Chapter 20

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED: As before, Adamy, Corroyer, Enlart, Hasak, Moore, Reber, Viollet-le-Duc.[20] Also Chapuy, _Le moyen age monumental_. Chateau, _Histoire et caractères de l’architecture française_. Davies, _Architectural Studies in France_. Ferree, _The Chronology of the Cathedral Churches of France_. Johnson, _Early French Architecture_. King, _The Study book of Mediæval Architecture and Art_. Lassus and Viollet-le-Duc, _Notre Dame de Paris_. Nesfield, _Specimens of Mediæval Architecture_. Pettit, _Architectural Studies in France_.

[Footnote 20: Consult especially articles ARCHITECTURE, CATHÉDRALE, CHAPELLE, CONSTRUCTION, ÉGLISE, MAISON, VOÛTE.]

+CATHEDRAL-BUILDING IN FRANCE.+ In the development of the principles outlined in the foregoing chapter the church-builders of France led the way. They surpassed all their contemporaries in readiness of invention, in quickness and directness of reasoning, and in artistic refinement. These qualities were especially manifested in the extraordinary architectural activity which marked the second half of the twelfth century and the first half of the thirteenth. This was the great age of cathedral-building in France. The adhesion of the bishops to the royal cause, and their position in popular estimation as the champions of justice and human rights, led to the rapid advance of the episcopacy in power and influence. The cathedral, as the throne-church of the bishop, became a truly popular institution. New cathedrals were founded on every side, especially in the Royal Domain and the adjoining provinces of Normandy, Burgundy, and Champagne, and their construction was warmly seconded by the people, the communes, and the municipalities. “Nothing to-day,” says Viollet-le-Duc,[21] “unless it be the commercial movement which has covered Europe with railway lines, can give an idea of the zeal with which the urban populations set about building cathedrals; ... a necessity at the end of the twelfth century because it was an energetic protest against feudalism.” The collapse of the unscientific Romanesque vaulting of some of the earlier cathedrals and the destruction by fire of others stimulated this movement by the necessity for their immediate rebuilding. The entire reconstruction of the cathedrals of Bayeux, Bayonne, Cambray, Evreux, Laon, Lisieux, Le Mans, Noyon, Poitiers, Senlis, Soissons, and Troyes was begun between 1130 and 1200.[22] The cathedrals of Bourges, Chartres, Paris, and Tours, and the abbey of St. Denis, all of the first importance, were begun during the same period, and during the next quarter-century those of Amiens, Auxerre, Rouen, Reims, Séez, and many others. After 1250 the movement slackened and finally ceased. Few important cathedrals were erected during the latter half of the thirteenth century, the chief among them being at Beauvais (actively begun 1247), Clermont, Coutances, Limoges, Narbonne, and Rodez. During this period, and through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, French architecture was concerned rather with the completion and remodelling of existing cathedrals than the founding of new ones. There were, however, many important parish churches and civil or domestic edifices erected within this period.

[Footnote 21: _Dictionnaire raisonné de l’architecture française_, vol. ii., pp. 280, 281.]

[Footnote 22: See Ferree, _Chronology of Cathedral Churches of France_.]

+STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT: VAULTING.+ By the middle of the twelfth century the use of barrel-vaulting over the nave had been generally abandoned and groined vaulting with its isolated points of support and resistance had taken its place. The timid experiments of the Clunisian architects at Vézelay in the use of the pointed arch and vault-ribs also led, in the second half of the twelfth century, to far-reaching results. The builders of the great +Abbey Church+ of +St. Denis+, near Paris, begun in 1140 by the Abbot Suger, appear to have been the first to develop these tentative devices into a system. In the original choir of this noble church all the arches, alike of the vault-ribs (except the groin-ribs, which were semi-circles) and of the openings, were pointed and the vaults were throughout constructed with cross-ribs, wall-ribs, and groin-ribs. Of this early work only the chapels remain. In other contemporary monuments, as for instance in the cathedral of Sens, the adoption of these devices was only partial and hesitating.

+NOTRE DAME AT PARIS.+ The next great step in advance was taken in the cathedral of +Notre Dame+[23] at Paris (Figs. 116, 117, 125). This was begun, under Maurice de Sully in 1163, on the site of the twin cathedrals of Ste. Marie and St. Étienne, and the choir was, as usual, the first portion erected. By 1196 the choir, transepts, and one or two bays of the nave were substantially finished. The completeness, harmony, and vigor of conception of this remarkable church contrast strikingly with the makeshifts and hesitancy displayed in many contemporary monuments in other provinces. The difficult vaulting over the radiating bays of the double ambulatory was here treated with great elegance. By doubling the number of supports in the exterior circuit of each aisle (Fig. 116) each trapezoidal bay of the vaulting was divided into three easily managed triangular compartments. Circular shafts were used between the central and side aisles. The side aisles were doubled and those next the centre were built in two stories, providing ample galleries behind a very open triforium. The nave was unusually lofty and covered with six-part vaults of admirable execution. The vault-ribs were vigorously moulded and each made to spring from a distinct vaulting-shaft, of which three rested upon the cap of each of the massive piers below (Fig. 117). The +Cathedral+ of +Bourges+, begun 1190, closely resembled that of Paris in plan. Both were designed to accommodate vast throngs in their exceptionally broad central aisles and double side aisles, but Bourges has no side-aisle galleries, though the inner aisles are much loftier than the outer ones. Though later in date the vaulting of Bourges is inferior to that of Notre Dame, especially in the treatment of the trapezoidal bays of the ambulatory.

[Footnote 23: This cathedral will be hereafter referred to, for the sake of brevity, by the name of _Notre Dame_. Other cathedrals having the same name will be distinguished by the addition of the name of the city, as “Notre Dame at Clermont-Ferrand.”]

The masterly examples set by the vault-builders of St. Denis and Notre Dame were not at once generally followed. Noyon, Senlis, and Soissons, contemporary with these, are far less completely Gothic in style. At +Le Mans+ the groined vaulting which in 1158 was substituted for the original barrel-vault of the cathedral is of very primitive design, singularly heavy and awkward, although nearly contemporary with that of Notre Dame (Fig. 118).

+DOMICAL GROINED VAULTING.+ The builders of the South and West, influenced by Aquitanian models, adhered to the square plan and domical form of vaulting-bay, even after they had begun to employ groin-ribs. The latter, as at first used by them in imitation of Northern examples, had no organic function in the vault, which was still built like a dome. About 1145-1160 the cathedral of +St. Maurice+ at +Angers+ was vaulted with square, groin-ribbed vaults, domical in form but not in construction. The joints no longer described horizontal circles as in a dome, but oblique lines perpendicular to the groins and meeting in zigzag lines at the ridge (Fig. 119). This method became common in the West and was afterward generally adopted by the English architects. The +Cathedrals+ of +Poitiers+ (1162) and +Laval+ (La Trinité, 1180-1185) are examples of this system, which at Le Mans met with the Northern system and produced in the cathedral the awkward compromise described above.

+THIRTEENTH-CENTURY VAULTING.+ Early in the thirteenth century the church-builders of Northern France abandoned the use of square vaulting-bays and six-part vaults. By the adoption of groin-ribs and the pointed arch, the building of vaults in oblong bays was greatly simplified. Each bay of the nave could now be covered with its own vaulting-bay, thus doing away with all necessity for alternately light and heavy piers. It is not quite certain when and where this system was first adopted for the complete vaulting of a church. It is, however, probable that the +Cathedral+ of +Chartres+, begun in 1194 and completed before 1240, deserves this distinction, although it is possible that the vaults of Soissons and Noyon may slightly antedate it. +Troyes+ (1170-1267), +Rouen+ (1202-1220), +Reims+ (1212-1242), +Auxerre+ (1215-1234, nave fourteenth century), +Amiens+ (1220-1288), and nearly all the great churches and chapels begun after 1200, employ the fully developed oblong vault.

+BUTTRESSING.+ Meanwhile the increasing height of the clearstories and the use of double aisles compelled the bestowal of especial attention upon the buttressing. The nave and choir of Chartres, the choirs of Notre Dame, Bourges, Rouen, and Reims, the chevet and later the choir of St. Denis, afford early examples of the flying-buttress (Fig. 107). These were at first simple and of moderate height. Single half-arches spanned the side aisles; in Notre Dame they crossed the double aisles in a single leap. Later the buttresses were given greater stability by the added weight of lofty pinnacles. An intermediate range of buttresses and pinnacles was built over the intermediate piers where double aisles flanked the nave and choir, thus dividing the single flying arch into two arches. At the same time a careful observation of statical defects in the earlier examples led to the introduction of subordinate arches and of other devices to stiffen and to beautify the whole system. At +Reims+ and +Amiens+ these features received their highest development, though later examples are frequently much more ornate.

+INTERIOR DESIGN.+ The progressive change outlined in the last chapter, by which the wall was practically suppressed, the windows correspondingly enlarged, and every part of the structure made loftier and more slender, resulted in the evolution of a system of interior design well represented by the nave of Amiens. The second story or gallery over the side aisle disappeared, but the aisle itself was very high. The triforium was no longer a gallery, but a richly arcaded passage in the thickness of the wall, corresponding to the roofing-space over the aisle, and generally treated like a lower stage of the clearstory. Nearly the whole space above it was occupied in each bay by the vast clearstory window filled with simple but effective geometric tracery over slender mullions. The side aisles were lighted by windows which, like those in the clearstory, occupied nearly the whole available wall-space under the vaulting. The piers and shafts were all clustered and remarkably slender. The whole construction of this vast edifice, which covers nearly eighty thousand square feet, is a marvel of lightness, of scientific combinations, and of fine execution. Its great vault rises to a height of one hundred and forty feet. The nave of St. Denis, though less lofty, resembles it closely in style (Fig. 120). Earlier cathedrals show less of the harmony of proportion, the perfect working out of the relation of all parts of the composition of each bay, so conspicuous in the Amiens type, which was followed in most of the later churches.

+WINDOWS: TRACERY.+ The clearstory windows of Noyon, Soissons, Sens, and the choir of Vézelay (1200) were simple arched openings arranged singly, in pairs, or in threes. In the cathedral of Chartres (1194-1220) they consist of two arched windows with a circle above them, forming a sort of plate tracery under a single arch. In the chapel windows of the choir at Reims (1215) the tracery of mullions and circles was moulded inside and out, and the intermediate triangular spaces all pierced and glazed. Rose windows were early used in front and transept façades. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries they were made of vast size and great lightness of tracery, as in the transepts of Notre Dame (1257) and the west front of Amiens (1288). From the design of these windows is derived the name _Rayonnant_, often applied to the French Gothic style of the period 1275-1375.

+THE SAINTE CHAPELLE.+ In this beautiful royal chapel at Paris, built 1242-47, Gothic design was admirably exemplified in the noble windows 15 by 50 feet in size, which perhaps furnished the models for those of Amiens and St. Denis. Each was divided by slender mullions into four lancet-like lights gathered under the rich tracery of the window-head. They were filled with stained glass of the most brilliant but harmonious hues. They occupy the whole available wall-space, so that the ribbed vault internally seems almost to rest on walls of glass, so slender are the visible supports and so effaced by the glow of color in the windows. Certainly lightness of construction and the suppression of the wall-masonry could hardly be carried further than here (Fig. 121). Among other chapels of the same type are those in the palace of St. Germain-en-Laye (1240), and a later example in the château of Vincennes, begun by Charles VI., but not finished till 1525.

+PLANS.+ The most radical change from the primitive basilican type was, as already explained in the last chapter, the continuation of the side aisles around the apse to form a _chevet_; and later, the addition of chapels between the external buttresses. Radiating chapels, usually semi-octagons or semi-decagons in plan, early appeared as additions to the _chevet_ (Fig. 122). These may have originated in the apsidal chapels of Romanesque churches in Auvergne and the South, as at Issoire, Clermont-Ferrand, Le Puy, and Toulouse. They generally superseded the transept-chapels of earlier churches, and added greatly to the beauty of the interior perspective, especially when the encircling aisles of the chevet were doubled. Notre Dame, as at first erected, had a double ambulatory, but no chapels. Bourges has only five very small semicircular chapels. Chartres (choir 1220) and Le Mans, as reconstructed about the same date, have double ambulatories and radial chapels. After 1220 the second ambulatory no longer appears. Noyon, Soissons, Reims, Amiens, Troyes, and Beauvais, Tours, Bayeux, and Coutances, Clermont, Limoges, and Narbonne all have the single ambulatory and radiating chevet-chapels. The Lady-chapel in the axis of the church was often made longer and more important than the other chapels, as at Amiens, Le Mans, Rouen, Bayeux, and Coutances. Chapels also flanked the choir in most of the cathedrals named above, and Notre Dame and Tours also have side chapels to the nave. The only cathedrals with complete double side aisles alike to nave, choir, and chevet, were Notre Dame and Bourges. It is somewhat singular that the German cathedral of Cologne is the only one in which all these various characteristic French features were united in one design (see Fig. 140).

Local considerations had full sway in France, in spite of the tendency toward unity of type. Thus Dol, Laon, and Poitiers have square eastward terminations; Châlons has no ambulatory; Bourges no transept. In Notre Dame the transept was almost suppressed. At Soissons one transept, at Noyon both, had semicircular ends. +Alby+, a late cathedral of brick, founded in 1280, but mostly built during the fourteenth century, has neither side aisles nor transepts, its wide nave being flanked by chapels separated by internal buttresses (Fig. 123).

+SCALE.+ The French cathedrals were nearly all of imposing dimensions. Noyon, one of the smallest, is 333 feet long; Sens measures 354. Laon, Bourges, Troyes, Notre Dame, Le Mans, Rouen, and Chartres vary from 396 to 437 feet in extreme length; Reims measures 483, and Amiens, the longest of all, 521 feet. Notre Dame is 124 feet wide across the five aisles of the nave; Bourges, somewhat wider. The central aisles of these two cathedrals, and of Laon, Amiens, and Beauvais, have a span of not far from 40 feet from centre to centre of the piers; while the ridge of the vaulting, which in Notre Dame is 108 feet above the pavement, and in Bourges 125, reaches in Amiens a height of 140 feet, and of nearly 160 in Beauvais. This emphasis of the height, from 3 to 3½ times the clear width of the nave or choir, is one of the most striking features of the French cathedrals. It produces an impressive effect, but tends to dwarf the great width of the central aisle.

+EXTERIOR DESIGN.+ Here, as in the interior, every feature had its constructive _raison d’être_, and the total effect was determined by the fundamental structural scheme. This was especially true of the lateral elevations, in which the pinnacled buttresses, the flying arches, and the traceried windows of the side aisle and clearstory, repeated uniformly at each bay, were the principal elements of the design. The transept façades and main front allowed greater scope for invention and fancy, but even here the interior membering gave the key to the composition. Strong buttresses marked the division of the aisles and resisted the thrust of the terminal pier arches, and rose windows filled the greater part of the wall space under the end of the lofty vaulting. The whole structure was crowned by a steep-pitched roof of wood, covered with lead, copper, or tiles, to protect the vault from damage by snow and moisture. This roof occasioned the steep gables which crowned the transept and main façades. The main front was frequently adorned, above the triple portal, with a gallery of niches or tabernacles filled with statues of kings. Different types of composition are represented by Chartres, Notre Dame, Amiens, Reims, and Rouen, of which Notre Dame (Fig. 124) and Reims are perhaps the finest. Notre Dame is especially remarkable for its stately simplicity and the even balancing of horizontal and vertical elements.

+PORCHES.+ In most French church façades the porches were the most striking features, with their deep shadows and sculptured arches. The Romanesque porches were usually limited in depth to the thickness of the front wall. The Gothic builders secured increased depth by projecting the portals out beyond the wall, and crowned them with elaborate gables. The vast central door was divided in two by a pier adorned with a niche and statue. Over this the tympanum of the arch was carved with scriptural reliefs; the jambs and arches were profusely adorned with figures of saints, apostles, martyrs, and angels, under elaborate canopies. The porches of Laon, Bourges, Amiens, and Reims are especially deep and majestic in effect, the last-named (built 1380) being the richest of all. Some of the transept façades also had imposing portals. Those of +Chartres+ (1210-1245) rank among the finest works of Gothic decorative architecture, the south porch in some respects surpassing that of the north transept. The portals of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries were remarkable for the extraordinary richness and minuteness of their tracery and sculpture, as at Abbeville, Alençon, the cathedral and St. Maclou at Rouen (Fig. 125), Tours, Troyes, Vendôme, etc.

+TOWERS AND SPIRES.+ The emphasizing of vertical elements reached its fullest expression in the towers and spires of the churches. What had been at first merely a lofty belfry roof was rapidly developed into the spire, rising three hundred feet or more into the air. This development had already made progress in the Romanesque period, and the south spire of Chartres is a notable example of late twelfth-century steeple design. The transition from the square tower to the slender octagonal pyramid was skilfully effected by means of corner pinnacles and dormers. During and after the thirteenth century the development was almost wholly in the direction of richness and complexity of detail, not of radical constructive modification. The northern spire of Chartres (1515) and the spires of Bordeaux, Coutances, Senlis, and the Flamboyant church of St. Maclou at Rouen, illustrate this development. In Normandy central spires were common, rising over the crossing of nave and transepts. In some cases the designers of cathedrals contemplated a group of towers; this is evident at Chartres, Coutances, and Reims. This intention was, however, never realized; it demanded resources beyond even the enthusiasm of the thirteenth century. Only in rare instances were the spires of any of the towers completed, and the majority of the French towers have square terminations, with low-pitched wooden roofs, generally invisible from below. In general, French towers are marked by their strong buttresses, solid lower stories, twin windows in each side of the belfry proper--these windows being usually of great size--and a skilful management of the transition to an octagonal plan for the belfry or the spire.

+CARVING AND SCULPTURE.+ The general superiority of French Gothic work was fully maintained in its decorative details. Especially fine is the figure sculpture, which in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries attained true nobility of expression, combined with great truthfulness and delicacy of execution. Some of its finest productions are found in the great doorway jambs of the west portals of the cathedrals, and in the ranks of throned and adoring angels which adorned their deep arches. These reach their highest beauty in the portals of Reims (1380). The _tabernacles_ or carved niches in which such statues were set were important elements in the decoration of the exteriors of churches.

Foliage forms were used for nearly all the minor carved ornaments, though grotesque and human figures sometimes took their place. The gargoyles through which the roof-water was discharged clear of the building, were almost always composed in the form of hideous monsters; and symbolic beasts, like the oxen in the towers of Laon, or monsters like those which peer from the tower balustrades of Notre Dame, were employed with some mystical significance in various parts of the building. But the capitals corbels, crockets, and finials were mostly composed of floral or foliage forms. Those of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were for the most part simple in mass, and crisp and vigorous in design, imitating the strong shoots of early spring. The +capitals+ were tall and slender, concave in profile, with heavy square or octagonal abaci. With the close of the thirteenth century this simple and forcible style of detail disappeared. The carving became more realistic; the leaves, larger and more mature, were treated as if applied to the capital or moulding, not as if they grew out of it. The execution and detail were finer and more delicate, in harmony with the increasing slenderness and lightness of the architecture (Fig. 126 a, b). +Tracery forms+ now began to be profusely applied to all manner of surfaces, and open-work gables, wholly unnecessary from the structural point of view, but highly effective as decorations, adorned the portals and crowned the windows.

+LATE GOTHIC MONUMENTS.+ So far our attention has been mainly occupied with the masterpieces erected previous to 1250. Among the cathedrals, relatively few in number, whose construction is referable to the second half of the century, that of +Beauvais+ stands first in importance. Designed on a colossal scale, its foundations were laid in 1225, but it was never completed, and the portion built--the choir and chapels--belonged really to the second half of the century, having been completed in 1270. But the collapse in 1284 of the central tower and vaulting of this incomplete cathedral, owing to the excessive loftiness and slenderness of its supports, compelled its entire reconstruction, the number of the piers being doubled and the span of the pier arches correspondingly reduced. As thus rebuilt, the cathedral aisle was 47 feet wide from centre to centre of opposite piers, and 163 feet high to the top of the vault. Transepts were added after 1500. +Limoges+ and +Narbonne+, begun in 1272 on a large scale (though not equal in size to Beauvais), were likewise never completed. Both had choirs of admirable plan, with well-designed chevet-chapels. Many other cathedrals begun during this period were completed only after long delays, as, for instance, Meaux, Rodez (1277), Toulouse (1272), and Alby (1282), finished in the sixteenth century, and Clermont (1248), completed under Napoleon III. But between 1260 or 1275 and 1350, work was actively prosecuted on many still incomplete cathedrals. The choirs of Beauvais (rebuilding), Limoges, and Narbonne were finished after 1330; and towers, transept-façades, portals, and chapels added to many others of earlier date.

The style of this period is sometimes designated as +Rayonnant+, from the characteristic wheel tracery of the rose-windows, and the prevalence of circular forms in the lateral arched windows, of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. The great rose windows in the transepts of Notre Dame, dating from 1257, are typical examples of the style. Those of Rouen cathedral belong to the same category, though of later date. The façade of Amiens, completed by 1288, is one of the finest works of this style, of which an early example is the elaborate parish church of +St. Urbain+ at Troyes.

+THE FLAMBOYANT STYLE.+ The geometric treatment of the tracery and the minute and profuse decoration of this period gradually merged into the fantastic and unrestrained extravagances of the +Flamboyant+ style, which prevailed until the advent of the Renaissance--say 1525. The continuous logical development of forms ceased, and in its place caprice and display controlled the arts of design. The finest monument of this long period is the fifteenth-century nave and central tower of the church of +St. Ouen+ at Rouen, a parish church of the first rank, begun in 1318, but not finished until 1515. The tracery of the lateral windows is still chiefly geometric, but the western rose window (Fig. 112) and the magnificent central tower or lantern, exhibit in their tracery the florid decoration and wavy, flame-like lines of this style. Slenderness of supports and the suppression of horizontal lines are here carried to an extreme; and the church, in spite of its great elegance of detail, lacks the vital interest and charm of the earlier Gothic churches. The cathedral of Alençon and the church of +St. Maclou+ at Rouen, have portals with unusually elaborate detail of tracery and carving; while the façade of Rouen cathedral (1509) surpasses all other examples in the lace-like minuteness of its open-work and its profusion of ornament. The churches of +St. Jacques+ at Dieppe, and of +St. Wulfrand+ at Abbeville, the façades of Tours and Troyes, are among the masterpieces of the style. The upper part of the façade of Reims (1380-1428) belongs to the transition from the Rayonnant to the Flamboyant. While some works of this period are conspicuous for the richness of their ornamentation, others are noticeably bare and poor in design, like St. Merri and St. Séverin in Paris.

+SECULAR AND MONASTIC ARCHITECTURE.+ The building of cathedrals did not absorb all the architectural activity of the French during the Gothic period, nor did it by any means put an end to monastic building. While there are few Gothic cloisters to equal the Romanesque cloisters of Puy-en-Vélay, Montmajour, Elne, and Moissac, many of the abbeys either rebuilt their churches in the Gothic style after 1150, or extended and remodelled their conventual buildings. The cloisters of Fontfroide, Chaise-Dieu, and the Mont St. Michel rival those of Romanesque times, while many new refectories and chapels were built in the same style with the cathedrals. The most complete of these Gothic monastic establishments, that of the +Mont St. Michel+ in Normandy, presented a remarkable aggregation of buildings clustering around the steep isolated rock on which stands the abbey church. This was built in the eleventh century, and the choir and chapels remodelled in the sixteenth. The great refectory and dormitory, the cloisters, lodgings, and chapels, built in several vaulted stories against the cliffs, are admirable examples of the vigorous pointed-arch design of the early thirteenth century.

+Hospitals+ like that of St. Jean at Angers (late twelfth century), or those of Chartres, Ourscamps, Tonnerre, and Beaune, illustrate how skilfully the French could modify and adapt the details of their architecture to the special requirements of civil architecture. Great numbers of charitable institutions were built in the middle ages--asylums, hospitals, refuges, and the like--but very few of those in France are now extant. Town halls were built in the fifteenth century in some places where a certain amount of popular independence had been secured. The florid fifteenth-century +Palais de Justice+ at +Rouen+ (1499-1508) is an example of another branch of secular Gothic architecture. In all these monuments the adaptation of means to ends is admirable. Wooden ceilings and roofs replaced stone, wherever required by great width of span or economy of construction. There was little sculpture; the wall-spaces were not suppressed in favor of stained glass and tracery; while the roofs were usually emphasized and adorned with elaborate crestings and finials in lead or terra-cotta.

+DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.+ These same principles controlled the designing of houses, farm buildings, barns, granaries, and the like. The common closely-built French city house of the twelfth and thirteenth century is illustrated by many extant examples at Cluny, Provins, and other towns. A shop opening on the street by a large arch, a narrow stairway, and two or three stories of rooms lighted by clustered, pointed-arched windows, constituted the common type. The street front was usually gabled and the roof steep. In the fourteenth or fifteenth century half-timbered construction began to supersede stone for town houses, as it permitted of encroaching upon the street by projecting the upper stories. Many of the half-timbered houses of the fifteenth century were of elaborate design. The heavy oaken uprights were carved with slender colonnettes; the horizontal sills, bracketed out over the street, were richly moulded; picturesque dormers broke the sky-line, and the masonry filling between the beams was frequently faced with enamelled tiles.

The more considerable houses or palaces of royalty, nobles, and wealthy citizens rivalled, and in time surpassed, the monastic buildings in richness and splendor. The earlier examples retain the military aspect, with moat and donjon, as in the Louvre of Charles V., demolished in the sixteenth century. The finest palaces are of late date, and the type is well represented by the Ducal Palace at Nancy (1476), the +Hotel de Cluny+ (1485) at Paris, the +Hotel Jacques Cœur+ at Bourges (Fig. 127), and the east wing of Blois (1498-1515). These palaces are not only excellently and liberally planned, with large halls, many staircases, and handsome courts; they are also extremely picturesque with their square and circular towers, slender turrets, elaborate dormers, and rich carved detail.

+MONUMENTS+: (C. = cathedral; A. = abbey; trans. = transept; each edifice is given under the date of its commencement; subsequent alterations in parentheses.) Between 1130 and 1200: Vézelay A., ante-chapel, 1130; St. Germer-de-Fly C., 1130-1150 (chapel later); St. Denis A., choir, 1140 (choir rebuilt, nave and trans., 1240); Sens C., 1140-68 (W. front, 13th century; chapels, spire, 14th); Senlis C., 1145-83 (trans., spire, 13th century); Noyon C., 1149-1200 (W. front, vaults, 13th century); St. Germain-des-Prés A., Paris, choir, 1150 (Romanesque nave); Angers C., 1150 (choir, trans., 1274); Langres, 1150-1200; Laon C., 1150-1200; Le Mans C., nave, 1150-58 (choir, 1217-54); Soissons C., 1160-70 (choir, 1212; nave chapels, 14th century); Poitiers C., 1162-1204; Notre Dame, Paris, choir, 1163-96 (nave, W. front finished, 1235; trans. fronts, and chapels, 1257-75); Chartres C., W. end, 1170; rest, mainly 1194-98 (trans. porches, W. rose, 1210-1260; N. spire, 1506); Tours C., 1170 (rebuilt, 1267; trans., portals, 1375; W. portals, chapels, 15th century; towers finished, 1507-47); Laval C., 1180-85 (choir, 16th century); Mantes, church Notre Dame, 1180-1200; Bourges C., 1190-95 (E. end, 1210; W. end, 1275); St. Nicholas at Caen, 1190 (vaults, 15th century); Reims, church St. Rémy, choir, end of 12th century (Romanesque nave); church St. Leu d’Esserent, choir late 12th century (nave, 13th century); Lyons C., choir, end of 12th century (nave, 13th and 14th centuries); Etampes, church Notre Dame, 12th and 13th centuries.--13th century: Evreux C., 1202-75 (trans., central tower, 1417; W. front rebuilt, 16th century); Rouen C., 1202-20 (trans. portals, 1280; W. front, 1507); Nevers, 1211, N. portal, 1280 (chapels, S. portal, 15th century); Reims C., 1212-42 (W. front, 1380; W. towers, 1420); Bayonne C., 1213 (nave, vaults, W. portal, 14th century); Troyes C., choir, 1214 (central tower, nave, W. portal, and towers, 15th century); Auxerre C., 1215-34 (nave, W. end, trans., 14th century); Amiens C., 1220-88; St. Etienne at Chalons-sur-Marne, 1230 (spire, 1520); Séez C., 1230, rebuilt 1260 (remodelled 14th century); Notre Dame de Dijon, 1230; Reims, Lady chapel of Archbishop’s palace, 1230; Chapel Royal at St. Germain-en-Laye, 1240; Ste. Chapelle at Paris, 1242-47 (W. rose, 15th century); Coutances C., 1254-74; Beauvais C., 1247-72 (rebuilt 1337-47; trans. portals, 1500-48); Notre Dame de Grace at Clermont, 1248 (finished 1350); Dôl C., 13th century; St. Martin-des-Champs at Paris, nave 13th century (choir Romanesque); Bordeaux C., 1260; Narbonne C., 1272-1320; Limoges, 1273 (finished 16th century); St. Urbain, Troyes, 1264; Rodez C., 1277-1385 (altered, completed 16th century); church St. Quentin, 1280-1300; St. Benigne at Dijon, 1280-91; Alby C., 1282 (nave, 14th; choir, 15th century; S. portal, 1473-1500); Meaux C., mainly rebuilt 1284 (W. end much altered 15th, finished 16th century); Cahors C., rebuilt 1285-93 (W. front, 15th century); Orléans, 1287-1328 (burned, rebuilt 1601-1829).--14th century: St. Bertrand de Comminges, 1304-50; St. Nazaire at Carcassonne, choir and trans. on Romanesque nave; Montpellier C., 1364; St. Ouen at Rouen, choir, 1318-39 (trans., 1400-39; nave, 1464-91; W. front, 1515); Royal Chapel at Vincennes, 1385 (?)-1525.--15th and 16th century: St. Nizier at Lyons rebuilt; St. Séverin, St. Merri, St. Germain l’Auxerrois, all at Paris; Notre Dame de l’Epine at Chalons-sur-Marne; choir of St. Etienne at Beauvais; Saintes C., rebuilt, 1450; St. Maclou at Rouen (finished 16th century); church at Brou; St. Wulfrand at Abbeville; abbey of St. Riquier--these three all early 16th century.--HOUSES, CASTLES, AND PALACES: Bishop’s palace at Paris, 1160 (demolished); castle of Coucy, 1220-30; Louvre at Paris (the original château), 1225-1350; Palais de Justice at Paris, originally the royal residence, 1225-1400; Bishop’s palace at Laon, 1245 (addition to Romanesque hall); castle Montargis, 13th century; castle Pierrefonds, Bishop’s palace at Narbonnne, palace of Popes at Avignon--all 14th century; donjon of palace at Poitiers, 1395; Hôtel des Ambassadeurs at Dijon, 1420; house of Jacques Cœur at Bourges, 1443; Palace, Dijon, 1467; Ducal palace at Nancy, 1476; Hôtel Cluny at Paris, 1490; castle of Creil, late 15th century, finished in 16th; E. wing palace of Blois, 1498-1515, for Louis XII.; Palace de Justice at Rouen, 1499-1508.