FIG. 97.—SECTION OF NOTRE DAME DU PORT, CLERMONT.
ONE-AISLED CHURCHES. In the Franco-Byzantine churches already described ([p. 164]) this difficulty of the oblong vaulting-bay did not occur, owing to the absence of side-aisles and pier-arches. Following this conception of church-planning, a number of interesting parish churches and a few cathedrals were built in various parts of France in which side-recesses or chapels took the place of side-aisles. The partitions separating them served as abutments for the groined or barrel-vaults of the nave. The cathedrals of Autun (1150) and Langres (1160), and in the fourteenth century that of Alby, employed this arrangement, common in many earlier Provençal churches which have disappeared.
FIG. 98.—A SIX-PART RIBBED VAULT, SHOWING TWO COMPARTMENTS WITH THE FILLINGS COMPLETE.
a, a, Transverse ribs (doubleaux); b, b, Wall-ribs (formerets); c, c, Groin-ribs (diagonaux).
(All the ribs are semicircles.)
SIX-PART VAULTING. In the Royal Domain great architectural activity does not appear to have begun until the beginning of the Gothic period in the middle of the twelfth century. But in Normandy, and especially at Caen and Mont St. Michel, there were produced, between 1046 and 1120, some remarkable churches, in which a high clearstory was secured in conjunction with a vaulted nave, by the use of “six-part” vaulting (Fig. 98). This was an awkward expedient, by which a square vaulting-bay was divided into six parts by the groins and by a middle transverse rib, necessitating two narrow skew vaults meeting at the centre. This unsatisfactory device was retained for over a century, and was common in early Gothic churches both in France and Great Britain. It made it possible to resist the thrust by high side-aisles, and yet to open windows above these under the cross-vaults. The abbey churches of St. Etienne (the Abbaye aux Hommes) and Ste. Trinité (Abbaye aux Dames), at Caen, built in the time of William the Conqueror, were among the most magnificent churches of their time, both in size and in the excellence and ingenuity of their construction. The great abbey church of Mont St. Michel (much altered in later times) should also be mentioned here. At the same time these and other Norman churches showed a great advance in their internal composition. A well-developed triforium or subordinate gallery was introduced between the pier-arches and clearstory, and all the structural membering of the edifice was better proportioned and more logically expressed than in most contemporary work.
ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS. The details of French Romanesque architecture varied considerably in the several provinces, according as classic, Byzantine, or local influences prevailed. Except in a few of the Aquitanian churches, the round arch was universal. The walls were heavy and built of rubble between facings of stones of moderate size dressed with the axe. Windows and doors were widely splayed to diminish the obstruction of the massive walls, and were treated with jamb-shafts and recessed arches. These were usually formed with large cylindrical mouldings, richly carved with leaf ornaments, zigzags, billets, and grotesques. Figure-sculpture was more generally used in the South than in the North. The interior piers were sometimes cylindrical, but more often clustered, and where square bays of four-part or six-part vaulting were employed, the piers were alternately lighter and heavier. Each shaft had its independent capital either of the block type or of a form resembling somewhat that of the Corinthian order. During the eleventh century it became customary to carry up to the main vaulting one or more shafts of the compound pier to support the vaulting ribs. Thus the division of the nave into bays was accentuated, while at the same time the horizontal three-fold division of the height by a well-defined triforium between the pier-arches and clearstory began to be likewise emphasized.