THE architecture of France during the Middle Ages throws much light upon the history of the country. The features in which it differs from the work done in England at the same period can, many of them, be directly traced to differences in the social, political, or religious situation of the two nations at the time. For example, we find England in the eleventh and twelfth centuries in the hands of the Normans, a newly-conquered country under uniform administration; and accordingly few local variations occur in the architecture of our Norman period. The twelfth-century work, at Durham or Peterborough for instance, differs but little from that at Gloucester or Winchester. In France the case is different. That country was divided into a series of semi-independent provinces, whose inhabitants differed, not only in the leaders whom they followed, but in speech, race, and customs. As might be expected, the buildings of each province presented an aspect different in many respects from those of every other; and we may as well add that these peculiarities did not die out with the end of the round-arched period of architecture, but lingered far into the pointed period.

Fig. 31.—Church at Fontevrault. (Begun 1125.)

The south of France was occupied by people speaking what are now known as the Romance dialects, and some writers have adopted the name as descriptive of the peculiarities of the architecture of these districts. The Romance provinces clung tenaciously to their early forms of art, so that pointed architecture was not established in the south of France till half a century, and in some places nearly a whole century, later than in the north.

On the other hand, the Frankish part of the country was the cradle of Gothic. The transition from round to pointed architecture first took place in the royal domain, of which Paris was the centre, and it may be assumed that the new style was already existing when in 1140 Abbot Suger laid the foundations of the choir of the church of St. Denis, about forty years before the commencement of the eastern arm of our own Canterbury.

De Caumont, who in his “AbÉcÉdaire” did for French architecture somewhat the same work of analysis and scientific arrangement which Rickman performed for English, has adopted the following classification:—

Fig. 32.—Doorway at Loches, France. (1180.)

The transitional architecture of France is no exception to the rule that the art of a period of change is full of interest. Much of it has disappeared, but examples remain in the eastern part of the cathedral of St. Denis already referred to, in portions of the cathedrals of Noyon and Sens, the west front of Chartres, the church of St. Germain des PrÉs at Paris, and elsewhere. We here often find the pointed arch employed for the most important parts of the structure, while the round arch is still retained in the window and door-heads, and in decorative arcades, as shown in our illustrations of a section of the church at Fontevrault (Fig. 31), and of a doorway at Loches (Fig. 32).

The first pointed architecture of the thirteenth century in France differs considerably from the early English of this country. The arches are usually less acute, and the windows not so tall in proportion to their width. The mouldings employed are few and simple compared with the many and intricate English ones. Large round columns are much used in place of our complicated groups of small shafts for the piers of the nave; and the abacus of the capital remains square. An air of breadth and dignity prevails in the buildings of this date to which the simple details, noble proportions, and great size largely contribute. The western front of Notre Dame, Paris (Fig. 33), dates from the early years of this century, the interior being much of it a little earlier. The well-known cathedrals of Chartres, Rheims, Laon, and later in the style, Amiens, and Beauvais, may be taken as grand examples of French first pointed. To these may be added the very graceful Sainte Chapelle of Paris, the choir and part of the nave of the cathedral at Rouen, the church of St. Etienne at Caen, and the cathedrals of Coutances, Lisieux, Le Mans, and Bourges. This list of churches could be almost indefinitely extended, and many monastic buildings, and not a few domestic and military ones, might be added. Among the most conspicuous of these may be named the monastic fortress at Mont St. Michel, probably the most picturesque structure in France, the remarkable fortifications of Carcassonne, and the lordly castle of CouÇy.

Fig. 33.—Notre Dame, Paris, West Front. (1214.)

The second pointed, or fourteenth century Gothic of France, bears more resemblance to contemporary English Gothic than the work of the centuries preceding or following. Large windows for stained glass, with rich geometrical tracery prevailed, and much the same sort of ornamental treatment as in England was adopted in richly decorated buildings. Specimens of the work of this century occur everywhere in the shape of additions to the great churches and cathedrals which had been left unfinished from the previous century, and also of side chapels which it became customary to add to the aisles of churches. The great and well-known abbey of St. Ouen at Rouen is one of the few first-class churches which can be named as begun and almost entirely completed in this century. The tower and spire of the church of St. Pierre at Caen (Fig. 13) are very well-known and beautiful specimens of this period.

French fifteenth century architecture, or third pointed, is far from being so dignified or so scientific as English perpendicular, and differs from it considerably. Exuberant richness in decoration was the rage, and shows itself both in sculpture, tracery, and general design. Much of the later work of this period has received the name of flamboyant, because of the flame-like shapes into which the tracery of the heads of windows was thrown. In flamboyant buildings we often meet with art which, though certainly over-florid, is brilliant, rich, and full of true feeling for decoration.

In this century, secular and domestic buildings attained more prominence than at any previous periods. Some of them are among the best works which this period produced. Familiar examples will be found in the noble Palais de Justice at Rouen, and the HÔtel de Bourgtherould in the same city; in parts of the great chÂteau at Blois, the splendid chÂteau of Pierrefonds, and the HÔtels de Ville of Oudenarde and Caen.

FRANCE.—ANALYSIS OF BUILDINGS.

Plan.

Fig. 34.—Plan of Amiens Cathedral. (1220-1272.)

The plans of French cathedrals and other buildings conform in general to the description of Gothic plans given in Chapter II., but they have of course certain distinctive peculiarities (Fig. 34). The cathedrals are as a rule much broader in proportion to their length than English ones. Double aisles frequently occur, and not infrequently an added range of side chapels fringes each of the main side walls, so that the interior of one of these vast buildings presents, in addition to the main vista along the nave, many delightful cross views of great extent. The transepts are also much less strongly marked than our English examples. There are even some great cathedrals (e.g., Bourges) without transepts; and where they exist it is common to find that, as in the case of Notre Dame de Paris, they do not project beyond the line of the side walls, so that, although fairly well-marked in the exterior and interior of the building, they add nothing to its floor-space. The eastern end of a French cathedral (and indeed of French churches generally, with very few exceptions) is terminated in an apse. When, as is frequently the case, this apse is encircled by a ring of chapels, with flying buttresses on several stages rising from among them, the whole arrangement is called a chevet, and very striking and busy is the appearance which it presents.

Walls, Towers, and Gables.

The walls are rarely built of any other material than stone, and much splendid masonry is to be found in France. Low towers are often to be met with, and so are projecting staircase turrets of polygonal or circular forms. The faÇades of cathedrals, including ends of transepts as well as west fronts, are most striking, and often magnificently enriched. It is an interesting study to examine a series of these fronts, each a little more advanced than the last, as for example Notre Dame (Fig. 33), the transept at Rouen, Amiens (Fig. 35), and Rheims, and to note how the horizontal bands and other level features grow less and less conspicuous, while the vertical ones are more and more strongly marked; showing an increasing desire, not only to make the buildings lofty, but to suppress everything which might interfere with their looking as high as possible.

Fig. 35.—Amiens Cathedral, West Front. (1220-1272.)

Columns and Piers.

The column is a greater favourite than the pier in France, as has already been said. Sometimes, where the supports of the main arcade are really piers, they are built like circular shafts of large size; and even when they have no capital (as was the case in third-pointed examples), these piers still retain much of the air of solid strength which belongs to the column, and which the French architects appear to have valued highly. In cases where a series of mouldings has to be carried—as for example when the main arcade of a building is richly moulded—English architects would usually have provided a distinct shaft for each little group (or as Willis named them order), into which the whole can be subdivided. In France, at any rate during the earlier periods, the whole series of mouldings would spring from the square unbroken abacus of a single large column, to which perhaps one shaft, or as in our illustration (Fig. 36) four shafts, would be attached which would be carried up to the springing of the nave vault, at which point the same treatment would be repeated, though on a smaller scale, with the moulded ribs of that vault.

Fig. 36.—Piers and Superstructure, Rheims Cathedral. (1211-1240.)

A peculiarity of some districts of southern France is the suppression of the external buttress; the buttresses are in fact built within the church walls instead of outside, and masonry enough is added to make each into a separating wall which divides side chapels. Some large churches, e.g., the cathedral at Alby, in Southern France, consist of a wide nave buttressed in this way, and having side chapels between the buttresses, but without side aisles.

The plans of the secular, military, and domestic buildings of France also present many interesting peculiarities, but not such as it is possible to review within the narrow limits of this chapter.

Roofs and Vaults.

The peculiarly English feature of an open roof is hardly ever met with in any shape: yet though stone vaults are almost universal, they are rarely equal in scientific skill to the best of those in our own country. In transitional examples, many very singular instances of the expedients employed before the pointed vault was fully developed can be found. In some of the central and southern districts, domes, or at least domical vaults, were employed. (See the section of Fontevrault, Fig. 31). The dome came in from Byzantium. It was introduced in Perigord, where the very curious and remarkable church of St. Front (begun early in the eleventh century) was built. This is to all intents a Byzantine church. It is an almost exact copy in plan and construction of St. Mark’s at Venice, a church designed and built by Eastern architects, and it is roofed by a series of domes, a peculiarity which is as distinctive of Byzantine (i.e., Eastern early Christian), as the vaulted roof is of Romanesque (or Western early Christian) architecture. Artists from Constantinople itself probably visited France, and from this centre a not inconsiderable influence extended itself in various directions, and led to the use of many Byzantine features both of design and ornament. As features in the exterior of their buildings, the roofs have been in every period valued by the French architects; they are almost always steep, striking, and ornamented. All appropriate modes of giving prominence and adding ornament to a roof have been very fully developed in French Gothic architecture, and the roofs of semicircular and circular apses, staircase towers, &c., may be almost looked upon as typical.[23]

Openings.

The treatment of openings gives occasion for one of the most strongly marked points of contrast between French and English Gothic architecture. With us the great windows are unquestionably the prominent features, but with the French the doors are most elaborated. This result is reached not so much by any lowering of the quality of the treatment bestowed upon the windows, but by the greatly increased importance given to doorways.

The great portals of Notre Dame at Paris (Fig. 33), Rheims, or Amiens (Fig. 35), and the grand porches of Chartres may be named as the finest examples, and are probably the most magnificent single features which Gothic Art produced in any age or any country; but in its degree the western portal of every great church is usually an object upon which the best resources of the architect have been freely lavished. The wall is built very thick so that enormous jambs, carrying a vast moulded arch, can be employed. The head of the door is filled with sculpture, which is also lavishly used in the sides and arch, and over the whole rises an ornamental gable, frequently profusely adorned with tracery and sculpture, its sides being richly decorated by crockets or similar ornaments, and crowned by a sculptured terminal or finial.

The windows in the earliest periods are simpler than in our E.E., as well as of less slender proportions. In the second and third periods they are full of rich tracery, and are made lofty and wide to receive the magnificent stained glass with which it was intended to fill them, and which many churches retain. Circular windows, sometimes called wheel-windows, often occupy the gables, and are many of them very fine compositions.

Mouldings and Ornaments.

The mouldings of the French first pointed are usually larger than our own. Compared with ours they are also fewer, simpler, and designed to produce more breadth of effect. This may partly result from their originating in a sunshiny country where effects of shade are easily obtained. In the second and third periods they more nearly resemble those in use in England at the corresponding times.

The carving is very characteristic and very beautiful. In the transition and first pointed a cluster of stalks, ending in a tuft of foliage or flowers, is constantly employed, especially in capitals. The use of this in England is rare; and, on the other hand, foliage like E.E. conventional foliage is rare in France. In the second pointed, natural foliage is admirably rendered (Fig. 37). In the third a somewhat conventional kind of foliage, very luxuriant in its apparent growth, is constantly met with.

This carving is at every stage accompanied by figure-sculpture of the finest character. Heads of animals, statues, groups of figures, and has reliefs are freely employed, but always with the greatest judgment, so that their introduction adds richness to the very point in the whole composition where it is most needed. In every part of France, and in every period of Gothic architecture, good specimens of sculpture abound. Easily accessible illustrations will be found in the west entrance and south transept front of Rouen Cathedral, the porches and portals at Chartres, the choir inclosure of Notre Dame at Paris, and the richly sculptured inclosure of the choir of Amiens Cathedral.

Fig. 37.—Capital from St. Nicholas, Blois, France. (13th Century.)

Stained glass has been more than once referred to. It is to be found in its greatest perfection in France, as for example in La Sainte Chapelle at Paris, and the cathedrals of Le Mans, Bourges, Chartres, and Rheims. All that has been said in the introductory chapter on this, the crowning ornament of Gothic architecture, and on its influence upon window design, and through that, upon the whole structure of the best churches, is to the full as applicable to French examples. Coloured decoration was also frequently employed in the interior of churches and other buildings, and is constantly to be met with in French buildings, both secular and religious. In most cases, however, it is less easy to appreciate this than the stained glass, for, as it is now to be seen, the colours are either faded and darkened by time and smoke, or else restored, not always with the exactness that could be desired.

Construction and Design.

The construction of the great buildings of the middle ages in France is an interesting subject of study, but necessarily a thoroughly technical one. Great sagacity in designing the masonry, carpentry, joinery, and metal-work; and trained skill in the carrying out the designs, have left their traces everywhere; and while the construction of the earlier castles and of the simple churches shows a solidity but little inferior to that of the Romans themselves, the most elaborate works, such for example as the choir at Beauvais (Fig. 38), can hardly be surpassed as specimens of skill and daring, careful forethought, and bold execution.

Fig. 38.—Beauvais Cathedral, Interior. (1225-1537.)

Design, in France, pursued the general principles of Gothic architecture to their logical conclusions with the most uncompromising consistency. Perhaps the most distinctive peculiarity in French cathedrals is a love of abstract beauty, and a strong preference for breadth, regularity, dignity, and symmetry wherever they come into competition with picturesqueness and irregular grouping. There is, it is true, plenty of the picturesque element in French mediÆval art; but if we take the finest buildings, and those in which the greatest effort would be made to secure the qualities which were considered the greatest and most desirable, we shall find very strong evidences of a conviction that beauty was to be attained by regularity and order, rather than by unsymmetrical and irregular treatment.

BELGIUM AND THE NETHERLANDS.

Belgium is a country rich in remains of Gothic architecture. Its art was influenced so largely by its neighbourhood to France, that it will not be necessary to attempt anything like a chronological arrangement of its buildings. Fine churches exist in its principal cities, but they cannot be said to form a series differing widely from the churches of France, with which they were contemporary, and where they differ the advantage is generally on the side of the French originals.

The principal cathedral of the Low Countries, that at Antwerp, is a building remarkable for its great width (having seven aisles), and for the wonderful picturesqueness of its interior. The exterior, which is unfinished, is also very effective, with its one lofty spire. The other cathedrals of note include those of Tournay, Brussels, Mechlin, Louvain, LiÉge, and Ghent. Belgium also possesses a great number of large parochial churches.

When we turn to secular buildings we find the Belgian architecture of the middle ages taking a leading position. The free cities of Belgium acquired municipal privileges at an early date, and accumulated great wealth. Accordingly we find town halls, trade halls, belfries, warehouses, and excellent private dwelling-houses in abundance. The cloth hall at Ypres has been repeatedly illustrated and referred to as an example of a grand and effective building for trade purposes; it is of thirteenth-century architecture and of great size, its centre marked by a massive lofty tower; and its angles carrying slight turrets; but in other respects it depends for its effectiveness solely on its repetition of similar features. Examples of the same kind of architecture exist at Louvain and Ghent.

The Town Halls of Brussels, Louvain, Bruges, Mechlin, Ghent, Oudenarde, and Ypres, are all buildings claiming attention. They were most of them in progress during the fifteenth century, and are fine, but florid examples of late Gothic. Some one or two at least of the town halls were begun and partly carried out in the fourteenth century; on the other hand, the HÔtel de Ville at Oudenarde, was begun as late as the beginning of the sixteenth; so were the Exchange at Antwerp (destroyed by fire and rebuilt not long since) and some other well-known structures: their architecture, though certainly Gothic, is debased in style.

The general aspect of these famous buildings was noble and bold in mass, and rich in ornament. Our illustration (Fig. 39) shows the Town Hall of Middleburgh in Holland; one which is less famous and of smaller dimensions than those enumerated above, but equally characteristic.

The main building usually consisted of a long unbroken block surmounted by a high-pitched roof, and usually occupied one side of a public place. The side of the building presents several storeys, filled by rows of fine windows, though in some cases the lowest storey is occupied by an open arcade. The steep roof, usually crowded with dormer windows, carries up the eye to a lofty ridge, and from the centre of it rises the lofty tower which forms so conspicuous a feature in most of these buildings. In the Town Hall at Bruges the tower is comparatively simple, though of a mass and height that are truly imposing; but in Brussels, Ypres, and other examples, it is a richly ornamented composition on which every resource of the mason and the carver has been lavished. Our illustration (Fig. 40) shows the well-known tower at Ghent.

Fig. 39.—The Town Hall of Middleburgh. (1518.)

Fig. 40.—Tower at Ghent. (Begun 1183.) The gable ends of the great roof are often adorned by pinnacles and other ornaments; but they rarely come prominently into view, as it is invariably the long side of the building which is considered to be the principal front.

SCOTLAND, WALES, AND IRELAND.

In Scotland good but simple examples of early work (transition from Romanesque to E.E.) occur, as for example, at Jedburgh and Kelso, Dryburgh and Leuchars abbey churches. A very interesting and in many respects unique cathedral of the thirteenth century, with later additions, exists at Glasgow. It is a building of much beauty, with good tracery, and the crypt offers a perfect study of various and often graceful modes of forming groined vaults. The Cathedral of Elgin (thirteenth century), an admirable Edwardian building, now in ruins, and the Abbey at Melrose, also ruined, of fourteenth century architecture (begun 1322), are both excellent specimens of the art of the periods to which they belong, and bear a close resemblance to what was being done in England at the same time. The famous tower of St. Giles’s Cathedral, Edinburgh, and the Chapel at Roslyn, of the fifteenth century, on the other hand, are of thoroughly un-English character, resembling in this respect much of the Scotch architecture of the succeeding centuries; Roslyn is ascribed by Mr. Fergusson to a Spanish or Portuguese architect, with great probability.

Other abbey churches and remains of architectural work exist at Dumblane, Arbroath, Dunkeld, and in many other localities; and Holyrood Palace, still retains part of its elegant early fourteenth-century chapel.

Of secular and domestic work Linlithgow is a fair specimen, but of late date. Most of the castles and castellated mansions of Scotland belong indeed to a later time than the Gothic period, though there is a strong infusion of Gothic feeling in the very picturesque style in which they are designed.

Wales is distinguished for the splendid series of castles to which allusion has been made in a previous chapter. They were erected at the best time of English Gothic architecture (Edward I.) under English direction, and are finely designed and solidly built. Wales can also boast the interesting Cathedrals of Chester, Llandaff, St. David’s, and some smaller churches, but in every case there is little to distinguish them from contemporary English work.

Ireland is more remarkable for antiquities of a date anterior to the beginning of the Gothic period than for works belonging to it. A certain amount of graceful and simple domestic work, however, exists there; and in addition to the cathedrals of Kildare, Cashel, and Dublin, numerous monastic buildings, not as a rule large or ambitious, but often graceful and picturesque, are scattered about.

Miserere Seat in Wells Cathedral.