Rectangular Nave Bays with Four-Part Cross-Ribbed Vaults
While the builders of Normandy were developing the sexpartite system just discussed, those of the Ile-de-France were experimenting with the simple four-part cross-ribbed vault of rectangular plan ([Plate I-h.]). As in Normandy, the earliest churches of the province were in the main wooden roofed basilicas like the Basse-Oeuvre at Beauvais. When groined vaults first appeared in the Romanesque period, they were generally employed only in the side aisles, as at Morienval,[205] and if one may judge from these vaults, which have unfortunately been rebuilt, they were of slightly domed up section somewhat like those of Lombardy and the Rhenish provinces. Toward the beginning of the twelfth century, however, when the central power had been greatly strengthened under Louis VI. (1108-1137), there began a marked architectural advance which was destined to render this backward province the most important of all in the development of Gothic architecture. One of the earliest churches to mark this advance was Saint Étienne at Beauvais (probably early twelfth century) [(Fig. 32)], which, if one may judge from the form of the piers and the ribbed vault of the side aisles,[206] was planned from the foundation for vaulting throughout. Unfortunately the original vaults of the nave, if such existed, are no longer in position for they either gave way from lack of support, a natural supposition since they had no other abutment than the weight of the clerestory walls, or else they were so injured by the fire of 1180 that it was necessary to replace them by the existing vaults of the late twelfth century. These, while they do not make up for the loss of their predecessors, are nevertheless important because of their early date. They are antedated, however, by a number of very important churches which still retain, in part at least, their original vaulting.
Fig. 32.—Beauvais, Saint Étienne.