54. MANS CATHEDRAL. FLYING BUTTRESSES OF THE APSE
55. MANS CATHEDRAL. SECTION OF THE CHOIR
The influence of the Ile-de-France in Normandy is manifest in the arrangement of choirs and apsidal chapels in Norman cathedrals of the thirteenth century. The Cathedral of Coutances, a monument of the eleventh century, was rebuilt in the early
years of the thirteenth century under the impulse given by Northern France to the architecture of the period. It is in the choir that we clearly trace this influence, in the double columns of the apse, and the ingenious disposition of its collateral vaults. But the façade is purely Norman, not merely in general design, but in the details of the composition, facsimiles of which may be found in England.
56. COUTANCES CATHEDRAL. NORTH TOWER
The Cathedral of Dol in Brittany, one of the great churches of the thirteenth century, seems to have escaped the influences of the Northern innovation. Its general plan, its square apse lighted by large windows, the details of its architecture and ornamentation, all proclaim its affinity to the great churches which rose contemporaneously with it on either side of the Channel, in Normandy, and in England. It is very probable that it was built by the same architects or their immediate disciples, working on the more ancient methods of the Norman schools founded by Lanfranc at Canterbury towards the close of the eleventh century, on the model of those he had established in France at the famous Abbaye du Bec.