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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.