A Text-Book of the History of Architecture Part 15

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 119.--GROINED VAULT WITH ZIG-ZAG RIDGE-JOINTS.

_a_ shows a small section of filling with courses parallel to the ridge, for comparison with the other compartments.]

+THIRTEENTH-CENTURY VAULTING.+ Early in the thirteenth century the church-builders of Northern France abandoned the use of square vaulting-bays and six-part vaults. By the adoption of groin-ribs and the pointed arch, the building of vaults in oblong bays was greatly simplified. Each bay of the nave could now be covered with its own vaulting-bay, thus doing away with all necessity for alternately light and heavy piers. It is not quite certain when and where this system was first adopted for the complete vaulting of a church. It is, however, probable that the +Cathedral+ of +Chartres+, begun in 1194 and completed before 1240, deserves this distinction, although it is possible that the vaults of Soissons and Noyon may slightly antedate it. +Troyes+ (1170-1267), +Rouen+ (1202-1220), +Reims+ (1212-1242), +Auxerre+ (1215-1234, nave fourteenth century), +Amiens+ (1220-1288), and nearly all the great churches and chapels begun after 1200, employ the fully developed oblong vault.

+b.u.t.tRESSING.+ Meanwhile the increasing height of the clearstories and the use of double aisles compelled the bestowal of especial attention upon the b.u.t.tressing. The nave and choir of Chartres, the choirs of Notre Dame, Bourges, Rouen, and Reims, the chevet and later the choir of St. Denis, afford early examples of the flying-b.u.t.tress (Fig. 107).

These were at first simple and of moderate height. Single half-arches spanned the side aisles; in Notre Dame they crossed the double aisles in a single leap. Later the b.u.t.tresses were given greater stability by the added weight of lofty pinnacles. An intermediate range of b.u.t.tresses and pinnacles was built over the intermediate piers where double aisles flanked the nave and choir, thus dividing the single flying arch into two arches. At the same time a careful observation of statical defects in the earlier examples led to the introduction of subordinate arches and of other devices to stiffen and to beautify the whole system. At +Reims+ and +Amiens+ these features received their highest development, though later examples are frequently much more ornate.

+INTERIOR DESIGN.+ The progressive change outlined in the last chapter, by which the wall was practically suppressed, the windows correspondingly enlarged, and every part of the structure made loftier and more slender, resulted in the evolution of a system of interior design well represented by the nave of Amiens. The second story or gallery over the side aisle disappeared, but the aisle itself was very high. The triforium was no longer a gallery, but a richly arcaded pa.s.sage in the thickness of the wall, corresponding to the roofing-s.p.a.ce over the aisle, and generally treated like a lower stage of the clearstory. Nearly the whole s.p.a.ce above it was occupied in each bay by the vast clearstory window filled with simple but effective geometric tracery over slender mullions. The side aisles were lighted by windows which, like those in the clearstory, occupied nearly the whole available wall-s.p.a.ce under the vaulting. The piers and shafts were all cl.u.s.tered and remarkably slender. The whole construction of this vast edifice, which covers nearly eighty thousand square feet, is a marvel of lightness, of scientific combinations, and of fine execution. Its great vault rises to a height of one hundred and forty feet. The nave of St.

Denis, though less lofty, resembles it closely in style (Fig. 120).

Earlier cathedrals show less of the harmony of proportion, the perfect working out of the relation of all parts of the composition of each bay, so conspicuous in the Amiens type, which was followed in most of the later churches.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 120.--ONE BAY, ABBEY OF ST. DENIS.]

+WINDOWS: TRACERY.+ The clearstory windows of Noyon, Soissons, Sens, and the choir of Vezelay (1200) were simple arched openings arranged singly, in pairs, or in threes. In the cathedral of Chartres (1194-1220) they consist of two arched windows with a circle above them, forming a sort of plate tracery under a single arch. In the chapel windows of the choir at Reims (1215) the tracery of mullions and circles was moulded inside and out, and the intermediate triangular s.p.a.ces all pierced and glazed.

Rose windows were early used in front and transept facades. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries they were made of vast size and great lightness of tracery, as in the transepts of Notre Dame (1257) and the west front of Amiens (1288). From the design of these windows is derived the name _Rayonnant_, often applied to the French Gothic style of the period 1275-1375.

+THE SAINTE CHAPELLE.+ In this beautiful royal chapel at Paris, built 1242-47, Gothic design was admirably exemplified in the n.o.ble windows 15 by 50 feet in size, which perhaps furnished the models for those of Amiens and St. Denis. Each was divided by slender mullions into four lancet-like lights gathered under the rich tracery of the window-head.

They were filled with stained gla.s.s of the most brilliant but harmonious hues. They occupy the whole available wall-s.p.a.ce, so that the ribbed vault internally seems almost to rest on walls of gla.s.s, so slender are the visible supports and so effaced by the glow of color in the windows.

Certainly lightness of construction and the suppression of the wall-masonry could hardly be carried further than here (Fig. 121). Among other chapels of the same type are those in the palace of St.

Germain-en-Laye (1240), and a later example in the chateau of Vincennes, begun by Charles VI., but not finished till 1525.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 121.--THE STE. CHAPELLE, PARIS.]

+PLANS.+ The most radical change from the primitive basilican type was, as already explained in the last chapter, the continuation of the side aisles around the apse to form a _chevet_; and later, the addition of chapels between the external b.u.t.tresses. Radiating chapels, usually semi-octagons or semi-decagons in plan, early appeared as additions to the _chevet_ (Fig. 122). These may have originated in the apsidal chapels of Romanesque churches in Auvergne and the South, as at Issoire, Clermont-Ferrand, Le Puy, and Toulouse. They generally superseded the transept-chapels of earlier churches, and added greatly to the beauty of the interior perspective, especially when the encircling aisles of the chevet were doubled. Notre Dame, as at first erected, had a double ambulatory, but no chapels. Bourges has only five very small semicircular chapels. Chartres (choir 1220) and Le Mans, as reconstructed about the same date, have double ambulatories and radial chapels. After 1220 the second ambulatory no longer appears. Noyon, Soissons, Reims, Amiens, Troyes, and Beauvais, Tours, Bayeux, and Coutances, Clermont, Limoges, and Narbonne all have the single ambulatory and radiating chevet-chapels. The Lady-chapel in the axis of the church was often made longer and more important than the other chapels, as at Amiens, Le Mans, Rouen, Bayeux, and Coutances. Chapels also flanked the choir in most of the cathedrals named above, and Notre Dame and Tours also have side chapels to the nave. The only cathedrals with complete double side aisles alike to nave, choir, and chevet, were Notre Dame and Bourges. It is somewhat singular that the German cathedral of Cologne is the only one in which all these various characteristic French features were united in one design (see Fig. 140).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 122.--PLAN OF AMIENS CATHEDRAL.]

Local considerations had full sway in France, in spite of the tendency toward unity of type. Thus Dol, Laon, and Poitiers have square eastward terminations; Chalons has no ambulatory; Bourges no transept. In Notre Dame the transept was almost suppressed. At Soissons one transept, at Noyon both, had semicircular ends. +Alby+, a late cathedral of brick, founded in 1280, but mostly built during the fourteenth century, has neither side aisles nor transepts, its wide nave being flanked by chapels separated by internal b.u.t.tresses (Fig. 123).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 123.--PLAN OF CATHEDRAL OF ALBY.]

+SCALE.+ The French cathedrals were nearly all of imposing dimensions.

Noyon, one of the smallest, is 333 feet long; Sens measures 354. Laon, Bourges, Troyes, Notre Dame, Le Mans, Rouen, and Chartres vary from 396 to 437 feet in extreme length; Reims measures 483, and Amiens, the longest of all, 521 feet. Notre Dame is 124 feet wide across the five aisles of the nave; Bourges, somewhat wider. The central aisles of these two cathedrals, and of Laon, Amiens, and Beauvais, have a span of not far from 40 feet from centre to centre of the piers; while the ridge of the vaulting, which in Notre Dame is 108 feet above the pavement, and in Bourges 125, reaches in Amiens a height of 140 feet, and of nearly 160 in Beauvais. This emphasis of the height, from 3 to 3 times the clear width of the nave or choir, is one of the most striking features of the French cathedrals. It produces an impressive effect, but tends to dwarf the great width of the central aisle.

+EXTERIOR DESIGN.+ Here, as in the interior, every feature had its constructive _raison d'etre_, and the total effect was determined by the fundamental structural scheme. This was especially true of the lateral elevations, in which the pinnacled b.u.t.tresses, the flying arches, and the traceried windows of the side aisle and clearstory, repeated uniformly at each bay, were the princ.i.p.al elements of the design. The transept facades and main front allowed greater scope for invention and fancy, but even here the interior membering gave the key to the composition. Strong b.u.t.tresses marked the division of the aisles and resisted the thrust of the terminal pier arches, and rose windows filled the greater part of the wall s.p.a.ce under the end of the lofty vaulting.

The whole structure was crowned by a steep-pitched roof of wood, covered with lead, copper, or tiles, to protect the vault from damage by snow and moisture. This roof occasioned the steep gables which crowned the transept and main facades. The main front was frequently adorned, above the triple portal, with a gallery of niches or tabernacles filled with statues of kings. Different types of composition are represented by Chartres, Notre Dame, Amiens, Reims, and Rouen, of which Notre Dame (Fig. 124) and Reims are perhaps the finest. Notre Dame is especially remarkable for its stately simplicity and the even balancing of horizontal and vertical elements.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 124.--WEST FRONT OF NOTRE DAME, PARIS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 125.--WEST FRONT OF ST. MACLOU, ROUEN.]

+PORCHES.+ In most French church facades the porches were the most striking features, with their deep shadows and sculptured arches. The Romanesque porches were usually limited in depth to the thickness of the front wall. The Gothic builders secured increased depth by projecting the portals out beyond the wall, and crowned them with elaborate gables.

The vast central door was divided in two by a pier adorned with a niche and statue. Over this the tympanum of the arch was carved with scriptural reliefs; the jambs and arches were profusely adorned with figures of saints, apostles, martyrs, and angels, under elaborate canopies. The porches of Laon, Bourges, Amiens, and Reims are especially deep and majestic in effect, the last-named (built 1380) being the richest of all. Some of the transept facades also had imposing portals.

Those of +Chartres+ (1210-1245) rank among the finest works of Gothic decorative architecture, the south porch in some respects surpa.s.sing that of the north transept. The portals of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries were remarkable for the extraordinary richness and minuteness of their tracery and sculpture, as at Abbeville, Alencon, the cathedral and St. Maclou at Rouen (Fig. 125), Tours, Troyes, Vendome, etc.

+TOWERS AND SPIRES.+ The emphasizing of vertical elements reached its fullest expression in the towers and spires of the churches. What had been at first merely a lofty belfry roof was rapidly developed into the spire, rising three hundred feet or more into the air. This development had already made progress in the Romanesque period, and the south spire of Chartres is a notable example of late twelfth-century steeple design.

The transition from the square tower to the slender octagonal pyramid was skilfully effected by means of corner pinnacles and dormers. During and after the thirteenth century the development was almost wholly in the direction of richness and complexity of detail, not of radical constructive modification. The northern spire of Chartres (1515) and the spires of Bordeaux, Coutances, Senlis, and the Flamboyant church of St.

Maclou at Rouen, ill.u.s.trate this development. In Normandy central spires were common, rising over the crossing of nave and transepts. In some cases the designers of cathedrals contemplated a group of towers; this is evident at Chartres, Coutances, and Reims. This intention was, however, never realized; it demanded resources beyond even the enthusiasm of the thirteenth century. Only in rare instances were the spires of any of the towers completed, and the majority of the French towers have square terminations, with low-pitched wooden roofs, generally invisible from below. In general, French towers are marked by their strong b.u.t.tresses, solid lower stories, twin windows in each side of the belfry proper--these windows being usually of great size--and a skilful management of the transition to an octagonal plan for the belfry or the spire.

+CARVING AND SCULPTURE.+ The general superiority of French Gothic work was fully maintained in its decorative details. Especially fine is the figure sculpture, which in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries attained true n.o.bility of expression, combined with great truthfulness and delicacy of execution. Some of its finest productions are found in the great doorway jambs of the west portals of the cathedrals, and in the ranks of throned and adoring angels which adorned their deep arches.

These reach their highest beauty in the portals of Reims (1380). The _tabernacles_ or carved niches in which such statues were set were important elements in the decoration of the exteriors of churches.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 126.--FRENCH GOTHIC CAPITALS.

_a_, From Sainte Chapelle, Paris, 13th century. _b_, 14th-century capital from transept of Notre Dame, Paris. _c_, 15th-century capital from north spire of Chartres.]

Foliage forms were used for nearly all the minor carved ornaments, though grotesque and human figures sometimes took their place. The gargoyles through which the roof-water was discharged clear of the building, were almost always composed in the form of hideous monsters; and symbolic beasts, like the oxen in the towers of Laon, or monsters like those which peer from the tower bal.u.s.trades of Notre Dame, were employed with some mystical significance in various parts of the building. But the capitals corbels, crockets, and finials were mostly composed of floral or foliage forms. Those of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were for the most part simple in ma.s.s, and crisp and vigorous in design, imitating the strong shoots of early spring. The +capitals+ were tall and slender, concave in profile, with heavy square or octagonal abaci. With the close of the thirteenth century this simple and forcible style of detail disappeared. The carving became more realistic; the leaves, larger and more mature, were treated as if applied to the capital or moulding, not as if they grew out of it. The execution and detail were finer and more delicate, in harmony with the increasing slenderness and lightness of the architecture (Fig. 126 a, b). +Tracery forms+ now began to be profusely applied to all manner of surfaces, and open-work gables, wholly unnecessary from the structural point of view, but highly effective as decorations, adorned the portals and crowned the windows.

+LATE GOTHIC MONUMENTS.+ So far our attention has been mainly occupied with the masterpieces erected previous to 1250. Among the cathedrals, relatively few in number, whose construction is referable to the second half of the century, that of +Beauvais+ stands first in importance.

Designed on a colossal scale, its foundations were laid in 1225, but it was never completed, and the portion built--the choir and chapels--belonged really to the second half of the century, having been completed in 1270. But the collapse in 1284 of the central tower and vaulting of this incomplete cathedral, owing to the excessive loftiness and slenderness of its supports, compelled its entire reconstruction, the number of the piers being doubled and the span of the pier arches correspondingly reduced. As thus rebuilt, the cathedral aisle was 47 feet wide from centre to centre of opposite piers, and 163 feet high to the top of the vault. Transepts were added after 1500. +Limoges+ and +Narbonne+, begun in 1272 on a large scale (though not equal in size to Beauvais), were likewise never completed. Both had choirs of admirable plan, with well-designed chevet-chapels. Many other cathedrals begun during this period were completed only after long delays, as, for instance, Meaux, Rodez (1277), Toulouse (1272), and Alby (1282), finished in the sixteenth century, and Clermont (1248), completed under Napoleon III. But between 1260 or 1275 and 1350, work was actively prosecuted on many still incomplete cathedrals. The choirs of Beauvais (rebuilding), Limoges, and Narbonne were finished after 1330; and towers, transept-facades, portals, and chapels added to many others of earlier date.

The style of this period is sometimes designated as +Rayonnant+, from the characteristic wheel tracery of the rose-windows, and the prevalence of circular forms in the lateral arched windows, of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. The great rose windows in the transepts of Notre Dame, dating from 1257, are typical examples of the style.

Those of Rouen cathedral belong to the same category, though of later date. The facade of Amiens, completed by 1288, is one of the finest works of this style, of which an early example is the elaborate parish church of +St. Urbain+ at Troyes.

+THE FLAMBOYANT STYLE.+ The geometric treatment of the tracery and the minute and profuse decoration of this period gradually merged into the fantastic and unrestrained extravagances of the +Flamboyant+ style, which prevailed until the advent of the Renaissance--say 1525. The continuous logical development of forms ceased, and in its place caprice and display controlled the arts of design. The finest monument of this long period is the fifteenth-century nave and central tower of the church of +St. Ouen+ at Rouen, a parish church of the first rank, begun in 1318, but not finished until 1515. The tracery of the lateral windows is still chiefly geometric, but the western rose window (Fig. 112) and the magnificent central tower or lantern, exhibit in their tracery the florid decoration and wavy, flame-like lines of this style. Slenderness of supports and the suppression of horizontal lines are here carried to an extreme; and the church, in spite of its great elegance of detail, lacks the vital interest and charm of the earlier Gothic churches. The cathedral of Alencon and the church of +St. Maclou+ at Rouen, have portals with unusually elaborate detail of tracery and carving; while the facade of Rouen cathedral (1509) surpa.s.ses all other examples in the lace-like minuteness of its open-work and its profusion of ornament. The churches of +St. Jacques+ at Dieppe, and of +St. Wulfrand+ at Abbeville, the facades of Tours and Troyes, are among the masterpieces of the style. The upper part of the facade of Reims (1380-1428) belongs to the transition from the Rayonnant to the Flamboyant. While some works of this period are conspicuous for the richness of their ornamentation, others are noticeably bare and poor in design, like St. Merri and St.

Severin in Paris.

+SECULAR AND MONASTIC ARCHITECTURE.+ The building of cathedrals did not absorb all the architectural activity of the French during the Gothic period, nor did it by any means put an end to monastic building. While there are few Gothic cloisters to equal the Romanesque cloisters of Puy-en-Velay, Montmajour, Elne, and Moissac, many of the abbeys either rebuilt their churches in the Gothic style after 1150, or extended and remodelled their conventual buildings. The cloisters of Fontfroide, Chaise-Dieu, and the Mont St. Michel rival those of Romanesque times, while many new refectories and chapels were built in the same style with the cathedrals. The most complete of these Gothic monastic establishments, that of the +Mont St. Michel+ in Normandy, presented a remarkable aggregation of buildings cl.u.s.tering around the steep isolated rock on which stands the abbey church. This was built in the eleventh century, and the choir and chapels remodelled in the sixteenth. The great refectory and dormitory, the cloisters, lodgings, and chapels, built in several vaulted stories against the cliffs, are admirable examples of the vigorous pointed-arch design of the early thirteenth century.

+Hospitals+ like that of St. Jean at Angers (late twelfth century), or those of Chartres, Ourscamps, Tonnerre, and Beaune, ill.u.s.trate how skilfully the French could modify and adapt the details of their architecture to the special requirements of civil architecture. Great numbers of charitable inst.i.tutions were built in the middle ages--asylums, hospitals, refuges, and the like--but very few of those in France are now extant. Town halls were built in the fifteenth century in some places where a certain amount of popular independence had been secured. The florid fifteenth-century +Palais de Justice+ at +Rouen+ (1499-1508) is an example of another branch of secular Gothic architecture. In all these monuments the adaptation of means to ends is admirable. Wooden ceilings and roofs replaced stone, wherever required by great width of span or economy of construction. There was little sculpture; the wall-s.p.a.ces were not suppressed in favor of stained gla.s.s and tracery; while the roofs were usually emphasized and adorned with elaborate crestings and finials in lead or terra-cotta.

+DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.+ These same principles controlled the designing of houses, farm buildings, barns, granaries, and the like. The common closely-built French city house of the twelfth and thirteenth century is ill.u.s.trated by many extant examples at Cluny, Provins, and other towns.

A shop opening on the street by a large arch, a narrow stairway, and two or three stories of rooms lighted by cl.u.s.tered, pointed-arched windows, const.i.tuted the common type. The street front was usually gabled and the roof steep. In the fourteenth or fifteenth century half-timbered construction began to supersede stone for town houses, as it permitted of encroaching upon the street by projecting the upper stories. Many of the half-timbered houses of the fifteenth century were of elaborate design. The heavy oaken uprights were carved with slender colonnettes; the horizontal sills, bracketed out over the street, were richly moulded; picturesque dormers broke the sky-line, and the masonry filling between the beams was frequently faced with enamelled tiles.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 127.--HOUSE OF JACQUES CUR, BOURGES.

(After Viollet-le-Duc.)]

The more considerable houses or palaces of royalty, n.o.bles, and wealthy citizens rivalled, and in time surpa.s.sed, the monastic buildings in richness and splendor. The earlier examples retain the military aspect, with moat and donjon, as in the Louvre of Charles V., demolished in the sixteenth century. The finest palaces are of late date, and the type is well represented by the Ducal Palace at Nancy (1476), the +Hotel de Cluny+ (1485) at Paris, the +Hotel Jacques Cur+ at Bourges (Fig. 127), and the east wing of Blois (1498-1515). These palaces are not only excellently and liberally planned, with large halls, many staircases, and handsome courts; they are also extremely picturesque with their square and circular towers, slender turrets, elaborate dormers, and rich carved detail.

+MONUMENTS+: (C. = cathedral; A. = abbey; trans. = transept; each edifice is given under the date of its commencement; subsequent alterations in parentheses.) Between 1130 and 1200: Vezelay A., ante-chapel, 1130; St. Germer-de-Fly C., 1130-1150 (chapel later); St. Denis A., choir, 1140 (choir rebuilt, nave and trans., 1240); Sens C., 1140-68 (W. front, 13th century; chapels, spire, 14th); Senlis C., 1145-83 (trans., spire, 13th century); Noyon C., 1149-1200 (W. front, vaults, 13th century); St. Germain-des-Pres A., Paris, choir, 1150 (Romanesque nave); Angers C., 1150 (choir, trans., 1274); Langres, 1150-1200; Laon C., 1150-1200; Le Mans C., nave, 1150-58 (choir, 1217-54); Soissons C., 1160-70 (choir, 1212; nave chapels, 14th century); Poitiers C., 1162-1204; Notre Dame, Paris, choir, 1163-96 (nave, W. front finished, 1235; trans.

fronts, and chapels, 1257-75); Chartres C., W. end, 1170; rest, mainly 1194-98 (trans. porches, W. rose, 1210-1260; N. spire, 1506); Tours C., 1170 (rebuilt, 1267; trans., portals, 1375; W.

portals, chapels, 15th century; towers finished, 1507-47); Laval C., 1180-85 (choir, 16th century); Mantes, church Notre Dame, 1180-1200; Bourges C., 1190-95 (E. end, 1210; W. end, 1275); St. Nicholas at Caen, 1190 (vaults, 15th century); Reims, church St. Remy, choir, end of 12th century (Romanesque nave); church St.

Leu d'Esserent, choir late 12th century (nave, 13th century); Lyons C., choir, end of 12th century (nave, 13th and 14th centuries); Etampes, church Notre Dame, 12th and 13th centuries.--13th century: Evreux C., 1202-75 (trans., central tower, 1417; W. front rebuilt, 16th century); Rouen C., 1202-20 (trans. portals, 1280; W. front, 1507); Nevers, 1211, N. portal, 1280 (chapels, S. portal, 15th century); Reims C., 1212-42 (W.

front, 1380; W. towers, 1420); Bayonne C., 1213 (nave, vaults, W.

portal, 14th century); Troyes C., choir, 1214 (central tower, nave, W. portal, and towers, 15th century); Auxerre C., 1215-34 (nave, W. end, trans., 14th century); Amiens C., 1220-88; St.