How France Built Her Cathedrals: A Study in the Twelfth and Thirteenth CenturiesO'Reilly, Elizabeth Boyle
History
How France Built Her Cathedrals: A Study in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
O'Reilly, Elizabeth Boyle
Architecture, Gothic; Cathedrals -- France
Of the five western doors of Bourges, only the central one is wholly of
the XIII century (c. 1260-75). Its representation of the Last Judgment,
adjudged to be the best ever set up at a cathedral door, the _Dies Iræ_
warning in stone, is derived from Job, St. Paul, St. Matthew, and the
Apocalypse. In the upper zone Christ is enthroned; in the lower is shown
the arising of the dead from their tombs. Between these scenes is the
splendid panel of the Judgment, with the stately archangel as its
central figure, holding the scales of justice. To his left malign demons
seize on the damned to plunge them into the jaws of the Leviathan
described in Job. To his right the blessed ones smile with complacency
as they move toward Paradise, here represented by a
hieroglyphic--supposed to be Abraham's bosom, out of which peep some
little souls smuggled safely away.[134] St. Peter stands at the gates of
Paradise, holding the keys, a doctrinal symbol of his power to bind and
to loose, until in time popular fancy pictured him as the actual
gatekeeper of heaven. Among the elect is represented a king holding the
flower of sanctity, probably meant for St. Louis. Beside the king is a
cord-girdled monk--hence the name "cordeliers" for Franciscans--showing
how popular was the new Order.
The fall of the north tower caused the ruin of the portals near it, and
when rebuilt in the XVI century an iconographic error was made which
would have been impossible with the trained scholastics of an earlier
day--the mother of the Saviour was placed on his left, instead of in the
seat of honor on his right. In the fatal year 1562, when from end to end
of France the churches were mutilated, the Calvinists attacked the
portal images of Bourges and flung the carven stones into the breaches
of the town walls. They went so far as to mine the giant piers in order
that the great edifice might totter to its fall; but happily their
control of the city was cut short, or the tragedy of Orléans might have
been enacted.[135]
Bourges is a chosen spot for stained glass, second only to Chartres.
Students have made the study of its windows a lifetime enthusiasm.
Nowhere can the epochs of the vitrine art from the XII to the XVII
century be more easily studied. The school of St. Denis, however, is not
represented. Two small panels, now set in a window beside the south
portal, are earlier in date than Suger's windows; their flesh tone is
purplish; perhaps they are the oldest colored glass extant in France.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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