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.

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.

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.

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.

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 sculpture; 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."

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.

"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.

"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.

"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_.