86. SENLIS CATHEDRAL. SOUTH TOWER OF WEST FRONT
Towards the close of the eleventh century and throughout the twelfth many towers were built at an angle with the door, or in front of it, so as to form a porch, as at St. Benoît-sur-Loire and Poissy; or above it, as in the Churches of Ainay and of Moissac.
Later on immense towers with spires were built at each angle of the western façade, the gable of the nave rising between them.
At the Abbey Church of Jumiéges a large projecting porch filled the central bay of the ground story between the bases of the towers, but more frequently the towers were in one plane with the chief porch, and were themselves pierced with lateral porches, the three doors, with their richly sculptured voussoirs, forming one vast decorative whole.
The architects of the so-called Romanesque period built their towers at the intersection of the transepts; but avoiding the constructive audacities of the tower of St. Front, which was one of the most generally accepted models of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, they ensured the solidity of their central tower by placing the more or less conical cupola which crowned the structure upon a square base, carefully loaded and abutted at each angle.
At the close of the twelfth century the architects of the Ile-de-France adopted a square form for the body of the tower, and in imitation of Oriental and Rhenish builders, reserved the octagonal plan for the spire, ensuring the solidity of the angles by a variety of ingenious combinations.
The great central towers of the Norman churches built in England and Normandy from the thirteenth to the fourteenth century were not always merely belfries, as at Salisbury or Langrune, for instance; in many cases they were lanterns, their functions being to light the centre of the church and to form a magnificent decorative feature at the intersection of transepts, nave, and choir in cruciform structures, such as St. Georges, Bocherville, Coutances, etc. Of all the French provinces Normandy clung most persistently to the lantern tower, and that of St. Ouen at Rouen is one of the most interesting examples.
87. SALISBURY CATHEDRAL. STEEPLE
