Senlis Cathedral

The aire in Beauvais was OK and free and just across from a shopping center with a super-duper-marche and cafe and many other shoppes. I was in heaven. Also a cheap lavarie where I did the wash. So we spent an extra day, a productive administrative day, despite lack of wifi. Vicki did research for further journeys. Next morning we drove on, in threatening clouds and cold (it's late May) to Senlis and the first of the day's two transitional Gothic cathedrals. Senlis, north of Paris, was an important center in the earlier Middle Ages. Paris' bishop reported to Senlis' bishop for some time, and the bishops of Senlis crowned the kings of France. Or maybe that was Sens.* Anyway...

Senlis cathedral, yet another Notre Dame, begun in the mid-
12th and finished before the 13th; then, as we'll see,
remodeled extensively (fires, etc.) in later Gothic; from the
south; flying buttresses all around the apse

The big south tower

Interior, nave, looking to the east and the burst of brilliance
there...[interlude for theological reflection]...; I like to refer
 to this as the knave view

South rose window

Crossing; under nets; interestingly, the older ribbed
vaulting is fine, but the later Gothic add-on ornaments,
hanging down off the ceilings, are crumbling; thus the
nets

Elevation: big aisles, big galleries, no triforia,
not-so-big clerestory windows; an earlier
stage in transition

And, as in the previous shot, the really cool thing to note
at Senlis is the use of alternating columns (classical
columns, with Corinthian capitals) with big Medieval piers;
sort of a Romanesque/Gothic/Romanesque/Gothic
arrangement; originally related to the vaulting, requiring
a heavy support/medium support alternation, this pattern
quickly died out, with uniform large piers replacing it

Ceiling of the large south-side chapel of St. Anonymous;
note the huge later Gothic down-hanging ornamentation
thingie (there's a name for this, I am sure, and I must add
it to the inventory already cluttering my mind); anyhow,
this one is relatively low-down and evidently not
deteriorating like the one's high up that require nets

There is a fair amount of nice glass, later Medieval-looking,
higher up

E.g., Susanna and the Dirty Old Men

Looking into a crypt, dated 1000AD, burial site for SS
Gervais and Prothais

Starboard portal

West facade; the north tower was eaten by
termites, according to the Condemnations
of 1277, which was taken as a sign that...
wait...no...

West typanum and earlier Gothic sculpture;
another life of Mary

By the mid 13th century, Medieval sculpture was beginning
to show motion and emotion; note particularly the jamb-
statue on the right, a St. John I think, who seems to be
saying "Hurry up! I have to go...!"

Adjacent to the cathedral is a good bit of earlier Medieval
and even Gallo-Roman ruins; here, bits of a royal chapel

Then, as we were walking back to the
camper, the storm finally hit, rain and then
wintry mix; we ducked under an old wall
and noticed the sign, which reads "Rempart
Gallo-Romain IIIe Siecle"

I was trying to shoot the hail bouncing off
the roof of the building across the street...
Goth'Ink is a tattoo shop

Pea-size hail accumulating on our wind-shield

*Further research has shown that it was indeed Sens that was superior to Paris, bishoprically.... We'll get there next fall.

Beauvais: Saint-Etienne Windows

Because of collapsing vaults and revolutions and wars, etc., there is not much stained glass to see in Beauvais, but there are at least a few very nice Renaissance pieces at St. Stephens, most done by one Engrand Le Prince.

Great color

Great demons; feeding miscreants into the Mouth of Hell

Great light on the floor

Which Vicki loves

More hell and damnation; we are both very sure we have seen the guy on the right before,
in stone, somewhere...Orvieto? PS Well, not exactly, but close: see the last item of
http://roadeveron.blogspot.nl/2011/05/orvieto-duomo-reliefs.html

Curious subject and pose

Ditto; hacking up a sarcaphogus?

Upper branches of the ever popular Tree of Jesse

Another nice demon

St. Martin, or possibly someone else, giving a piece of his
cloak to a beggar

Interior of the WHEEL! OF! FORTUNE!!!!!!

And, walking down crypt-ward to the tomb of some locally-important saint
(St. Firmin actually spent the night in Beauvais; in prison), a nice Eviction

Beauvais: Church of Saint-Etienne

There was another church of interest in Beauvais, the older church of St. Stephen, begun in the early 1100s, and clearly showing the transition from Romanesque to Gothic. It is said to be the place where ribbed vaulting began, "Norman" in this case, but I did not see much difference between here and the Plantagenet vaulting we saw a couple weeks back. The difference in ceiling height between Romanesque and Gothic at St. Stephens is 12 meters! But the Gothic choir is much younger than the Norman nave. Whatever...

St.Etienne in Beavais, west facade; the
typanum is a Mary coronation; the
Revolution was not kind to this church

Nave shot

Nave vaulting and elevation; blind triforium,
tiny clerestory windows

Crossing; note the difference in height, nave versus choir

Looking into choir...

And its fancy later Gothic ribbing...

Aisle view

Interesting interior staircase at the transept

South transept; the north transept has a rose
window, well, actually a "wheel of fortune"
we'll see from the outside

Here's the view where you can really see the difference:
under the crossing, just into the north transept; on the
left, the fancy later Gothic ribbing and the huge lancet
windows; on the right, the much lower Norman vaulting
with its much smaller clerestory windows

Outside the north transept...WHEEL! OF! FORTUNE!!!!!!!
(it's in the sculpture around the window, depicting the
transience of material possessions...

Beauvais: Cathedrale Of Saint-Pierre

We moved on, back inland, to Beauvais, a small city some 50 miles miles north of Paris. Historically it was the the home of the Jacquerie, the peasants' revolt, and was also a great textile and tapestry center—the National Museum of Tapestry is here. But the main reason for visiting Beauvais nowadays is its great uncompleted Cathedral of St. Pierre.

In the mid 13^th century, the town fathers, lords, and clergy of Beauvais decided to build a cathedral higher than all the others going up all over France and Europe. No one would question the religious bent of this decision. Nearer to thee, etc. Theology of height and light. Etc. But cathedrals in this age were also major economic undertakings, enthusiastically supported by royalty, nobility, merchants, guilds, the people...and the Church's introduction of indulgences (direct payment for salvation). The Chambre de Commerce, had it been around, would have heartily approved. Destination tourism. Pilgrims. Civic pride. Sign of divine favor. Etc. So St. Pierre's in Beauvais went up, and up, and up. Its crossing, is indeed the highest of them all.

And then things came tumbling down, down, down. The envelope—architectural, ecclesiastical, economic—had been pushed too far. The choir was completed by 1263, but in 1272 its vault, 157 ft., collapsed. Construction after the Hundred Years' War saw the building of the transepts and the great crossing, 11m higher than anything else known. But then it collapsed in 1573. The church remains uncompleted. There is no nave nor west entrance. The building one sees today is essentially the choir and transepts. But, for its great height, it is no less impressive as a statement of Medieval aspiration.  

Entrance, the south transept portal; really high up there...

View from the southeast; some work going on, yes; but note those huge, high
flying buttresses

Inside, here is what you came for: the highest apse of this age

Choir floor to ceiling

But there's a price: those are flying buttresses; all those others
we have talked about have one foot still on the ground...

And some of the piers are being buttressed too

Thus; you mean those 3x8s are going to hold up all those thousands of tons of stone
blocks so high up in the air? OK, it's been standing there for 800 years; but we didn't
tarry taking extra pix

A bit of the elevation in the choir; note the glazed triforia,
each half bay with 4 lancets and 2 major oculi; and then
the hugely high clerestory windows and rose/oculi above
them

And here's all the elevation my camera could capture;  huge
aisles, and within them more windows, blind triforia; all the
dimensions are enormous

There is some little glass; on the left, the ever popular
Tree of Jesse

An Annunciation

But it's the great height, and ambition, that impresses

The little tan caboose on the left is the nave of the Carolingian cathedral; all the
nave St. Pierre's will have; but it gives some sense of how far things had come  in
a few hundred years