SENS
In these days of telephones, telegrams, express trains, automobiles, newspapers and printed books, it is difficult for us to realize that in mediæval times thought traveled but slowly, and that two cities a few leagues apart were much more widely separated than they would now be if divided by the ocean. To-day a piece of news, an invention, some new artistic method, is flashed around the world and at once meets the eye of millions of readers. All this excites no comment. When, however, we notice that in some mediæval period a novelty in one country very shortly thereafter appeared and was used in a neighbouring one, we are forced to conclude that there must have been some very unusual occurrence to have so far set at naught the difficulty of news transmission to which we have just referred. The history of the middle ages does not contain a stranger example of such a rapid spread of something novel than that presented by the story of how and of why William of Sens (who, in building the Cathedral of Sens, constructed the first thoroughly Gothic church) came to have the honour of introducing Gothic architecture into England by a call to rebuild Canterbury Cathedral. It so happened that just as he was completing his great work and disclosing to the world the new beauty of Gothic architecture, Pope Alexander III, exiled from Rome, took up his residence at Sens (September 30, 1163, till April 11, 1165). It is recorded that on the 19th of April, 1164, surrounded by a gorgeous array of cardinals and bishops gathered there in attendance upon the papal residence, he consecrated the altar of the Holy Virgin in the cathedral then rapidly approaching completion. Where the Pope was, there also was the centre of the Christian world, and thither of course repaired the clergy from all parts of Europe. These distinguished pilgrims were witnesses of William’s first bold attempt at the pointed arch, the chief characteristic of his great cathedral. To see was to admire. Its beauty was so striking that they could not fail to remember and recount it when they returned to their home towns, thus stimulating other architects to copy this new architecture. Never before nor since had a builder so well timed a gathering of admiring ecclesiastics. Among those who came, and saw, and remembered, was Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, himself an exile from his see. He dwelt four years at Sens (1166-70) and what he saw there impelled him to invite William of Sens in preference to all the English architects to rebuild the Cathedral of Canterbury. It would seem strange even now, and a thing worthy of comment, if a French architect were chosen to construct an important English church, but how much more extraordinary was it that Thomas à Becket should have taken this step in 1174, after the disastrous fire which destroyed the earlier church on the site of the present Cathedral of Canterbury. William succeeded in completing the choir as it stands to-day, but it cost him his life, for as he was superintending the finishing touches of his great work, he fell from a high scaffold and received injuries from which he died. Through this introduction of the young French Gothic into England he exercised a noteworthy influence upon the beginnings of ecclesiastical Gothic in that country. We have told this story here because we know the architect and the glazier worked hand in hand. This association grows more interdependent as the Gothic blossoms into decoration and as more wall space is devoted to windows. It is fair to assume that the stained glass style then prevailing in France must have accompanied its sister, Gothic architecture, upon the latter’s invasion of England, and an examination of the early medallions at Canterbury tends to confirm this theory. Since à Becket was having the new Gothic of Sens copied, why not also its admirable glazing? In any event we know that French glass was well known and much admired by the English, and later we shall recount several instances of its being brought to glaze English churches, and even requirements made in English contracts that French and not domestic glass should be provided. While it is true that the early glass of Sens Cathedral is not so abundant as that of the sixteenth century, we have come here at this time because nothing finer is known than the few medallion windows which remain to us along the north wall of the choir. They date from the end of the twelfth century and are large, strong in tone, and in excellent preservation. The clerestory lights of the choir are filled with attractive examples of grisaille enlivened by large geometric figures in points of red, blue, etc. These designs are constructed with slender lines and without too much colour, so that plenty of soft silvery light is admitted to illuminate the choir below. So well lighted is it from the clerestory above that we are forced to conclude that all the chapel embrasures below must at one time have been filled with the gloom-producing medallions. It is unfortunate that the original set of medallions below is not complete, because if it were, we would now be able to see, thanks to the charming grisaille in the clerestory, a perfect combination of the well-lighted choir surrounded by the sombre gleam of its protecting chapels. Such a combination is rare. At Tours, at Troyes, even at Bourges, we find ourselves wishing that we had a little more light from above to set off by contrast the dark splendour of the jewelled caverns below. The clerestory at Sens shows us just the luminous effect which we have sought elsewhere, but, alas! our coloured dusk below, which should go hand in hand with it, has been almost entirely dissipated. As a result we are left with an impression of too bright an interior. The minster gloom with all its dignity is gone! We shall return later to Sens to see its splendid glass of the sixteenth century (see page [218]).