CHAPTER II.

THE PLACE OF NOTRE DAME IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF FRENCH GOTHIC.

The place of the Cathedral of Paris in the evolution of French Gothic[4] is so important that I propose to devote a brief chapter to it. The subject is essentially technical, but I will endeavour to make it as easy of comprehension as possible. The reader will doubtless ask himself what is the difference between Gothic and the style which preceded it. The reply, unfortunately, cannot consist of a dogmatic statement. The subject is a great one, and only a few sentences of this handbook may be devoted to it. I shall rely for the most part on the materials for a definition of Gothic given by M. Viollet-le-Duc in his _Dictionnaire Raisonné de l’Architecture Française_. The question is one of essential structural peculiarity as opposed to mere decorative idiosyncrasy. I am aware that many English writers whose opinions are entitled to respect hold views in conflict with those here maintained. The style which immediately preceded Gothic is known generically as Romanesque. In Romanesque the system may be described as one of inert stability: in Gothic the system is one of scientifically calculated thrusts and counter-thrusts. It was the affair of art to inform what one may call the mechanics of the building with interest and beauty. There have been many attempts to compromise the two systems, so that we often find Romanesque features in obviously Gothic buildings. Much will be said in subsequent pages of the vaulting of Notre Dame. I would willingly have left this vexed question alone, but were I so to do, this handbook would be little more than a descriptive catalogue of objects of interest together with some historical reminiscences. For the vaulting is of the essence of the whole matter: compared with it the consideration of mouldings and of ornament is relatively unimportant. To put the matter plainly, the very existence of a Gothic church depends upon the proper arrangement of what we may call its mechanism--_i.e._ its vaulting, piers, buttresses and so forth. The mechanics being duly devised, art steps in, and renders the essential beautiful.[5]

[Footnote 4: French Gothic is here generally intended to convey the Gothic of the Ile-de-France. The contemporary architecture of Normandy has a character of its own, probably not less valuable than that of the Ile-de-France. But it is different, and its differences have been dealt with in other handbooks of this series.]

[Footnote 5: The difficulty of attributing mediæval work in any countries to particular designers is generally recognised. I do not wish to imply, in the passage to which this note has reference, that the mechanic and the artist were of necessity separate people. Most often the plan was arranged by a master-builder who himself superintended the scheme of decoration.]

It is not at Paris that we can trace the first attempt to break away from the principles of Romanesque: the first step in the distinctly Gothic development of French architecture, according to some recent authorities, is to be found in the apse of the church of Morienval. Morienval is a Romanesque church, but it has ribbed vaulting, of which there is no earlier instance in France. At St. Germer-de-Fly we find the first truly Gothic apse on a large scale ever constructed. It belongs to the second quarter of the twelfth century. The same church possesses a vaulted triforium which may fairly be considered the forerunner of the far grander one at Paris. Again, the now suburban church of St. Denis has double aisles, which clearly foreshadow the noble arrangement which exists at Paris, Amiens, and elsewhere. Many writers are agreed in regarding St. Denis as the starting-point of French Gothic.

Notre Dame was the first of the greater French cathedrals in which Gothic principles of construction were logically carried out. The choir was begun, according to M. V. Mortet in his _Etude Historique et Archéologique sur la Cathédrale de Paris_, in the year 1163.[6] The nave (with the exception of the extreme west end) was completed about the year 1195. The west façade was built in the early part of the thirteenth century. Notre Dame is thus older than the cathedral of Amiens, with which one naturally compares it. Amiens was built between the years 1220 and 1288, except the lower stages of the west front, which were only completed towards the end of the fourteenth century. The towers are a “debased” addition. In England the work being done while the older parts of Notre Dame were in course of erection was transitional; the new style had by no means been fully understood and put into practice. Perhaps we do not overstate the case when we say that the _science_ (as well as the art) of Gothic found its first real expression on a large scale in the Cathedral of Paris.

[Footnote 6: I give the dates assumed by M. V. Mortet and later writers as well as those affixed by M. Viollet-le-Duc. It will be noticed that the differences between them are not material.]

A glance at the ground-plan of Notre Dame shows us how widely it differs from that of our own great churches. First of all we notice that not merely the nave, but the choir, possesses double aisles--a feature which is lacking in English churches[7] on so vast a scale as Canterbury, York, Ely or Peterborough. The magnificence which the system of double aisles lends to a great church need hardly be insisted upon. For a French church the nave of Paris is long, consisting of ten bays. The smaller Norman nave of Norwich possesses, however, no less than fourteen bays. At Paris one is struck by the slight projection of the transepts. In nearly all the greater churches of England the transepts are of large proportions, and frequently (as at Canterbury and Lincoln) we find two pairs of transepts. The transepts at Notre Dame are without aisles, and are so shallow that the church is only just cruciform. Speaking of these transepts Professor Roger Smith observes: “They do not project beyond the line of the side walls, so that, although fairly well marked in the exterior and interior of the building, they add nothing to its floor-space.”

[Footnote 7: Chichester, which is an early church, has double aisles; it is, however, comparatively small, and can in no sense be compared with so immense a building as Notre Dame.]

The east end of Notre Dame takes the form of a magnificent semicircular apse,--a form assuredly the most appropriate to a Gothic church. The square eastern termination, so common in England, is rare amongst the larger churches of the best period of French Gothic. “A more beautiful eastern termination than the Gothic apse,” says Mr. Charles Herbert Moore,[8] “could hardly be conceived. No part of the edifice does more honour to the Gothic builders. The low Romanesque apse, covered with the primitive semi-dome, and enclosed with its simple wall, presented no constructive difficulties, and produced no imposing effect. But the soaring French _chevet_, with its many-celled vault, its arcaded stories, its circling aisles and its radial chapels, taxed the utmost inventive power, and entranced the eye of the beholder.” It seems to me that throughout his study of Gothic Mr. Moore is a little less than fair to the Romanesque builders. The Gothic apse, which he so justly admires, is, after all, evolved from the Romanesque apse, which he holds in such light esteem. While we may admit the superiority of the Gothic apse, it is going too far to assert that the Romanesque apse “produces no imposing effect.” The apse of Norwich or Peterborough, or of St. Bartholomew’s (London) is assuredly imposing in a very high degree.

[Footnote 8: _Development and Character of Gothic Architecture._ Second edition. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1899.]

In a subsequent chapter the structural and decorative details will be fully discussed. It may, however, be noted in passing that, although the Cathedral of Paris is in all essentials a Gothic building, the influence of the Romanesque style is so marked in some of its details that it is frequently described as a transitional structure. As we have seen, the greater part of Notre Dame belongs to the twelfth century; and De Caumont, who in his _Abécédaire_ attempted for French architecture a work of scientific division similar to that which Rickman essayed for English architecture, describes French work of the twelfth century as _Architecture Romane-Tertiaire ou de Transition_. The _Abécédaire_, however, is now considered ingenious rather than authoritative.

With a few words about the west front this brief chapter must be concluded. The great façade of Notre Dame was begun in 1202. It bears a general structural resemblance to that of the cathedral of Senlis, which dates from the second half of the twelfth century, especially in the matter of its triple portals and the towers at the termination of the aisles. At Senlis we have unmistakable evidence of the Gothic spirit, but in its main plan this front is similar to the Romanesque Abbaye-aux-Hommes at Caen. The builders of the west front of Notre Dame thus owe something to the designers of Senlis and the Abbaye-aux-Hommes, but they have achieved a variety and symmetry of which their forerunners probably did not dream. In construction, as well as in the organic significance of its wealth of sculptured decoration, the façade of Notre Dame is genuinely Gothic as opposed to Romanesque.