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
Henri-le-Sanglier had been appointed by Louis VI to the see of Sens
before he had received holy orders, and in the lax spiritual standards
of the day, he saw no harm in living like the feudal lord he was by
birth. He had not Thomas of Canterbury's unbending consistency. When his
worldliness was censured by St. Bernard he changed his way of life, and
ultimately proved himself a loyal and humane pastor.
Of the six archbishops who were to follow him as builders of Sens'
metropolitan church, all of them were national figures. Under the long
rule of Hugues de Toucy (1143-68) the church was mainly erected. He was
the friend of Abbot Suger the pioneer, the friend, too, of Bernard the
regenerator, who came as his guest to Sens, after preaching the Second
Crusade at Vézelay. The same hospitable bishop welcomed on two occasions
the exiled archbishop of Canterbury. The second visit of St. Thomas
Becket was when he had been forced to quit the abbey of Pontigny,
situated close by over the Burgundian border, because Henry Plantagenet
swore to close every Cistercian house in his English and French domains
if further refuge were offered the prelate. Moved by the welcome given
him in his distress by the archbishop of Sens, the famous Englishman
cried out--so his secretary, Herbert of Bosham, records: "Ah, we have
proved the truth of the old saying--'_douce France! ô douce encore, ô
très douce France! Oui, elle est douce, vraiment douce, la France!_'"
By a series of logical inferences the name of the architect of this
Primary Gothic cathedral has been added to the roll call of honor. It is
known that Guillaume de Sens, a French master, was chosen in 1174 by the
chapter of Canterbury to rebuild their cathedral, destroyed by fire. He
drew the plan of Canterbury and had put up its apse, its Lady chapel,
and two bays of the choir, when one day he fell fifty feet from a
scaffold, and returned, in 1180, to his native land to die. An English
architect, also named William, continued the works at Canterbury, always
on the plan of French William.
Now the chevet of Canterbury has strong analogies with that of Sens.
There is the same single chapel in its axis; at Sens other apse chapels
were added in the XVI and XVIII centuries. The profiles were alike in
both cathedrals, and so were the sexpartite vaulting and the embryo
transept. In both Canterbury and Sens is an exceptional feature, of
Champagne origin, which could hardly have been used accidentally by two
men in the same generation. Each alternate pier, at Sens, consists of
twin columns, placed side by side according to the width, not the
length, of the church. At Canterbury, despite subsequent rebuildings,
the same arrangement is still to be found in the bay before the
sanctuary.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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