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
For its wealth of storied windows Le Mans comes second only to Chartres
and Bourges. It has suffered from hail-storms which wrecked many of its
XIII-century treasures. The majority of the choir lights were set up
between 1250 and 1260. Those in the radial chapels are somewhat earlier;
in the long Lady chapel is a notable Tree of Jesse. The upper windows,
contemporaries of those at Tours, have large figures with signatures
that tell us their donors were canons, Benedictines,[167] Cistercians,
architects, drapers (the donors of the fourth window), furriers (who
gave the fifth), innkeepers and publicans (who presented the sixth). The
seventh window--in the center of the apse--was the gift of Bishop
Geoffrey de Loudon. In the thirteenth window bakers pour grain into
sacks and take bread from the oven.
In the clearstory of the inner aisle the legend-medallion type of window
is retained. The first two bays were filled by Bishop Guillaume Roland
(1255-58) here portrayed. The vintners presented the next light, for, on
the "day of benediction" in 1254, when each of the town guilds brought a
giant candle, the vintners chose to donate a light that would burn
longer, so they set up this dazzling window of St. Julian.[168] Over the
entrance to the Lady chapel Bishop Geoffrey is again portrayed, and in
the eleventh bay Pope Innocent IV appears.
A hundred years separate Le Mans' splendid specimens of XIII-century art
from certain small lancets in the cathedral's nave, made probably by
Suger's own workers of St. Denis, who came here when they had finished
the three lancets in Chartres' façade. M. Mâle has proved that all the
XII-century windows in the west of France derive from St. Denis. Le
Mans' lancets show the same robes, the same borders of medallions as in
the Suger lights at Chartres. The up-gazing apostles in Poitiers'
Crucifixion window resemble the apostles in Le Mans' Ascension. The
large much-restored light in the west façade, relating the story of St.
Julian, though modeled on the St. Denis school, must have been executed
by local craftsmen; it is rougher workmanship than the XII-century
lancets in the nave aisles.
Le Mans suffered woefully in 1562 when the Huguenots worked their will
for three months on the cathedral's treasures. A choir screen with three
hundred figures, a contemporary of that at Albi, was demolished, windows
by the dozen were broken, and there was a holocaust of carved altars and
tombs. After the Revolution, the XIII-century tomb of Berengaria of
Navarre, the childless widow of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, was set up in
the transept. For thirty years, as chatelaine of Le Mans, she watched
its new Gothic sanctuary rising. They have mistakenly called hers the
house of a XV-century lawyer in the Grande Rue.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account