Other great examples of the thirteenth century are the cathedrals of Laon, Chartres, Rouen, Beauvais, Auxerre, Bourges, and Le Mans—the last especially celebrated for its superb chevêt and flying buttresses—and the Collegiate Church of S. Quentin.
Sainte Chapelle.—The problem of concentration of strains was most triumphantly solved in the Sainte Chapelle (1242-1247) or Royal Chapel, in Paris, in which the Gothic system of construction may be said to have reached complete maturity. Here the vaulting is carried on buttress-piers, and the spaces between the latter are entirely filled with windows, 15 feet wide and 50 high. The structure below the vaulting is literally a framework, a lantern for the display of the stained glass; “a great translucent tabernacle merely ribbed and braced with stone.”
The influence of Sainte Chapelle affected French construction for half a century and was developed to its furthest possible point in S. Urban at Troyes, begun in 1260.
Second Period.—This cathedral represents the transition into the second period of French Gothic, which may be roughly placed at 1275 to 1375. The principles of construction could be carried no further and the style began to turn in on itself, the designers expending their invention on elaboration of ornament. This period is called in France the Rayonnant, from the raylike traceries that were introduced into the rose-windows and from the prevalence of circular forms in windows generally. The façade of Amiens is one of the best examples of the style.
Third Period.—By degrees the Rayonnant style passed into the so-called Flamboyant, which lasted until the introduction of the Renaissance style early in the sixteenth century. In it the principles of design were gradually sacrificed to the multiplication of decorative details. Constructive imagination disappeared in a maze of skilful elaboration. The transition from Rayonnant to Flamboyant is shown in the upper part of the west front of Rheims. Some of the finest memorials of this period’s maturity are to be found in Rouen: namely the nave and central tower of the Church of S. Ouen; the west portals of S. Maclou and the façade of the Cathedral, the last being a late example in which the very material of the stone seems to have dissolved into lace. Other instances are the church of S. Jacques at Dieppe, S. Wulfrand at Abbeville and the façade of the Cathedral of Tours.
Secular Gothic.—Gothic architecture was not confined to cathedrals and churches. Monasteries, hospitals, civic buildings, houses, and castles were erected in profusion, especially during the fifteenth century, though few survive to the present day. But a strikingly picturesque monument is the monastery of Mont-St.-Michel, of thirteenth century design, which clusters around the base of the Abbey Church, which was built in the eleventh century and remodelled in the sixteenth. Among the hospitals is that of Chartres. Rouen possesses a fifteenth century example of civic architecture in the Palais de Justice. The home of a great merchant prince of the same century is preserved in the House of Jacques Cœur at Bourges, while the east wing of the Château de Blois represents military architecture at the commencement of the sixteenth century.
SALISBURY CATHEDRAL
Note the Four-Part Rib-Vaulting of the Nave, and the Liernes in the Vault at the Crossing. [P. 294]