Rouen (France) -- Description and travel; Rouen (France) -- History
I have already given the name of one of the master-masons who were
associated with this great pile of buildings, where the sound of
chisel and mallet can have scarcely ever ceased from the twelfth
century to the sixteenth. But Jean Davi's work was necessarily one of
the last finishing touches upon a building that others had reared in
the mass for him to decorate in detail. The various churches that had
been consecrated on the same spot have been recorded in their turn,
from the first primitive shrine of St. Mellon, in the fourth century,
to that greater fane seen by the Conqueror, which was almost entirely
burnt in 1200. The lower part of the Tour St. Romain is certainly a
part of the cathedral St. Maurilius consecrated. To say exactly when
the work of reconstruction was begun which St. Louis saw completed has
puzzled antiquarians far more diligent and learned than I am. But M.
Viollet le Duc has pointed to unmistakable signs of work earlier than
the rest in the two circular chapels of the apse, in the chapels of
the transept, and in the two side-doors of the western facade, which
open to the aisles. M. de Beaurepaire has also demonstrated, from a
close study of the Chapterhouse accounts, that when Richard de Malpalu
was dean in 1200, one Jean d'Andeli is spoken of as "Cementario, tunc
_magistro_ fabrice ecclesiae rothomagensis." He was also a relation of
one of the canons. The _Chronique du Bec_ gives the credit of
initiating the design to Ingelramus, or Enguerrand, from 1200 to 1214;
but this does not contradict the possibility of partners in the work,
and that the choir at any rate was done before the Norman influence
was much affected by the Ile de France, may be seen at once in the
fourteen tall and strong round pillars with their simple capitals and
massive round arches, which produce a very fine effect of pure
solidity amongst the lighter pointed work surrounding them. After
Enguerrand came "Durand le Machon," who dwelt in the same house that
Jean d'Andeli had held on lease, and after him, again, the name of
Gautier de St. Hilaire occurs before that of Jean Davi towards the end
of the thirteenth century.
[Illustration: ROUEN CATHEDRAL FROM THE NORTH-WEST]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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