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
The Midi shows in Narbonne Cathedral in the simplified triforium which
is framed by wall spaces, as are the clearstory windows, in the
extremely high pier arcades, and in the stout buttresses that are
disguised as dividing walls between the side chapels. The capitals are
mere uncarved bands, and over them certain molds die away in the pier.
M. Anthyme Saint-Paul's theory was that even in the XIII century began
the evolution which was to end in Flamboyant Gothic. He pointed out, in
Narbonne's chapels, windows with Rayonnant tracery side by side with
flamelike undulations. M. Enlart thinks we cannot be sure that they were
done at the same time. An unusual and graceful aspect was achieved in
the choir's northern aisle by the setting of piers beyond the dividing
walls of the chapels, making a kind of double aisle like that in the
transept of St. Nazaire at Carcassonne.
An architect named Henri is cited as master-of-works at Gerona Cathedral
whose chevet, begun after 1312, resembles that of St. Just. Henri was a
name uncommon in the Midi. It is thought that he was the original
architect of Narbonne. His successor at Gerona, Jacques de Favari or
Favers, a name of the central plateau of France, is known to have
directed the works of Narbonne's chief church. Catalonia, Aragon, and
Languedoc were allied in architecture as in tongue. Poblet in Catalonia
is directly the daughter of the abbey at Fontfroide, six miles from
Narbonne.[240] The Gothic influence of Narbonne spread to the isles in
the Mediterranean, to southern Italy and Cyprus.
Archbishop Maurin began Narbonne Cathedral after the tragic crusade of
St. Louis in 1270. He had vowed that if ever again he saw the fair land
of France he would offer thanksgiving by rebuilding his church. The
corner stone and relics were sent by Pope Clement IV, originally a
lawyer at St. Gilles, and then archbishop of Narbonne, whose crumbling
cathedral of Charlemagne's time he had purposed to replace by a Gothic
one, when his translation to the papacy intervened.
The apse chapels were built first. The main parts of the choir are the
work of Archbishop Gilles Aycelin de Montaigu, (1292-1311), a noble of
Auvergne, brother of the bishop who was building Clermont Cathedral and
who had himself been a canon at Clermont. He also began the cloister,
and to his own residence added a donjon tower. It is thought that the
episcopal palace at Narbonne served as prototype for the palace of the
popes at Avignon. In modern times, between its ancient towers a town
hall has been constructed. In 1311 Gilles Aycelin was transferred to the
see of Rouen, and Rouen's archbishop, Bernard de Farges (d. 1341), a
nephew of the pope who built the choir of Bordeaux Cathedral, took his
place at Narbonne, where he completed the giant choir. Services were
held in it in 1320.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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