As to the rectilinear portions of the crypt, in spite of the alterations
of the twelfth century, we may easily recognise the seal of the
eleventh century in the piers and the _abaci_. To S. Fulbert we
may also attribute the construction of two sacristies for
Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre, that on the _south_ side now being the Chapel
of S. Martin, that on the north the _Cave au Bois_, known formerly as
the ‘Place of the Iron Chest.’
The upper church was built of the same dimensions as those of the former
one, but the ground level of the whole was raised considerably, almost
to the height of that of the choir.
The length of the church may be indicated by the excavations of 1849 at
the centre of the labyrinth known as _La Lieue_, where fragments were
discovered which are supposed to have been the _débris_ of the western
façade. There was a double ambulatory round the choir and chapels
corresponding to those of the crypt, and two sacristies may be reckoned
to have been built above those of the Sous Terre.
A transept and two side-doors existed in the same place, but of less
size than those of to-day.
The decoration of the Cathedral was left in great part to Fulbert’s
successors.
Henry I., who came to the throne when death had surprised his father,
Robert the Good, as he was copying a manuscript in the Church of Melun,
owed his succession in some degree, as we have seen, to Fulbert.
He cancelled his debt in part by paying for the wooden roof[41] of the
Cathedral--wooden, for the art of extensive vaulting in stone was not
yet understood--whilst Henry’s doctor, Jean le Sourd, the Chartrain
pupil of Fulbert and leader of the sect of Nominalists in the battle of
the schools, was responsible for the construction of the south gate and
many other details. Teudon, who had made the Sainte Chasse for the Veil,
undertook the principal façade. A big bell weighing 5000 livres was also
hung in one of Vulphard’s towers, which still stood.
Fulbert died in the year 1028, but so rapid had the work been that he
did not die before his Cathedral was complete. For William of Malmesbury
(_Gest._, Vol. II. chap. XXV.) records that ‘Bishop Fulbert, among other
proofs of his efficient labours, very magnificently completed the Church
of Our Lady S. Mary, of which he himself had laid the foundations, and
which, moreover,’ he adds, ‘doing everything he could for its honour, he
rendered celebrated by many musical modulations. The man who has heard
his chaunts, breathing only celestial vows, is best able to conceive the
love he manifested in honour of the Virgin.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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