CHAPTER XIV.

EARLY MEDIÆVAL ARCHITECTURE.—Continued.

IN GERMANY, GREAT BRITAIN, AND SPAIN.

Books Recommended: As before, Hübsch and Reber. Bond, Gothic Architecture in England. Also Brandon, Analysis of Gothic Architecture. Boisserée, Nieder Rhein. Ditchfield, The Cathedrals of England. Hasak, Die romanische und die gotische Baukunst (in Handbuch d. Arch.). Lübke, Die Mittelalterliche Kunst in Westfalen. Möller, Denkmäler der deutschen Baukunst. Puttrich, Baukunst des Mittelalters in Sachsen. Rickman, An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of Architecture. Scott, English Church Architecture. Van Rensselaer, English Cathedrals.

MEDIÆVAL GERMANY. Architecture developed less rapidly and symmetrically in Germany than in France, notwithstanding the strong centralized government of the empire. The early churches were of wood, and the substitution of stone for wood proceeded slowly. During the Carolingian epoch (800–919), however, a few important buildings were erected, embodying Byzantine and classic traditions. Among these the most notable was the Minster or palatine chapel of Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, an obvious imitation of San Vitale at Ravenna. It consisted of an octagonal domed hall surrounded by a vaulted aisle in two stories, but without the eight niches of the Ravenna plan. It was preceded by a porch flanked by turrets. The Byzantine type thus introduced was repeated in later churches, as in the Nuns’ Choir at Essen (947) and at Ottmarsheim (1050). In the great monastery at Fulda a basilica with transepts and with an apsidal choir at either end was built in 803. These choirs were raised above the level of the nave, to admit of crypts beneath them, as in many Lombard churches; a practice which, with the reduplication of the choir and apse just mentioned, became very common in German Romanesque architecture.

EARLY CHURCHES. It was in Saxony that this architecture first entered upon a truly national development. The early churches of this province and of Hildesheim (where architecture flourished under the favor of the bishops, as elsewhere under the royal influence) were of basilican plan and destitute of vaulting, except in the crypts. They were built with massive piers, sometimes rectangular, sometimes clustered, the two kinds often alternating in the same nave. Short columns were, however, sometimes used instead of piers, either alone, as at Paulinzelle and Limburg-on-the-Hardt (1024–39), or alternating with piers, as at Hecklingen, Gernrode (958–1050), and St. Godehard at Hildesheim (1133). A triple eastern apse, with apsidal chapels projecting eastward from the transepts, were common elements in the plans, and a second apse, choir, and crypt at the west end were not infrequent. Externally the most striking feature was the association of two, four, or even six square or circular towers with the mass of the church, and the elevation of square or polygonal turrets or cupolas over the crossing. These adjuncts gave a very picturesque aspect to edifices otherwise somewhat wanting in artistic interest.

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FIG. 99.—PLAN OF MINSTER AT WORMS.

RHENISH CHURCHES. It was in the Rhine provinces that vaulting was first applied to the naves of German churches, nearly a half century after its general adoption in France. Cologne possesses an interesting trio of churches in which the Byzantine dome on squinches or on pendentives, with three apses or niches opening into the central area, was associated with a long three aisled nave (St. Mary-in-the-Capitol, begun in 9th century; Great St. Martin’s, 1150–70; Apostles’ Church, 1160–99: the naves vaulted later). The double chapel at Schwarz-Rheindorf, near Bonn (1151), also has the crossing covered by a dome on pendentives.

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FIG. 100.—ONE BAY OF CATHEDRAL AT SPIRES.

The vaulting of the nave itself was developed in another series of edifices of imposing size, the cathedrals of Mayence (1036), Spires (Speyer), and Worms, and the Abbey of Laach, all built in the 11th century and vaulted early in the 12th. In the first three the main vaulting is in square bays, each covering two bays of the nave, the piers of which are alternately lighter and heavier (Figs. 99, 100). At Laach the vaulting-bays are oblong, both in nave and aisles. There was no triforium gallery, and stability was secured only by excessive thickness in the piers and clearstory walls, and by bringing down the main vault as near to the side-aisle roofs as possible.

RHENISH EXTERIORS. These great churches, together with those of Bonn and Limburg-on-the-Lahn and the cathedral of Treves (Trier, 1047), are interesting, not only by their size and dignity of plan and the somewhat rude massiveness of their construction, but even more so by the picturesqueness of their external design (Fig. 101). Especially successful is the massing of the large and small turrets with the lofty nave-roof and with the apses at one or both ends. The systematic use of arcading to decorate the exterior walls, and the introduction of open arcaded dwarf galleries under the cornices of the apses, gables, and dome-turrets, gave to these Rhenish churches an external beauty hardly equalled in other contemporary edifices. This method of exterior design, and the system of vaulting in square bays over double bays of the nave, were probably derived from the Lombard churches of Northern Italy, with which the Hohenstauffen emperors had many political relations.

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FIG. 101.—EAST END OF CHURCH OF THE APOSTLES, COLOGNE.

The Italian influence is also encountered in a number of circular churches of early date, as at Fulda (9th-11th century), Drügelte, Bonn (baptistery, demolished), and in façades like that at Rosheim, which is a copy in little of San Zeno at Verona.

Elsewhere in Germany architecture was in a backward state, especially in the southern provinces. Outside of Saxony, Franconia, and the Rhine provinces, very few works of importance were erected until the thirteenth century.

SECULAR ARCHITECTURE. Little remains to us of the secular architecture of this period in Germany, if we except the great feudal castles, especially those of the Rhine, which were, after all, rather works of military engineering than of architectural art. The palace of Charlemagne at Aix (the chapel of which was mentioned on p. 172) is known to have been a vast and splendid group of buildings, partly, at least of marble; but hardly a vestige of it remains. Of the extensive Palace of Henry III. at Goslar there remain well-defined ruins of an imposing hall of assembly in two aisles with triple-arched windows. At Brunswick the east wing of the Burg Dankwargerode displays, in spite of modern alterations, the arrangement of the chapel, great hall, two fortified towers, and part of the residence of Henry the Lion. The Wartburg palace (Ludwig III., cir. 1150) is more generally known—a rectangular hall in three stories, with windows effectively grouped to form arcades; while at Gelnhausen and Münzenberg are ruins of somewhat similar buildings. A few of the Romanesque monasteries of Germany have left partial remains, as at Maulbronn, which was almost entirely rebuilt in the Gothic period, and isolated buildings in Cologne and elsewhere. There remain also in Cologne a number of Romanesque private houses with coupled windows and stepped gables.

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FIG. 102.—PLAN OF DURHAM CATHEDRAL.

GREAT BRITAIN. Previous to the Norman conquest (1066) there was in the British Isles little or no architecture worthy of mention. The few extant remains of Saxon and Celtic buildings reveal a singular poverty of ideas and want of technical skill. These scanty remains are mostly of towers (those in Ireland nearly all round and tapering, with conical tops, their use and date being the subjects of much controversy) and crypts. The tower of Earl’s Barton is the most important and best preserved of those in England. With the Norman conquest, however, began an extraordinary activity in the building of churches and abbeys. William the Conqueror himself founded a number of these, and his Norman ecclesiastics endeavored to surpass on British soil the contemporary churches of Normandy. The new churches differed somewhat from their French prototypes; they were narrower and lower, but much longer, especially as to the choir and transepts. The cathedrals of Durham (1096–1133) and Norwich (same date) are important examples (Fig. 102). They also differed from the French churches in two important particulars externally; a huge tower rose usually over the crossing, and the western portals were small and insignificant. Lateral entrances near the west end were given greater importance and called Galilees. At Durham a Galilee chapel (not shown in the plan), takes the place of a porch at the west end, like the ante-churches of St. Benoît-sur-Loire and Vézelay.

THE NORMAN STYLE. The Anglo-Norman builders employed the same general features as the Romanesque builders of Normandy, but with more of picturesqueness and less of refinement and technical elegance. Heavy walls, recessed arches, round mouldings, cubic cushion-caps, clustered piers, and in doorways a jamb-shaft for each stepping of the arch were common to both styles. But in England the Corinthian form of capital is rare, its place being taken by simpler forms.

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FIG. 103.—ONE BAY OF TRANSEPT, WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL.

NORMAN INTERIORS. The interior design of the larger churches of this period shows a close general analogy to contemporaneous French Norman churches, as appears by comparing the nave of Waltham or Peterboro’ with that of Cérisy-la-Forêt, in Normandy. Although the massiveness of the Anglo-Norman piers and walls plainly suggests the intention of vaulting the nave, this intention seems never to have been carried out except in small churches and crypts. All the existing abbeys and cathedrals of this period had wooden ceilings or were, like Durham, Norwich, and Gloucester, vaulted at a later date. Completed as they were with wooden nave-roofs, the clearstory was, without danger, made quite lofty and furnished with windows of considerable size. These were placed near the outside of the thick wall, and a passage was left between them and a triple arch on the inner face of the wall—a device imitated from the abbeys at Caen. The vaulted side-aisles were low, with disproportionately wide pier-arches, above which was a high triforium gallery under the side-roofs. Thus a nearly equal height was assigned to each of the three stories of the bay, disregarding that subordination of minor to major parts which gives interest to an architectural composition. The piers were quite often round, as at Gloucester, Hereford, and Bristol. Sometimes round piers alternated with clustered piers, as at Durham and Waltham; and in some cases clustered piers alone were employed, as at Peterboro’ and in the transepts of Winchester (Fig. 103).

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FIG. 104.—FRONT OF IFFLEY CHURCH.

FAÇADES AND DOORWAYS. All the details were of the simplest character, except in the doorways. These were richly adorned with clustered jamb-shafts and elaborately carved mouldings, but there was little variety in the details of this carving. The zigzag was the most common feature, though birds’ heads with the beaks pointing toward the centre of the arch were not uncommon. In the smaller churches (Fig. 104) the doorways were better proportioned to the whole façade than in the larger ones, in which they appear as relatively insignificant features. Very few examples remain of important Norman façades in their original form, nearly all of these having been altered after the round arch was displaced by the pointed arch in the latter part of the twelfth century. Iffley church (Fig. 104) is a good example of the style.

SPAIN. During the Romanesque period a large part of Spain was under Moorish dominion. The capture of Toledo, in 1062, by the Christians, began the gradual emancipation of the country from Moslem rule, and in the northern provinces a number of important churches were erected under the influence of French Romanesque models. The use of domical pendentives (as in the Panteon of S. Isidoro, at Leon, and in the cimborio or dome over the choir at the intersection of nave and transepts in old Salamanca cathedral) was probably derived from the domical churches of Aquitania and Anjou. Elsewhere the northern Romanesque type prevailed under various modifications, with long nave and transepts, a short choir, and a complete chevet with apsidal chapels. The church of St. Iago at Compostella (1078) is the finest example of this class. These churches nearly all had groined vaulting over the side-aisles and barrel-vaults over the nave, the constructive system being substantially that of the churches of Auvergne and the Loire Valley (p. 165). They differed, however, in the treatment of the crossing of nave and transepts, over which was usually erected a dome or cupola or pendentives or squinches, covered externally by an imposing square lantern or tower, as in the Old Cathedral at Salamanca, already mentioned (1120–78) and the Collegiate Church at Toro. Occasional exceptions to these types are met with, as in the basilican wooden-roofed church of S. Millan at Segovia; in S. Isidoro at Leon, with chapels and a later-added square eastern end, and the circular church of the Templars at Segovia.

The architectural details of these Spanish churches did not differ radically from contemporary French work. As in France and England, the doorways were the most ornate parts of the design, the mouldings being carved with extreme richness and the jambs frequently adorned with statues, as in S. Vincente at Avila. There was no such logical and reasoned-out system of external design as in France, and there is consequently greater variety in the façades. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the architecture of this period is its apparent exemption from the influence of the Moorish monuments which abounded on every hand. This may be explained by the hatred which was felt by the Christians for the Moslems and all their works.

CHAPTER XV.

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE.

Books Recommended: Adamy, Architektonik des gotischen Stils. Corroyer, L’Architecture gothique. Enlart, Manuel d’archéologie française. Hasak, Einzelheiten des Kirchenbaues (in Hdbuch d. Arch.). Moore, Development and Character of Gothic Architecture. Parker, Introduction to Gothic Architecture. Scott, Mediæval Architecture. Viollet-le-Duc, Discourses on Architecture; Dictionnaire raisonné de l’architecture française.

INTRODUCTORY. The architectural styles which were developed in Western Europe during the period extending from about 1150 to 1450 or 1500, received in an unscientific age the wholly erroneous and inept name of Gothic. This name has, however, become so fixed in common usage that it is hardly possible to substitute for it any more scientific designation. In reality the architecture to which it is applied was nothing more than the sequel and outgrowth of the Romanesque, which we have already studied. Its fundamental principles were the same; it was concerned with the same problems. These it took up where the Romanesque builders left them, and worked out their solution under new conditions, until it had developed out of the simple and massive models of the early twelfth century the splendid cathedrals of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in England, France, Germany, the Low Countries and Spain.

THE CHURCH AND ARCHITECTURE. The twelfth century was an era of transition in society, as in architecture. The ideas of Church and State were becoming more clearly defined in the common mind. In the conflict between feudalism and royalty the monarchy was steadily gaining ground. The problem of human right was beginning to present itself alongside of the problem of human might. The relations between the crown, the feudal barons, the pope, bishops, and abbots, differed widely in France, Germany, England, and other countries. The struggle among them for supremacy presented itself, therefore, in varied aspects; but the general outcome was essentially the same. The church began to appear as something behind and above abbots, bishops, kings, and barons. The supremacy of the papal authority gained increasing recognition, and the episcopacy began to overshadow the monastic institutions; the bishops appearing generally, but especially in France, as the champions of popular rights. The prerogatives of the crown became more firmly established, and thus the Church and the State emerged from the social confusion as the two institutions divinely appointed for the government of men.

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FIG. 105.—CONSTRUCTIVE SYSTEM OF GOTHIC CHURCH,
ILLUSTRATING PRINCIPLES OF ISOLATED SUPPORTS AND BUTTRESSING.

Under these influences ecclesiastical architecture advanced with rapid strides. No longer hampered by monastic restrictions, it called into its service the laity, whose guilds of masons and builders carried from one diocese to another their constantly increasing stores of constructive knowledge. By a wise division of labor, each man wrought only such parts as he was specially trained to undertake. The master-builder—bishop, abbot, or mason—seems to have planned only the general arrangement and scheme of the building, leaving the precise form of each detail to be determined as the work advanced, according to the skill and fancy of the artisan to whom it was intrusted. Thus was produced that remarkable variety in unity of the Gothic cathedrals; thus, also, those singular irregularities and makeshifts, those discrepancies and alterations in the design, which are found in every great work of mediæval architecture. Gothic architecture was constantly changing, attacking new problems or devising new solutions of old ones. In this character of constant flux and development it contrasts strongly with the classic styles, in which the scheme and the principles were easily fixed and remained substantially unchanged for centuries.

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FIG. 106.—PLAN OF SAINTE CHAPELLE, PARIS, SHOWING SUPPRESSION OF SIDE-WALLS.

STRUCTURAL PRINCIPLES. The pointed arch, so commonly regarded as the most characteristic feature of the Gothic styles, was merely an incidental feature of their development. What really distinguished them most strikingly was the systematic application of two principles which the Roman and Byzantine builders had recognized and applied, but which seem to have been afterward forgotten until they were revived by the later Romanesque architects. The first of these was the concentration of strains upon isolated points of support, made possible by the substitution of groined for barrel vaults. This led to a corresponding concentration of the masses of masonry at these points; the building was constructed as if upon legs (Fig. 105). The wall became a mere filling-in between the piers or buttresses, and in time was, indeed, practically suppressed, immense windows filled with stained glass taking its place. This is well illustrated in the Sainte Chapelle at Paris, built 1242–47 (Figs. 106, 122). In this remarkable edifice, a series of groined vaults spring from slender shafts built against deep buttresses which receive and resist all the thrusts. The wall-spaces between them are wholly occupied by superb windows filled with stone tracery and stained glass. It would be impossible to combine the materials used more scientifically or effectively. The cathedrals of Gerona (Spain) and of Alby (France; Fig. 123) illustrate the same principle, though in them the buttresses are internal and serve to separate the flanking chapels.

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FIG. 107.—EARLY GOTHIC FLYING BUTTRESS.

The second distinctive principle of Gothic architecture was that of balanced thrusts. In Roman buildings the thrust of the vaulting was resisted wholly by the inertia of mass in the abutments. In Gothic architecture thrusts were as far as possible resisted by counter-thrusts, and the final resultant pressure was transmitted by flying half-arches across the intervening portions of the structure to external buttresses placed at convenient points. This combination of flying half-arches and buttresses is called the flying-buttress (Fig. 107). It reached its highest development in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in the cathedrals of central and northern France.

RIBBED VAULTING. These two principles formed the structural basis of the Gothic styles. Their application led to the introduction of two other elements, second only to them in importance, ribbed vaulting and the pointed arch.

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FIG. 108.—RIBBED VAULT, ENGLISH TYPE, WITH DIVIDED GROIN-RIBS AND RIDGE-RIBS.

The first of these resulted from the effort to overcome certain practical difficulties encountered in the building of large groined vaults. As ordinarily constructed, a groined vault like that in Fig. 47, must be built as one structure, upon wooden centrings supporting its whole extent. The Romanesque architects conceived the idea of constructing an independent skeleton of ribs. Two of these were built against the wall (wall-ribs), two across the nave (transverse ribs); and two others were made to coincide with the groins (Figs. 98, 108). The groin-ribs, intersecting at the centre of the vault, divided each bay into four triangular portions, or compartments, each of which was really an independent vault which could be separately constructed upon light centrings supported by the groin-ribs themselves. This principle, though identical in essence with the Roman system of brick skeleton-ribs for concrete vaults, was, in application and detail, superior to it, both from the scientific and artistic point of view. The ribs, richly moulded, became, in the hands of the Gothic architects, important decorative features. In practice the builder gave to each set of ribs independently the curvature he desired. The vaulting-surfaces were then easily twisted or warped so as to fit the various ribs, which, being already in place, served as guides for their construction.

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FIG. 109.—PENETRATIONS AND INTERSECTIONS OF VAULTS.

a, a, Penetrations by small semi-circular vaults sprung from same level. b, Intersection by small semi-circular vault sprung from higher level; groins form wavy lines. c, Intersection by narrow pointed vault sprung from same level; groins are plane curves.

THE POINTED ARCH was adopted to remedy the difficulties encountered in the construction of oblong vaults. It is obvious that where a narrow semi-cylindrical vault intersects a wide one, it produces either what are called penetrations, as at a (Fig. 109), or intersections like that at b, both of which are awkward in aspect and hard to construct. If, however, one or both vaults be given a pointed section, the narrow vault may be made as high as the wide one. It is then possible, with but little warping of the vaulting surfaces, to make them intersect in groins c, which are vertical plane curves instead of wavy loops like a and b.

The Gothic architects availed themselves to the full of these two devices. They built their groin-ribs of semi-circular or pointed form, but the wall-ribs and the transverse ribs were, without exception, pointed arches of such curvature as would bring the apex of each nearly or quite to the level of the groin intersection. The pointed arch, thus introduced as the most convenient form for the vaulting-ribs, was soon applied to other parts of the structure. This was a necessity with the windows and pier-arches, which would not otherwise fit well the wall-spaces under the wall-ribs of the nave and aisle vaulting.

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FIG. 110.—PLATE TRACERY, CHARLTON-ON-OXMORE.

TRACERY AND GLASS. With the growth in the size of the windows and the progressive suppression of the lateral walls of vaulted structures, stained glass came more and more generally into use. Its introduction not only resulted in a notable heightening and enriching of the colors and scheme of the interior decoration, but reacted on the architecture, intensifying the very causes which led to its introduction. It stimulated the increase in the size of windows, and the suppression of the walls, and contributed greatly to the development of tracery. This latter feature was an absolute necessity for the support of the glass. Its evolution can be traced (Figs, 110, 111, 112) from the simple coupling of twin windows under a single hood-mould, or discharging arch, to the florid net-work of the fifteenth century. In its earlier forms it consisted merely of decorative openings, circles, and quatrefoils, pierced through slabs of stone (plate-tracery), filling the window-heads over coupled windows. Later attention was bestowed upon the form of the stonework, which was made lighter and richly moulded (bar-tracery), rather than upon that of the openings (Fig. 111). Then the circular and geometric patterns employed were abandoned for more flowing and capricious designs (Flamboyant tracery, Fig. 112) or (in England) for more rigid and rectangular arrangements (Perpendicular, Fig. 134). It will be shown later that the periods and styles of Gothic architecture are more easily identified by the tracery than by any other feature.

CHURCH PLANS. The original basilica-plan underwent radical modifications during the 12th-15th centuries. These resulted in part from the changes in construction which have been described, and in part from altered ecclesiastical conditions and requirements. Gothic church architecture was based on cathedral design; and the requirements of the cathedral differed in many respects from those of the monastic churches of the preceding period.

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FIG. 111.—BAR TRACERY, ST. MICHAEL’S, WARFIELD.

The most important alterations in the plan were in the choir and transepts. The choir was greatly lengthened, the transepts often shortened. The choir was provided with two and often four side-aisles, and one or both of these was commonly carried entirely around the apsidal termination of the choir, forming a single or double ambulatory. This combination of choir, apse, and ambulatory was called, in French churches, the chevet.

Another advance upon Romanesque models was the multiplication of chapels—a natural consequence of the more popular character of the cathedral as compared with the abbey. Frequently lateral chapels were built at each bay of the side-aisles, filling up the space between the deep buttresses, flanking the nave as well as the choir. They were also carried around the chevet in most of the French cathedrals (Paris, Bourges, Reims, Amiens, Beauvais, and many others); in many of those in Germany (Magdeburg, Cologne, Frauenkirche at Treves), Spain (Toledo, Leon, Barcelona, Segovia, etc.), and Belgium (Tournay, Antwerp). In England the choir had more commonly a square eastward termination. Secondary transepts occur frequently, and these peculiarities, together with the narrowness and great length of most of the plans, make of the English cathedrals a class by themselves.

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FIG. 112.—ROSE WINDOW, CHURCH OF ST. OUEN, ROUEN.

PROPORTIONS AND COMPOSITION. Along with these modifications of the basilican plan should be noticed a great increase in the height and slenderness of all parts of the structure. The lofty clearstory, the arcaded triforium-passage or gallery beneath it, the high pointed pier-arches, the multiplication of slender clustered shafts, and the reduction in the area of the piers, gave to the Gothic churches an interior aspect wholly different from that of the simpler, lower, and more massive Romanesque edifices. The perspective effects of the plans thus modified, especially of the complex choir and chevet with their lateral and radial chapels, were remarkably enriched and varied.

The exterior was even more radically transformed by these changes, and by the addition of towers and spires to the fronts, and sometimes to the transepts and to their intersection with the nave. The deep buttresses, terminating in pinnacles, the rich traceries of the great lateral windows, the triple portals profusely sculptured, rose-windows of great size under the front and transept gables, combined to produce effects of marvellously varied light and shadow, and of complex and elaborate structural beauty, totally unlike the broad simplicity of the Romanesque exteriors.

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FIG. 113.—FLAMBOYANT DETAIL FROM PULPIT IN STRASBURG CATHEDRAL.

DECORATIVE DETAIL. The mediæval designers aimed to enrich every constructive feature with the most effective play of lights and shades, and to embody in the decorative detail the greatest possible amount of allegory and symbolism, and sometimes of humor besides. The deep jambs and soffits of doors and pier-arches were moulded with a rich succession of hollow and convex members, and adorned with carvings of saints, apostles, martyrs, and angels. Virtues and vices, allegories of reward and punishment, and an extraordinary world of monstrous and grotesque beasts, devils, and goblins filled the capitals and door-arches, peeped over tower-parapets, or leered and grinned from gargoyles and corbels. Another source of decorative detail was the application of tracery like that of the windows to wall-panelling, to balustrades, to open-work gables, to spires, to choir-screens, and other features, especially in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (cathedrals of York, Rouen, Cologne; Henry VII.’s Chapel, Westminster). And finally in the carving of capitals and the ornamentation of mouldings the artists of the thirteenth century and their successors abandoned completely the classic models and traditions which still survived in the early twelfth century. The later monastic builders began to look directly to nature for suggestions of decorative form. The lay builders who sculptured the capitals and crockets and finials of the early Gothic cathedrals adopted and followed to its finality this principle of recourse to nature, especially to plant life. At first the budding shoots of early spring were freely imitated or skilfully conventionalized, as being by their thick and vigorous forms the best adapted for translation into stone (Fig. 114). During the thirteenth century the more advanced stages of plant growth, and leaves more complex and detailed, furnished the models for the carver, who displayed his skill in a closer and more literal imitation of their minute veinings and indentations (Fig. 115). see caption and text
FIG. 114.—EARLY GOTHIC CARVING. This artistic adaptation of natural forms to architectural decoration degenerated later into a minutely realistic copying of natural foliage, in which cleverness of execution took the place of original invention. The spirit of display is characteristic of all late Gothic work. Slenderness, minuteness of detail, extreme complexity and intricacy of design, an unrestrained profusion of decoration covering every surface, a lack of largeness and vigor in the conceptions, are conspicuous traits of Gothic design in the fifteenth century, alike in France, England, Germany, Spain, and the Low Countries. Having worked out to their conclusion the structural principles bequeathed to them by the preceding centuries, the authors of these later works seemed to have devoted themselves to the elaboration of mere decorative detail, and in technical finish surpassed all that had gone before (Fig. 113).

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FIG. 115.—CARVING, DECORATED PERIOD, FROM SOUTHWELL MINSTER.

CHARACTERISTICS SUMMARIZED. In the light of the preceding explanations Gothic architecture may be defined as that system of structural design and decoration which grew up out of the effort to combine, in one harmonious and organic conception, the basilican plan with a complete and systematic construction of groined vaulting. Its development was controlled throughout by considerations of stability and structural propriety, but in the application of these considerations the artistic spirit was allowed full scope for its exercise. Refinement, good taste, and great fertility of imagination characterize the details and ornaments of Gothic structures. While the Greeks in harmonizing the requirements of utility and beauty in architecture approached the problem from the æsthetic side, the Gothic architects did the same from the structural side. Their admirably reasoned structures express as perfectly the idea of vastness, mystery, and complexity as do the Greek temples that of simplicity and monumental repose.

The excellence of Gothic architecture lay not so much in its individual details as in its perfect adaptation to the purposes for which it was developed—its triumphs were achieved in the building of cathedrals and large churches. In the domain of civil and domestic architecture it produced nothing comparable with its ecclesiastical edifices, because it was the requirements of the cathedral and not of the palace, town-hall, or dwelling, that gave it its form and character.

PERIODS. The history of Gothic architecture is commonly divided into three periods, which are most readily distinguished by the character of the window-tracery. These periods were not by any means synchronous in the different countries; but the order of sequence was everywhere the same. They are here given, with a summary of the characteristics of each.

Early Pointed Period. [Early French; Early English or Lancet Period in England; Early German, etc.] Simple groined vaults; general simplicity and vigor of design and detail; conventionalized foliage of small plants; plate tracery, and narrow windows coupled under pointed arch with circular foiled openings in the window-head. (In France, 1160 to 1275.)

Middle Pointed Period. [Rayonnant in France; Decorated or Geometric in England.] Vaults more perfect; in England multiple ribs and liernes; greater slenderness and loftiness of proportions; decoration much richer, less vigorous; more naturalistic carving of mature foliage; walls nearly suppressed, windows of great size, bar tracery with slender moulded or columnar mullions and geometric combinations (circles and cusps) in window-heads, circular (rose) windows. (In France, 1275 to 1375.)

Florid Gothic Period. [Flamboyant in France; Perpendicular in England.] Vaults of varied and richly decorated design; fan-vaulting and pendants in England, vault-ribs curved into fanciful patterns in Germany and Spain; profuse and minute decoration and cleverness of technical execution substituted for dignity of design; highly realistic carving and sculpture, flowing or flamboyant tracery in France; perpendicular bars with horizontal transoms and four-centred arches in England; “branch-tracery” in Germany. (In France, 1375 to 1525.)

CHAPTER XVI.

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE.

Books Recommended: As before, Adamy, Corroyer, Enlart, Hasak, Moore, Reber, Viollet-le-Duc.20 Also Chapuy, Le moyen age monumental. Chateau, Histoire et caractères de l’architecture française. Davies, Architectural Studies in France. Ferree, The Chronology of the Cathedral Churches of France. Johnson, Early French Architecture. King, The Study book of Mediæval Architecture and Art. Lassus and Viollet-le-Duc, Notre Dame de Paris. Nesfield, Specimens of Mediæval Architecture. Pettit, Architectural Studies in France.

CATHEDRAL-BUILDING IN FRANCE. In the development of the principles outlined in the foregoing chapter the church-builders of France led the way. They surpassed all their contemporaries in readiness of invention, in quickness and directness of reasoning, and in artistic refinement. These qualities were especially manifested in the extraordinary architectural activity which marked the second half of the twelfth century and the first half of the thirteenth. This was the great age of cathedral-building in France. The adhesion of the bishops to the royal cause, and their position in popular estimation as the champions of justice and human rights, led to the rapid advance of the episcopacy in power and influence. The cathedral, as the throne-church of the bishop, became a truly popular institution. New cathedrals were founded on every side, especially in the Royal Domain and the adjoining provinces of Normandy, Burgundy, and Champagne, and their construction was warmly seconded by the people, the communes, and the municipalities. “Nothing to-day,” says Viollet-le-Duc,21 “unless it be the commercial movement which has covered Europe with railway lines, can give an idea of the zeal with which the urban populations set about building cathedrals; . . . a necessity at the end of the twelfth century because it was an energetic protest against feudalism.” The collapse of the unscientific Romanesque vaulting of some of the earlier cathedrals and the destruction by fire of others stimulated this movement by the necessity for their immediate rebuilding. The entire reconstruction of the cathedrals of Bayeux, Bayonne, Cambray, Evreux, Laon, Lisieux, Le Mans, Noyon, Poitiers, Senlis, Soissons, and Troyes was begun between 1130 and 1200.22 The cathedrals of Bourges, Chartres, Paris, and Tours, and the abbey of St. Denis, all of the first importance, were begun during the same period, and during the next quarter-century those of Amiens, Auxerre, Rouen, Reims, Séez, and many others. After 1250 the movement slackened and finally ceased. Few important cathedrals were erected during the latter half of the thirteenth century, the chief among them being at Beauvais (actively begun 1247), Clermont, Coutances, Limoges, Narbonne, and Rodez. During this period, and through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, French architecture was concerned rather with the completion and remodelling of existing cathedrals than the founding of new ones. There were, however, many important parish churches and civil or domestic edifices erected within this period.

STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT: VAULTING. By the middle of the twelfth century the use of barrel-vaulting over the nave had been generally abandoned and groined vaulting with its isolated points of support and resistance had taken its place. The timid experiments of the Clunisian architects at Vézelay in the use of the pointed arch and vault-ribs also led, in the second half of the twelfth century, to far-reaching results. The builders of the great Abbey Church of St. Denis, near Paris, begun in 1140 by the Abbot Suger, appear to have been the first to develop these tentative devices into a system. In the original choir of this noble church all the arches, alike of the vault-ribs (except the groin-ribs, which were semi-circles) and of the openings, were pointed and the vaults were throughout constructed with cross-ribs, wall-ribs, and groin-ribs. Of this early work only the chapels remain. In other contemporary monuments, as for instance in the cathedral of Sens, the adoption of these devices was only partial and hesitating.

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FIG. 116.—PLAN OF NOTRE DAME, PARIS.

NOTRE DAME AT PARIS. The next great step in advance was taken in the cathedral of Notre Dame23 at Paris (Figs. 116, 117, 125). This was begun, under Maurice de Sully in 1163, on the site of the twin cathedrals of Ste. Marie and St. Étienne, and the choir was, as usual, the first portion erected. By 1196 the choir, transepts, and one or two bays of the nave were substantially finished. The completeness, harmony, and vigor of conception of this remarkable church contrast strikingly with the makeshifts and hesitancy displayed in many contemporary monuments in other provinces. The difficult vaulting over the radiating bays of the double ambulatory was here treated with great elegance. By doubling the number of supports in the exterior circuit of each aisle (Fig. 116) each trapezoidal bay of the vaulting was divided into three easily managed triangular compartments. Circular shafts were used between the central and side aisles. The side aisles were doubled and those next the centre were built in two stories, providing ample galleries behind a very open triforium. The nave was unusually lofty and covered with six-part vaults of admirable execution. The vault-ribs were vigorously moulded and each made to spring from a distinct vaulting-shaft, of which three rested upon the cap of each of the massive piers below (Fig. 117). The Cathedral of Bourges, begun 1190, closely resembled that of Paris in plan. Both were designed to accommodate vast throngs in their exceptionally broad central aisles and double side aisles, but Bourges has no side-aisle galleries, though the inner aisles are much loftier than the outer ones. Though later in date the vaulting of Bourges is inferior to that of Notre Dame, especially in the treatment of the trapezoidal bays of the ambulatory.

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FIG. 117.—INTERIOR OF NOTRE DAME, PARIS.

The masterly examples set by the vault-builders of St. Denis and Notre Dame were not at once generally followed. Noyon, Senlis, and Soissons, contemporary with these, are far less completely Gothic in style. At Le Mans the groined vaulting which in 1158 was substituted for the original barrel-vault of the cathedral is of very primitive design, singularly heavy and awkward, although nearly contemporary with that of Notre Dame (Fig. 118).

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FIG. 118.—LE MANS CATHEDRAL. NAVE.

DOMICAL GROINED VAULTING. The builders of the South and West, influenced by Aquitanian models, adhered to the square plan and domical form of vaulting-bay, even after they had begun to employ groin-ribs. The latter, as at first used by them in imitation of Northern examples, had no organic function in the vault, which was still built like a dome. About 1145–1160 the cathedral of St. Maurice at Angers was vaulted with square, groin-ribbed vaults, domical in form but not in construction. The joints no longer described horizontal circles as in a dome, but oblique lines perpendicular to the groins and meeting in zigzag lines at the ridge (Fig. 119). This method became common in the West and was afterward generally adopted by the English architects. The Cathedrals of Poitiers (1162) and Laval (La Trinité, 1180–1185) are examples of this system, which at Le Mans met with the Northern system and produced in the cathedral the awkward compromise described above.

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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.

BUTTRESSING. Meanwhile the increasing height of the clearstories and the use of double aisles compelled the bestowal of especial attention upon the buttressing. 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-buttress (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 buttresses were given greater stability by the added weight of lofty pinnacles. An intermediate range of buttresses 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.

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FIG. 120.—ONE BAY, ABBEY OF ST. DENIS.

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 passage in the thickness of the wall, corresponding to the roofing-space over the aisle, and generally treated like a lower stage of the clearstory. Nearly the whole space 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-space under the vaulting. The piers and shafts were all clustered 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.

WINDOWS: TRACERY. The clearstory windows of Noyon, Soissons, Sens, and the choir of Vézelay (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 spaces all pierced and glazed. Rose windows were early used in front and transept façades. 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.

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FIG. 121.—THE STE. CHAPELLE, PARIS.

THE SAINTE CHAPELLE. In this beautiful royal chapel at Paris, built 1242–47, Gothic design was admirably exemplified in the noble 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 glass of the most brilliant but harmonious hues. They occupy the whole available wall-space, so that the ribbed vault internally seems almost to rest on walls of glass, 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 château of Vincennes, begun by Charles VI., but not finished till 1525.

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FIG. 122.—PLAN OF AMIENS CATHEDRAL.

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 buttresses. 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).

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FIG. 123.—PLAN OF
CATHEDRAL OF ALBY.

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; Châlons 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 buttresses (Fig. 123).

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 3½ 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.

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FIG. 124.—WEST FRONT OF NOTRE DAME, PARIS.

EXTERIOR DESIGN. Here, as in the interior, every feature had its constructive raison d’être, and the total effect was determined by the fundamental structural scheme. This was especially true of the lateral elevations, in which the pinnacled buttresses, the flying arches, and the traceried windows of the side aisle and clearstory, repeated uniformly at each bay, were the principal elements of the design. The transept façades and main front allowed greater scope for invention and fancy, but even here the interior membering gave the key to the composition. Strong buttresses 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 space 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 façades. 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.

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FIG. 125.—WEST FRONT OF ST. MACLOU, ROUEN.

PORCHES. In most French church façades 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 façades also had imposing portals. Those of Chartres (1210–1245) rank among the finest works of Gothic decorative architecture, the south porch in some respects surpassing 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, Alençon, the cathedral and St. Maclou at Rouen (Fig. 125), Tours, Troyes, Vendôme, 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, illustrate 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 buttresses, 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 nobility 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.

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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 balustrades 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 mass, 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-façades, portals, and chapels added to many others of earlier date.