FIG. 81. THE CHURCH AND KEEP MONT-MAJOUR.
It has, however, an effect of simple grandeur and spaciousness owing to its size; but from the shortness of the nave, there is a want of due proportion in the various parts. The choir, as is usual in Cistertian churches of this date, is very short, the apse beginning almost at the transept.
FIG. 82. CLOISTERS, MONT-MAJOUR.
The whole building is solidly constructed with good ashlar work. The west doorway is round arched, and is surmounted with a large pointed window from which the principal light in the church is obtained. The exterior is as unornamental as the interior. The east end ([Fig. 81]) is finished with a polygonal apse, the windows of which in the upper church are simple round arches springing from shafts recessed in the jambs. The exterior of the apse of the crypt is peculiar, owing to the form of the segmental depressed arches, enclosing deep recesses, at the inner end of which are the small windows of the crypt. The depressed form of arch was probably adopted owing to the want of height and the desire to admit as much light as possible. The same segmental form is also employed in the cloister arcades. The apse has been heightened at a late period and the interior made circular. An enriched Gothic chapel has been added to the north transept in the fourteenth century, and extensive Gothic buildings, now in a state of total ruin (see Figs. 81, 82) have been extended to the south of the church.
The Abbey of Mont-Majour contains a cloister ([Fig. 82]) with the same style of ornament and sculpture, but much simpler in design than that of St Trophime. The cloister walk is covered with a plain barrel vault constructed with carefully wrought stones, strengthened with transverse ribs resting on “storied” consoles built into the wall. The arcade is formed with segmental arches springing from solid piers, and fluted pillars, with the simplest cornice. Each large arch is filled in with three small round ones, springing from light shafts with elaborately carved caps. The buttresses are fluted like those of St Trophime. The original lean-to roof, covered with stone flags and provided with large rude gargoyles and corbels, is here preserved, and shews what that at Arles was like when first constructed. The cloister here, as at St Trophime, is in the original Provençal style, and is probably a relic of an older series of structures which existed before the present church was erected in the second Provençal style of the twelfth century.
A remarkable specimen of a plan more common in the East than the West occurs in the chapel of Ste Croix ([Fig. 83]), which seems to have been the mortuary chapel of the monks. The main building consists of four apses arranged in the form of a Greek cross, and crowned over the