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
Cathedral of Le Mans--XII-century nave built by notable prelates--Bishop
Hildebert de Lavardin (1097 to 1125) a poet and scholar--Guillaume de
Passavent made the Angevin vaults (c. 1150)--Geoffrey the Handsome,
nicknamed Plantagenet, and his son, Henry II of England, born in Le
Mans--Trinité church at Vendôme (note)--Le Mans' Gothic choir built from
1218 to 1254 by Bishop Geoffrey de Loudon--Le Mans ranks next to
Chartres and Bourges for its wealth of stained
glass--Rayonnant-Flamboyant transept of the XIV and XV centuries--The
groups at Solesmes a final expression of Gothic sculpture (1495 to
1550)--Collegiate church at St. Quentin, in size a cathedral,
XIII-century choir--Villard de Honnecourt, probably the architect of St.
Quentin.
VII. PLANTAGENET GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE 285
Plantagenet Gothic fused the cupola of Aquitaine and the diagonals of
north--Lasted a hundred years, from 1150 to 1250--For clearness divided
into three periods: I. Heavy diagonals, II. Eight slight branches, III.
Multiple ribs--English fan tracery a derivation of Angevin Gothic.
Cupola churches of Aquitaine: St. Front at Périgieux, begun after a
fire, 1120, and finished by 1180--Cahors Cathedral has Romanesque portal
of beauty (note)--Cathedral of Angoulême, begun 1109--Its façade a
notable page of French decoration--Rich façades distinguish Poitou's
Romanesque school--Fontevrault abbey church, built in the first half of
the XII century--Plantagenet tombs at Fontevrault--Aliénor of Aquitaine
buried there in 1204 beside her husband, Henry II, and her son, Richard
Coeur-de-Lion--Aliénor's descendants notable builders of churches.
Cathedral of Angers--Its nave vaulted with First-Period diagonals, about
1150--Anjou rulers a remarkable race--Fulk Nerra, the great builder,
died 1040--Choir of Angers Cathedral extended after 1274--In the nave is
XII-century glass of St. Denis derivation--Cathedral's Apocalypse
tapestries--Fortress of Angers, built by St. Louis, 1228 to 1238--Church
of Toussaint had a ramified vault of the Third Period--St. Jean's
hospital hall, endowed by Henry II, a gem of Plantagenet art--Choir of
St. Serge, 1220 to 1225, a masterpiece of lightness.
Saumur--Another center for the study of Plantagenet Gothic--Historical
fête called the _Non-Pareille_ took place in its castle in 1241--St.
Pierre's church shows different kinds of Angevin vaults--Church of St.
Martin at Candes, a Plantagenet masterpiece--St. Florent-les-Saumur
shows one of the first eight-branch vaults--Puy-Notre-Dame and Asnières
beautiful examples of Plantagenet art (note)--Plantagenet vaults at Le
Mans, Vendôme, Chinon, and Tours.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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