GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE:STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT

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CHAPTER XVI.

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.

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.

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.

FIG. 116.--PLAN OF NOTRE DAME, PARIS.

NOTRE DAME AT PARIS. The next great step in advance was taken in the cathedral

of Notre Dame23 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.

FIG. 117.--INTERIOR OF NOTRE DAME, PARIS.

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 11451160 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.

FIG. 118.--LE MANS CATHEDRAL. NAVE.

FIG. 119.--GROINED VAULT WITH ZIG-ZAG RIDGE-JOINTS.

a shows a small section of filling with courses parallel to the ridge, for comparison with

the other compartments.

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 (11701267), Rouen (12021220), Reims (12121242), Auxerre (1215

1234, nave fourteenth century), Amiens (12201288), 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.

FIG. 120.--ONE BAY, ABBEY OF ST. DENIS.

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.

FIG. 121.--THE STE. CHAPELLE, PARIS.

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 (11941220) 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 12751375.

THE SAINTE CHAPELLE. In this beautiful royal chapel at Paris, built 124247,

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.

FIG. 122.--PLAN OF AMIENS CATHEDRAL.

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).

FIG. 123.--PLAN OF

CATHEDRAL OF ALBY.

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.

FIG. 124.--WEST FRONT OF NOTRE DAME, PARIS.

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.

FIG. 125.--WEST FRONT OF ST. MACLOU, ROUEN.

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 (12101245) 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.

FIG. 126.--FRENCH GOTHIC CAPITALS.

a, From Sainte Chapelle, Paris, 13th century. b, 14th-century capital from transept of

Notre Dame, Paris. c, 15th-century capital from north spire of Chartres.

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 (13801428) 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 (14991508) 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.

FIG. 127.--HOUSE OF JACQUES COEUR, BOURGES.

(After Viollet-le-Duc.)

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 Coeur at Bourges (Fig. 127), and the east

wing of Blois (14981515). 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., 11301150

(chapel later); St. Denis A., choir, 1140 (choir rebuilt, nave and trans., 1240); Sens C.,

114068 (W. front, 13th century; chapels, spire, 14th); Senlis C., 114583 (trans.,

spire, 13th century); Noyon C., 11491200 (W. front, vaults, 13th century); St.

Germain-des-Prés A., Paris, choir, 1150 (Romanesque nave); Angers C., 1150 (choir,

trans., 1274); Langres, 11501200; Laon C., 11501200; Le Mans C., nave, 115058

(choir, 121754); Soissons C., 116070 (choir, 1212; nave chapels, 14th century);

Poitiers C., 11621204; Notre Dame, Paris, choir, 116396 (nave, W. front finished,

1235; trans. fronts, and chapels, 125775); Chartres C., W. end, 1170; rest, mainly

119498 (trans. porches, W. rose, 12101260; N. spire, 1506); Tours C., 1170

(rebuilt, 1267; trans., portals, 1375; W. portals, chapels, 15th century; towers finished,

150747); Laval C., 118085 (choir, 16th century); Mantes, church Notre Dame,

11801200; Bourges C., 119095 (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., 120275

(trans., central tower, 1417; W. front rebuilt, 16th century); Rouen C., 120220 (trans.

portals, 1280; W. front, 1507); Nevers, 1211, N. portal, 1280 (chapels, S. portal, 15th

century); Reims C., 121242 (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., 121534 (nave, W. end, trans., 14th

century); Amiens C., 122088; 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, 124247 (W. rose, 15th century); Coutances C., 125474;

Beauvais C., 124772 (rebuilt 133747; trans. portals, 150048); 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.,

12721320; Limoges, 1273 (finished 16th century); St. Urbain, Troyes, 1264;

Rodez C., 12771385 (altered, completed 16th century); church St. Quentin, 1280

1300; St. Benigne at Dijon, 128091; Alby C., 1282 (nave, 14th; choir, 15th century;

S. portal, 14731500); Meaux C., mainly rebuilt 1284 (W. end much altered 15th,

finished 16th century); Cahors C., rebuilt 128593 (W. front, 15th century); Orléans,

12871328 (burned, rebuilt 16011829).--14th century: St. Bertrand de Comminges,

130450; St. Nazaire at Carcassonne, choir and trans. on Romanesque nave;

Montpellier C., 1364; St. Ouen at Rouen, choir, 131839 (trans., 140039; nave,

146491; 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, 122030; Louvre at Paris (the original château), 12251350; Palais de Justice at

Paris, originally the royal residence, 12251400; 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 Coeur

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,

14981515, for Louis XII.; Palace de Justice at Rouen, 14991508.

20. Consult especially articles ARCHITECTURE,

CATHÉDRALE,

CHAPELLE,

CONSTRUCTION, ÉGLISE, MAISON, VOÛTE.

21. Dictionnaire raisonné de l'architecture française, vol. ii., pp. 280, 281.

22. See Ferree, Chronology of Cathedral Churches of France.

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."

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