Buttressing-Ribbed Chevets
This type of chevet as developed at Paris and Vézelay played a large part in subsequent architecture, for out of it would seem to have sprung what will be for convenience termed the buttressing-ribbed chevet. Among the more important early chevets of this type are those over the apses of Noyon[371] transepts, of Saint Remi at Reims [(Fig. 64)], of Saint Leu d’Esserent (Oise), and of the cathedrals of Sens, Canterbury, Noyon, and others, all probably completed before 1180. Although differing in a number of details, these apses have certain features in common. They all include beneath the chevet the preceding bay of the church, and all have the same arrangement of ribs which are so placed that the two springing from the piers next beyond the apsidal arch on either side form a transverse arch against whose crown all the others abut ([Plate II-d.]). The object of this arrangement evidently lay in the desire of the builders to construct a distinct transverse arch between the curve of the apse and the rectangular bay included in the chevet and at the same time to employ the two ribs beyond those forming the arch, as buttresses, to offset the thrust of the remaining radiants. Thus when the rectangular bay was larger than those around the curve, as for example in the choir of Soissons cathedral [(Fig. 67)], the buttressing ribs were longer than the remainder of those forming the vault. This made the bay containing these two ribs precisely like one-half of a six-part vault, and as this method of vaulting was commonly used in the nave and choir of these churches this chevet was a very
Fig. 67.—Soissons, Cathedral.
logical continuation of such a vault. But the builders do not seem to have realized immediately the aesthetic advantage in so planning their churches that such chevet vaults should come next to a six-part vault. At Sens [(Fig. 28)], however, the perfected use of this new chevet is shown for it is placed directly beyond a six-part bay and its two buttressing ribs are the counterparts of the two diagonals of the sexpartite vault. Once the advantage of such an arrangement was grasped, the churches were in many cases planned to provide for an even number of six-part bays in the choir followed by a chevet which carries the same system into the apse of the church. Thus in the cathedrals of Paris and Bourges, and probably originally in that of Soissons, as well as in other churches with six-part vaulting, this chevet became the standard form of eastern termination and the bay preceding the apse was made sexpartite so that the completed church would be uniform throughout.[372] Moreover the apsidal bays of the later chevets, as for example that at Soissons [(Fig. 67)] were frequently so planned that the radiants from the piers next beyond the ribs forming the transverse arch containing the keystone, were exact extensions of the buttressing ribs. In other words, except for the subdivision of the eastern bay into three window cells, the chevet corresponded to a true six-part vault inscribed in the space formed by the last bay of the choir and the polygonal-sided apse.
Notwithstanding the fact that the buttressing-ribbed chevet was primarily suited to churches with six-part vaulting, it was by no means confined to these for it is found in a large number which were from the beginning planned for four-part vaults. Among these is the cathedral of Rouen, in which the chevet is of distinctly six-part type with a full-sized choir bay included beneath the vault,[373] and the cathedral of Reims in which all the bays of the chevet are of practically the same size, as in the early churches which gave rise to this form of apse vault. Reims is thus an example of the perseverance of the design of a seven-sided chevet including one bay with parallel walls and yet of the same size as those forming the curve.[374]
But while pleasing in appearance when used in combination with six-part choir vaults, the chevet with buttressing ribs was not so satisfactory in churches with four-part cross-ribbed vaulting of rectangular plan. A reference to the vault of Soissons cathedral [(Fig. 67)][375] will illustrate the faults of such a combination. These lie largely in the three-part vaulted bay. In the first place, though its window cells are practically the same width as those in the remainder of the choir, their crown lines run out at an awkward angle,[376] instead of being practically perpendicular to the outer walls as in the remaining bays of the apse and all those of four-part type. Secondly, the great, triangular, transverse severy is much larger than any of the others in the church and is thus unpleasing when contrasted with them, besides being more difficult to construct because of its larger size. It is not surprising to find, therefore, that a fourth form of chevet was developed and used extensively in churches with four-part vaulting. This chevet, which will be termed diagonal-ribbed, is perhaps the most important distinct type developed in Gothic architecture.