FIG. 94.—PLAN OF ST. FRONT.
THE FRENCH ROMANESQUE. Though monasticism produced remarkable results in France, architecture there did not wholly depend upon the monasteries. Southern Gaul (Provence) was full of classic remains and classic traditions while at the same time it maintained close trade relations with Venice and the East.[19] The church of St. Front at Perigueux, built in 1120, reproduced the plan of St. Mark’s with singular fidelity, but without its rich decoration, and with pointed instead of round arches (Figs. 94, 95). The domical cathedral of Cahors (1050–1100), an obvious imitation of S. Irene at Constantinople, and the later and more Gothic Cathedral of Angoulême display a notable advance in architectural skill outside of the monasteries. Among the abbeys, Fontevrault (1101–1119) closely resembles Angoulême, but surpasses it in the elegance of its choir and chapels. In these and a number of other domical churches of the same Franco-Byzantine type in Aquitania, the substitution of the Latin cross in the plan for the Greek cross used in St. Front, evinces the Gallic tendency to work out to their logical end new ideas or new applications of old ones. These striking variations on Byzantine themes might have developed into an independent local style but for the overwhelming tide of Gothic influence which later poured in from the North.
FIG. 95.—INTERIOR OF ST. FRONT, PERIGUEUX.
Meanwhile, farther south (at Arles, Avignon, etc.), classic models strongly influenced the details, if not the plans, of an interesting series of churches remarkable especially for their porches rich with figure sculpture and for their elaborately carved details. The classic archivolt, the Corinthian capital, the Roman forms of enriched mouldings, are evident at a glance in the porches of Notre Dame des Doms at Avignon, of the church of St. Gilles, and of St. Trophime at Arles.
FIG. 96.—PLAN OF NOTRE DAME DU PORT, CLERMONT.
DEVELOPMENT OF VAULTING. It was in Central France, and mainly along the Loire, that the systematic development of vaulted church architecture began. Naves covered with barrel-vaults appear in a number of large churches built during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, with apsidal and transeptal chapels and aisles carried around the apse, as in St. Etienne, Nevers, Notre Dame du Port at Clermont-Ferrand (Fig. 96), and St. Paul at Issoire. The thrust of these ponderous vaults was clumsily resisted by half-barrel vaults over the side-aisles, transmitting the strain to massive side-walls (Fig. 97), or by high side-aisles with transverse barrel or groined vaults over each bay. In either case the clearstory was suppressed—a fact which mattered little in the sunny southern provinces. In the more cloudy North, in Normandy, Picardy, and the Royal Domain, the nave-vault was raised higher to admit of clearstory windows, and its section was in some cases made like a pointed arch, to diminish its thrust, as at Autun. But these eleventh-century vaults nearly all fell in, and had to be reconstructed on new principles. In this work the Clunisians seem to have led the way, as at Cluny (1089) and Vézelay (1100). In the latter church, one of the finest and most interesting French edifices of the twelfth century, a groined vault replaced the barrel-vault, though the oblong plan of the vaulting-bays, due to the nave being wider than the pier-arches, led to somewhat awkward twisted surfaces in the vaulting. But even here the vaults had insufficient lateral buttressing, and began to crack and settle; so that in the great ante-chapel, built thirty years later, the side-aisles were made in two stories, the better to resist the thrust, and the groined vaults themselves were constructed of pointed section. These seem to be the earliest pointed groined vaults in France. It was not till the second half of that century, however (1150–1200), that the flying buttress was combined with such vaults, so as to permit of high clearstories for the better lighting of the nave; and the problem of satisfactorily vaulting an oblong space with a groined vault was not solved until the following century.