (FOURTEENTH CENTURY)

212. HOUSE AT LAON (FOURTEENTH CENTURY)

213. HOUSE AT CORDES. ALBIGEOIS (FOURTEENTH
CENTURY)

The same may be said of the other houses, of which we give drawings as
illustrating the urban 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 compartments which it was possible to fill
with movable glazed sashes of the simplest construction.

The façades are generally of durable materials, such as stone or brick, and the use
of wood is restricted 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 façade 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.

214. HOUSE AT MONT ST. MICHEL (FIFTEENTH CENTURY)

215. WOODEN HOUSE AT ROUEN (FIFTEENTH CENTURY)

216. WOODEN HOUSE AT ANDELYS (FIFTEENTH CENTURY)

It was usual in the North to detach each house at the upper story, even when it was
not practicable to allow a narrow passage or space between. This was not merely a
concession to the vanity of the citizen, to his desire to make his independent gable a
feature of the street. It was also a pre
cautionary measure against fires, which were frequent and disastrous in cities built
mainly of wood, and possessing but very rudimentary appliances wherewith to meet
such a catastrophe.

217. HÔTEL LALLEMAND AT BOURGES (END OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY)

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 in their fortified castles. These great seignorial
mansions differ essentially from the houses of the citizens. The hôtel 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 hôtel was placed
in an inner court, often richly decorated, and the street-front was devoted to stables,
coach-houses, servants' lodgings, and the great entrance which gave access to the
court and the main building.

218. JACQUES CŒUR'S HOUSE AT BOURGES. VIEW FROM THE PLACE BERRY
(FIFTEENTH CENTURY)

The names at least of some famous Parisian hôtels of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries have survived, such as the hôtels des Tournelles, de St. Pol, de Sens, de
Nevers, and de la Trémoille, the last destroyed in 1840. The Hôtel 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
Hôtel Lallemand, built towards the close of the fifteenth century, the inner court of
which is especially noteworthy, and the still more famous hôtel or château of Jacques
Cœur.
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 façade

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 enfranchisement 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.

219. TOWN-HALL OF PIENZA, ITALY (END OF THE
FOURTEENTH CENTURY)

But by far the greater number of the infant communes were sunk in poverty, and so
overwhelmed with dues and taxes that they had no margin for communal buildings.
In the fourteenth century even the commune of Paris could boast only the most
modest of town-halls. In 1357 Étienne 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, conclude 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 l'Archevêque
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 dependency, as Réalville or Monréal;
others point to privileges conferred on the town, as Bonneville, La Sauvetat,
Sauveterre, Villefranche, or even La Bastide, and Villeneuve.

220. TOWN-HALL AND BELFRY AT YPRES (BELGIUM)

A third class borrow the names of French and occasionally of foreign provinces or
towns. Anthyme St. Paul gives a list of such in the Annuaire de l'archéologie
française,—Barcelone or Barcelonnette, Beauvais, Boulogne, Bruges, Cadix, Cordes
(for Cordova), Fleurance (for Florence), Bretagne, Cologne, Valence, Miélan (for
Milan), La Française and Francescas, Grenade, Libourne (for Leghorn), Modène,
Pampelonne (for Pampeluna), etc.
A new town or bastide is usually rectangular in plan, and measures some 750 by
580 feet. Sauveterre d'Aveyron 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 Couverts,
still common in some Southern towns.
In the centre of the square stood the town-hall, the ground-floor of which was used
as a public market. Montréjeau 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 Réalmont, etc. Several
bastides in Guyenne were founded by the English. Finally, the lower town of
Carcassonne, founded in 1247, and Aigues-Mortes, founded in 1248, also belong to
the class of bastides or new towns.[72]
[72] See Part III., "Military Architecture."

"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
neighbouring districts. Several of these were unprosperous, and are still small villages.
In some cases their close proximity tended greatly to their mutual disadvantage."[73]
[73] Anthyme St. Paul, Histoire Monumentale de la France.

221. MARKET AND BELFRY AT BRUGES (BELGIUM)

222. TOWN-HALL OF BRUGES (BELGIUM)

It is worthy of remark that civil architecture had 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 religious 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
municipal hall occupies the first story, together with a smaller apartment in the tower.
The second story is divided in the same manner.

223. TOWN-HALL AT LOUVAIN (BELGIUM)

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 façade, 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 construction of a new town-hall in the
seventeenth century) is one of the most beautiful of such examples. The building was
begun in 1202, but was not completed till 1304. The façade 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 example of the civic
buildings of its period.
The structure consists of a market and the usual municipal halls, crowned by the
lofty belfry, the original height of which was 350 feet.

224. BELFRY OF TOURNAI (BELGIUM)

225. BELFRY OF GHENT (BELGIUM)

The hôtel de ville or town-hall of Bruges, which replaced an earlier municipal
building in the Place du Bourg, dates from between 1376 to 1387. Its architectural
character differs entirely from that of the belfry. Its elegant design and the richness of
its ornamentation give it the appearance rather 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 openwork turrets, with delicate
pinnacles, and similar turrets receive the ridge of the roof at either end. The lateral
façades 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 1840.
Belfries.—In the early days of the enfranchisement 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 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 expression 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 accommodation 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 undergone 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.

226. BELFRY AT CALAIS (FRANCE)

We shall find examples of these early municipal buildings among the isolated
belfries of Belgium, such as that at Tournai, founded in 1187, and 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
Béthune, 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 projection 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 façade 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, Évreux, and Avignon still possess their
belfries.
To the belfry of Amiens, which dates from the thirteenth century, a square dome
was added some hundred years ago. But the great bell of the fourteenth century has
been preserved.

227. BELFRY OF BETHUNE (FRANCE)

228. BELFRY OF ÉVREUX

The belfry of Évreux retains its fifteenth-century character almost in its entirety.
That of Avignon, a monument of the close of the fifteenth century, was happily spared
when the town-hall was replaced by a modern structure.

229. BELFRY OF AVIGNON

The gate-house of the hôtel de ville at Bordeaux, known as the grosse cloche, is an
example of the more ancient usage. Here we find the bell hung over the gateway, as
already described. The belfry of Bordeaux, which appears to date from the fifteenth
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.

230. BELFRY GATE AT BORDEAUX, KNOWN AS LA GROSSE
CLOCHE

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, remarkable 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
communicated with galleries or ambulatories. A chapel was 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

In Paris the palace proper, which was in the Île de la Cité, 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 devoted 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 l'Horloge, and the square clock
tower at the angle of the quay.
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
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.

232. BISHOP'S PALACE AT LAON

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, 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 1160, preserved this mediæval feature, which is even more conspicuous at
Sens, in the magnificent annexe known as the salle synodale (synod house).

233. ARCHBISHOP'S PALACE AT ALBI. PLAN

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 enclosure, 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.[74]
[74] See Part II., "Monastic Architecture," the cloisters of Puy-en-Velay and Elne in
Roussillon.

The bishops' palaces were often remarkable for their elaborate construction.
Fragments of the primitive buildings are still preserved in the palaces of Beauvais,
Angers, Bayeux, and Auxerre.

234. ARCHBISHOP'S PALACE AT ALBI. GENERAL VIEW

The ancient episcopal palace of Laon[75] 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 ramparts and formed a secondary line of defence.
[75] The episcopate was transferred to Soissons in 1809.

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 increased greatly in size, their
dimensions extending proportionately with those of the great cathedrals of the period.
The importance of the episcopal buildings 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.

235. PALACE OF THE POPES AT AVIGNON. PLAN

The archbishop's palace at Albi has all the character of a feudal castle. Its buildings
are protected by a keep, and encircled by walls and towers 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.[76]
[76] See Part I., Cathedral of Albi, Figs. 70-73.

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 fortification in the Middle Ages.[77]
[77] For the Palace of the Popes, see Albert Lenoir and Viollet-le-Duc.

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 defence, 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 considerable area, was completed in less
than sixty years. Its formidable mass was further strengthened by 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, monastic, 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 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 established 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.

THE END

Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh.

BY THE PRESENT EDITOR
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THE SCOTTISH PAINTERS

A CRITICAL STUDY

BY

WALTER ARMSTRONG, B.A. Oxon.
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