Gothic Architecture

by Édouard Corroyer

In later times when it became customary to place the altar at the back, against the wall of the apse, seats for the bishops, priests, and choristers—the choir—were arranged between the altar and the nave. In monastic churches, built after the Latin tradition, the choir was generally in the crossing, or where there were no transepts, in the nave itself. It was separated from the congregation by a low enclosure of stone or marble. There are a few examples of churches with two choirs, one at the east, the other at the west.

In the first churches of the Romanesque epoch the choir was confined to the space between the piers of the crossing; it soon, however, made considerable advances. In monastic churches the choir or sanctuary was cut off from the surrounding spaces by barriers of stone or wood, and towards the nave was closed by a jubé, or rood screen and loft, the upper part of which was accessible to the monks for the reading of the epistle and gospel. Bishops, on the other hand, being free from the necessity of closing the choirs of their cathedrals, made a point of providing their flocks with wide spaces, in which ceremonies could be afforded a liberal development.

At the end of the twelfth century and beginning of the thirteenth these ideas governed the construction of important churches. Changes continued to be made, however, and from the reign of St. Louis we find the choirs of great cathedrals arranged on the exclusive principles of the monastic churches. The arcades surrounding them were filled with high stone walls, against the inner sides of which the stalls of the clergy, with their lofty and richly carved wooden canopies, were securely fixed.

Among the more famous choirs we may quote those of Notre Dame de Paris, of Amiens, of Beauvais, of Auch, of Lincoln, of Canterbury, of Spires, of Worms, of Burgos, etc. In order to satisfy the laymen whose view of the ceremonies performed in the choir was intercepted by these enclosures, the sanctuary was surrounded by chapels contrived in the wall of the apse, and in the side aisles of the nave.

Chapels.—From the end of the tenth century, according to M. de Caumont, we shall sometimes find aisles running entirely round the choir or sanctuary and communicating with it by an arcade. Even at this early period there must have been chapels in such aisles. In the twelfth century the disposition to elongate the choirs of important churches became general, and brought with it certain modifications of the plan. The Church of Vignori, which dates from the tenth century, has an apse divided into three chapels, recalling in its arrangement that of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem.

The Church of St. Servan, built in the eleventh century, has five chapels round the choir, and the Auvergnat churches—Notre Dame du Port at Clermont, and St. Paul at Issoire among others,—which date from the beginning of the twelfth century, also show in this respect some interesting peculiarities. The importance given to the apse by these rings of chapels can scarcely be too much insisted on.

On plan these apsidal chapels are, for the most part, round-ended. They are pierced with one or more round-headed windows, and have segmental vaults. On the outside they are often ornamented by mouldings, modillions, and even by variations in the colour of their stones. Chapels between the buttresses of the nave are rare in several aisled churches of the Romanesque period, but in many such buildings they were added at a later time.

The great revolution which took place in the art of building towards the end of the twelfth century had, for one of its results, the multiplication of chapels in the numerous great churches dating from that epoch. The principle of that revolution being to replace the inert masses which had previously resisted the various thrusts by comparatively slender points of support upon which those thrusts could be collected, stability being secured by a scientific calculation of forces, it led, as a natural consequence, to a considerable augmentation of disposable surfaces in the interior. These surfaces, mere curtains between the points of support, were ornamented with vast networks of stone, embracing panels of painted glass, on which the principal events of the Old and New Testaments, and the scenes so vividly outlined in the traditions of the time, were traced with admirable art. Room was found for chapels of considerable size, not only in the walls, or rather between the piers of the apse, but also in those of the side aisles, the bounding walls of which were carried out to the external faces of the buttresses receiving the thrust of the main vault, which buttresses now formed the lateral walls of a continuous line of chapels.

The veneration paid to the relics of saints increased greatly after the year 1000, in consequence of the pilgrimages to the Holy Land which preceded the Crusades. Each religious community established a patron, and demanded a special oratory dedicated to him, and it was a point of honour to make such a shrine excel that of the neighbouring, and, in most cases, rival corporation. The demand for these shrines increased to such an extent at the close of the fourteenth and throughout the fifteenth century that, though chapels were constructed in all the available spaces of the vast cathedrals, they were found insufficient, and sanctuaries, which in earlier times had been the special property of particular bodies, were shared by several confraternities.

The Lady Chapel, or chapel dedicated to the Virgin, was generally in the apse, and in the thirteenth century, especially at its close, had been so considerably developed as to give great importance to the portion of the apse allotted to it. Very curious examples of this development are to be studied in the Cathedrals of Bourges, Amiens, Meaux, and Rouen, among others.