FRANKISH PROVINCE.
CONTENTS.
Exceptional buildings—Basse Œuvre, Beauvais—Montier-en-Der.
INTRODUCTORY.
THE architecture of the Northern division of France is certainly the
most interesting subject in the whole history of the Mediæval styles,
inasmuch as it comprehends the origin and progress of that form of
pointed architecture which in the 13th century extended from Paris as a
centre to the remotest corners of Europe, pervading the whole of
Germany, Britain, and even Spain and Italy. In these countries it
generally obliterated their own peculiar styles, and usurped their
places, so that it became the Gothic style _par eminence_, and the only
one ordinarily understood under that name. It has gained this
distinction, not perhaps so much from any inherent merit of its own, as
because it was the only one of all the Mediæval styles which was carried
beyond the simple rudiments of the art, and enjoyed the advantage of
being perfected by a powerful and united people who had advanced beyond
the first elements of civilised society. It is needless now to inquire
whether the other styles might not have been made as perfect, or more
so, had the same amount of talent and of time been bestowed upon them.
All we can say is, that no other style was so carried out, and it is
impossible to attempt it now; the pointed Gothic had therefore the
opportunity which the others were deprived of, and became the prevalent
style in Europe during the Middle Ages. Its history is, therefore, that
to which attention must always be principally directed, and from which
all lessons and all satisfactory reasoning on the subject must be
principally derived.
The great divisions into which the early history of the style naturally
divides itself have already been pointed out. The great central province
I have ventured to call the Frankish. It was there that the true Gothic
pointed style was invented, and thence that it issued in the middle of
the 12th century, first pervading the two great subordinate divisions of
Normandy on the one hand, and Burgundy on the other. In Normandy, before
this time, a warlike race had raised themselves to power, and, with an
inconsistency characteristic of their state of civilisation, devoted to
sacred purposes the wealth they had acquired by rapine and plunder,
covering their province with churches, and perfecting a rude style of
architecture singularly expressive of their bold and energetic
character.
In Burgundy, as we have just seen, both the style and its history
differed considerably from this. From some cause which has not yet been
explained, this country became early the favourite resort of hermits and
of holy men, who founded here those great monastic establishments which
spread their influence not only over France, but over the whole of
Europe, controlling to an immense extent all the relations of European
society in the Middle Ages. The culminating epoch of the architecture of
Normandy and Burgundy was the 11th century. In the 12th the monarchical
sway of the central province was beginning to be felt in them. In the
13th it superseded the local character of both, and gradually fused them
with the whole of France into one great and singularly uniform
architectural province.
LATIN STYLE.[345]
[Illustration: 607. Plan and Section of Basse Œuvre, Beauvais. (From
Woillez, ‘Monuments Religieux de Beauvais.’)]
Before proceeding to describe the local forms of architecture in Central
France it is necessary to say a few words regarding a class of buildings
which have not hitherto been mentioned, but which must not be passed
over. These cannot be included in any other style, and are so nearly
devoid of architectural features, properly so called, that they might
have been omitted but for one consideration. They bear so remarkable a
resemblance to the earliest Christian churches of Rome on the one hand,
and to the true Gothic on the other, that we cannot doubt their being
the channel through which the latter was derived from the former. They
are, moreover, the oldest churches in Northern France, which is
sufficient to confirm this view.
The character of this style will be understood from the plan and
internal and external view of one of its typical examples, the Basse
Œuvre at Beauvais (Woodcuts Nos. 607 and 608). It will be seen that this
building consists of a nave and side-aisles, separated from each other
by a range of plain arches resting on piers without either bases or
capitals; on one side the angles are cut off, so as to give a slightly
ornamental character; on the other they are left square. The central
aisle is twice the width, and more than twice the height, of the lateral
aisles, and has a well-defined clerestory; the roof, both of the central
and side aisles, is a flat ceiling of wood. The eastern end has been
destroyed, but judging from other examples, it probably consisted of
three apses, a large one in the centre and a smaller one at the end of
each aisle.
[Illustration: 608. External and Internal View of Basse Œuvre. (From
Woillez.)]
The similarity of the form of this church to the Roman basilicas will be
evident on referring to the representations of those buildings, more
especially to that of San Vincenzo alle Tre Fontane (Woodcut No. 408),
though the details have nothing in common except in the use of flat
tiles between the cornices of the arches, which is singularly
characteristic of Roman masonry. The points in which this example is
most evidently the source of some of the important peculiarities of the
true Gothic, are the subordination of the side-aisles to the central
one, and the perfectly developed clerestory. These are not found in any
of the styles of France hitherto described.
Eventually, as we shall shortly see, stone became the material used in
the interior ceiling of Gothic vaults, but protected externally by a
wooden roof. This stone vault was not, I believe, attempted in France
before the 11th century. In the meanwhile, wooden-roofed churches, like
that at Beauvais, seem to have been usual and prevalent all over the
North of France, though, as may be supposed, both from the smallness of
their dimensions and the perishable nature of their materials, most of
them, have been either superseded by larger structures, or have been
destroyed by fire or by the accidents of time.
M. Woillez describes five or six as existing still in the diocese of
Beauvais, and varying in age from the 6th or 7th century, which probably
is the date of the Basse Œuvre, to the beginning of the 11th century;
and if other districts were carefully examined, more examples would
probably be found. Normandy must perhaps be excepted, for there the rude
Northmen seem first to have destroyed all the churches, and then to have
rebuilt them with a magnificence they did not previously possess.
Churches of the same class, or others at least extremely similar to
them, as far as we can judge from such representations as have been
published, exist even beyond the Loire. There is one at Savonières in
Anjou, and a still more curious one at St. Généreux in Vienne, not far
from Poitiers, which shows in great perfection a style of decoration by
triangular pediments and a peculiar sort of mosaic in brickwork.
[Illustration: 609. Decoration of St. Généreux. (From Gailhabaud.)]
The same style of decoration is carried out in the old church of St.
Jean at Poitiers, which probably is even older than the Basse Œuvre of
Beauvais. The old church, which now forms the ante-church to St. Front
at Périgueux (Woodcut No. 562), seems also to belong to the same class;
but, if M. Félix de Verneilh’s restoration is to be trusted, it
approaches nearer to a Romanesque style than any other of its class, of
which it may nevertheless possibly be the most southern example.
Perhaps the most interesting example of the style is the nave of the
church of Montier-en-Der, near Vassy, almost due east from Paris. It is
perfectly plain, very like San Vincenzo (Woodcut No. 408), and is a
perfect Romanesque example with a wooden roof; the design for which was
probably brought direct from Rome when this church was erected in this
remote village. What, however, gives it its greatest interest for our
present purpose arises from the fact that the apse or choir was rebuilt
in the 13th century, and we have consequently in immediate juxtaposition
the Romanesque model as it was introduced to the Barbarians, and the
result of their elaboration of it—the germ of the Gothic style and the
full-blown flower.
[Illustration: 610. Section of Eastern portion of Church of
Montier-en-Der. (From the ‘Archives des Monuments,’ &c.)]
As before pointed out (p. 49), the progress was slow in the formation of
a new style during the 1000 years that elapsed between the building of
the Temple of Diana at Nîmes and the Church at Carcassonne; but here,
within the limits of two, or at most three centuries, the progress made
was so rapid as to be startling. The inhabitants of Central France
appear at once to have comprehended the significance of the problem, and
to have worked it out with a steadiness and energy of which it must be
difficult to find another example. The nave of the church is as poor and
as lean as it can well be, but every part of the choir is ornamented,
while nothing is overdone; and there is not one single ornament which is
not appropriate to its place, or which may not fairly be considered as a
part of the ornamented construction of the building. It was an entirely
new style invented on the spot, and complete in all its parts. Some of
its ornaments were afterwards made more elegant, and more might have
been done in this direction; but as here represented the style was
complete, and it is certainly one of the most beautiful creations of the
class which ever emanated from the activity of the human brain. It is
also interesting as being one of the few where every step in the
progress can be traced and every result understood.
What we have now to attempt, is to point out—as clearly as our limits
will admit of—the steps by which the rude architecture of the western
half of the church of Montier-en-Der was converted into the perfected
style of the choir as shown in the woodcut on the previous page.