The Ste. Chapelle of Vincennes, begun by Charles VI., was not completed until the reign of Henry II. In construction it is akin to that of Paris. The two-storied annexes which formed the sacristies and treasury were finished towards the close of the fifteenth century.
After the example of kings and princes the great abbeys began to raise important oratories independent of their conventual churches. The Abbey of St. Martin des Champs at Paris founded two large chapels about the middle of the thirteenth century,—one dedicated to the Virgin, and the other to St. Michael.
Pierre de Montereau was commissioned to build, in addition to the Ste. Chapelle of the palace, a chapel dedicated to the Virgin, within the precincts of the Abbey of St. Germain des Prés; the plan of the vaults differs here from that of the Ste. Chapelle of the palace. According to a drawing by Alexander Lenoir, made before the destruction of this chapel of the Virgin, the pointed arches comprised two bays, in imitation of the vaults on intersecting arches in Notre Dame of Paris, the origin of which we discussed in chapter vi.
The Abbey of Châalis, near Senlis, founded by Louis the Fat in 1136, which was one of the most important abbeys of the Cistercian order in the thirteenth century, possessed an abbey church of five aisles, over 330 feet long. Towards the middle of the thirteenth century it nevertheless founded a Ste. Chapelle, known as the Chapelle de l'Abbé. The building has undergone various vicissitudes, and the ribbed vaults which date from the reign of St. Louis were once decorated with frescoes, attributed to Primaticcio. The building still exists, however, almost in its entirety. It illustrates the considerable influence exercised by the Ste. Chapelle of Paris from its very foundation on the great nobles, more especially the heads of rich abbeys eager to parade their immense power and wealth.
CHAPTER XI
SCULPTURE
In the Middle Ages all the arts were auxiliary to architecture. The architect traced the details of his conception in the workshop, and superintended the construction; he directed stone-carvers, masons, sculptors, illuminators, painters, and glass-stainers, and laid his imprimatur on every branch of the work of which he was the creator.
Thus the connection between the allied arts was very close. The history of sculpture is that of architecture, for the diverse influences which marked their origin and modifications were common to both. Each reached its apogee in the brilliant manifestations of the thirteenth century, and each followed the same path to decadence less than two centuries later.
Statuary and ornamental sculpture were inseparable, being executed by the same artists in pursuance of the same idea: the study of nature.