The Cathedrals Of Southern France Part 3

The planning and building of a great church was no menial work. Chief dignitaries themselves frequently engaged in it: the Abbot Suger, the foremost architect of his time--prime minister and regent of the kingdom as he was--at St. Denis; Archbishop Werner at Strasbourg; and William of Wykeham in England, to apportion such honours impartially.

Gothic style appears to have turned its back on Italy, where, in Lombardy at all events, were made exceedingly early attempts in this style. This, perhaps, because of satisfying and enduring cla.s.sical works which allowed no rivalry; a state of affairs to some extent equally true of the south of France. The route of expansion, therefore, was northward, along the Rhine, into the Isle of France, to Belgium, and finally into England.

No more true or imaginative description of Gothic forms has been put into literature than those lines of Sir Walter Scott, which define its characteristics thus:

"... Whose pillars with cl.u.s.tered shafts so trim, With base and capital flourished 'round, Seemed bundles of lances which garlands had bound."

In modern times, even in France, church-building neither aspired to, nor achieved, any great distinction.

Since the Concordat what have we had? A few restorations, which in so far as they were carried out in the spirit of the original were excellent; a few added members, as the west front and spires of St. Ouen at Rouen; the towers and western portal at Clermont-Ferrand; and a few other works of like magnitude and worth. For the rest, where anything of bulk was undertaken, it was almost invariably a copy of a Renaissance model, and often a bad one at that; or a descent to some hybrid thing worse even than in their own line were the frank mediocrities of the era of the "Citizen-King," or the plush and horsehair horrors of the Second Empire.

Most characteristic, and truly the most important of all, are the remains of the Gallo-Roman period. These are the most notable and forceful reminders of the relative prominence obtained by mediaeval pontiffs, prelates, and peoples.

These relations are further borne out by the frequent juxtaposition of ecclesiastical and civic inst.i.tutions of the cities themselves,--fortifications, palaces, chateaux, cathedrals, and churches, the former indicating no more a predominance of power than the latter.

A consideration of one, without something more than mere mention of the other, is not possible, and incidentally--even for the church-lover--nothing can be more interesting than the great works of fortification--strong, frowning, and ma.s.sive--as are yet to be seen at Beziers, Carca.s.sonne, or Avignon. It was this latter city which sheltered within its outer walls that monumental reminder of the papal power which existed in this French capital of the "Church of Rome"--as it must still be called--in the fourteenth century.

To the stranger within the gates the unconscious resemblance between a castellated and battlemented feudal stronghold and the many churches,--and even certain cathedrals, as at Albi, Beziers, or Agde,--which were not unlike in their outline, will present some confusion of ideas.

Between a crenelated battlement or the machicolations of a city wall, as at Avignon; or of a hotel de ville, as at Narbonne; or the same detail surmounting an episcopal residence, as at Albi, which is a veritable _donjon_; or the Palais des Papes, is not a difference even of degree. It is the same thing in each case. In one instance, however, it may have been purely for defence, and in the other used as a decorative accessory; in the latter case it was no less useful when occasion required. This feature throughout the south of France is far more common than in the north, and is bound to be strongly remarked.

Two great groups or divisions of architectural style are discernible throughout the south, even by the most casual of observers.

One is the Provencal variety, which clings somewhat closely to the lower valley of the Rhone; and the other, the Aquitanian (with possibly the more restricted Auvergnian).

These types possess in common the one distinctive trait, in some form or other, of the round-arched vaulting of Roman tradition. It is hardly more than a reminiscence, however, and while not in any way resembling the northern Gothic, at least in the Aquitanian species, hovers on the borderland between the sunny south and the more frigid north.

The Provencal type more nearly approximates the older Roman, and, significantly, it has--with less interpolation of modern ideas--endured the longest.

The Aquitanian style of the cathedrals at Perigueux and Angouleme, to specialize but two, is supposed to--and it does truly--bridge the gulf between the round-arched style which is _not_ Roman and the more brilliant and graceful type of Gothic.

With this manner of construction goes, of course, a somewhat different interior arrangement than that seen in the north.

A profound acquaintance with the subject will show that it bears a certain resemblance to the disposition of parts in an Eastern mosque, and to the earlier form of Christian church--the basilica.

In this regard Fergusson makes the statement without reservation that the Eglise de Souillac more nearly resembles the Cairene type of Mohammedan mosque than it does a Christian church--of any era.

A distinct feature of this type is the ma.s.sive pointed arch, upon which so many have built their definition of Gothic. In truth, though, it differs somewhat from the northern Gothic arch, but is nevertheless very ancient. It is used in early Christian churches,--at Acre and Jaffa,--and was adopted, too, by the architects of the Eastern Empire long before its introduction into Gaul.

The history of its transportation might be made interesting, and surely instructive, were one able to follow its...o...b..t with any definite a.s.surance that one was not wandering from the path. This does not seem possible; most experts, real or otherwise, who have tried it seem to flounder and finally fall in the effort to trace its history in consecutive and logical, or even plausible, fashion.

In ill.u.s.tration this is well shown by that wonderful and unique church of St. Front at Perigueux, where, in a design simple to severity, it shows its great unsimilarity to anything in other parts of France; if we except La Trinite at Anjou, with respect to its roofing and piers of nave.

It has been compared in general plan and outline to St. Marc's at Venice, "but a St. Marc's stripped of its marbles and mosaics."

In the Italian building its founders gathered their inspiration for many of its structural details from the old Byzantine East. At this time the Venetians were pushing their commercial enterprises to all parts.

North-western France, and ultimately the British Isles, was the end sought. We know, too, that a colony of Venetians had established itself as far northward as Limoges, and another at Perigueux, when, in 984, this edifice, which might justly be called Venetian in its plan, was begun.

No such decoration or ornamentation was presumed as in its Adriatic prototype, but it had much beautiful carving in the capitals of its pillars and yet other embellishments, such as pavements, monuments, and precious altars, which once, it is said, existed more numerously than now.

Here, then, was the foundation of a new western style, differing in every respect from the Provencal or the Angevinian.

Examples of the northern pointed or Gothic are, in a large way, found as far south as Bayonne in its cathedral; in the spires of the cathedral at Bordeaux; and less grandly, though elegantly, disposed in St. Nazaire in the old _Cite de Carca.s.sonne_; and farther north at Clermont-Ferrand, where its northern-pointed cathedral is in strong contrast to the neighbouring Notre Dame du Port, a remarkable type distinctly local in its plan and details.

From this point onward, it becomes not so much a question of defining and placing types, as of a chronological arrangement of fact with regard to the activities of the art of church-building.

It is doubtless true that many of the works of the ninth and tenth centuries were but feeble imitations of the buildings of Charlemagne, but it is also true that the period was that which was bringing about the development of a more or less distinct style, and if the Romanesque churches of France were not wholly Roman in spirit they were at least not a debas.e.m.e.nt therefrom.

Sir Walter Scott has also described the Romanesque manner of church-building most poetically, as witness the following quatrain:

"Built ere the art was known By pointed aisle and shafted stalk The arcades of an alleyed walk To emulate in stone."

However, little remains in church architecture of the pre-tenth century to compare with the grand theatres, arenas, monuments, arches, towers, and bridges which are still left to us. Hence comparison were futile.

Furthermore, there is this patent fact to be reckoned with, that the petty followers of the magnificent Charlemagne were not endowed with as luxurious a taste, as large a share of riches, or so great a power; and naturally they fell before the idea they would have emulated.

As a whole France was at this period amid great consternation and bloodshed, and traces of advancing civilization were fast falling before wars and cruelties unspeakable. There came a period when the intellect, instead of pursuing its rise, was, in reality, degenerating into the darkness of superst.i.tion.

The church architecture of this period--so hostile to the arts and general enlightenment--was undergoing a process even more fatal to its development than the terrors of war or devastation.

It is a commonplace perhaps to repeat that it was the superst.i.tion aroused by the Apocalypse that the end of all things would come with the commencement of the eleventh century. It was this, however, that produced the stagnation in church-building which even the ardour of a few believing churchmen could not allay. The only great religious foundation of the time was the Abbey of Cluny in the early years of the tenth century.

When the eleventh century actually arrived, Christians again bestirred themselves, and the various cities and provinces vied with each other in their enthusiastic devotion to church-building, as if to make up for lost time.

From this time onward the art of church-building gave rise to that higher skill and handicraft, the practice of architecture as an art, of which ecclesiastical art, as was but natural, rose to the greatest height.

The next century was productive of but little change in style, and, though in the north the transition and the most primitive of Gothic were slowly creeping in, the well-defined transition did not come until well forward in the twelfth century, when, so soon after, the new style bloomed forth in all its perfected glory.

The cathedrals of southern France are manifestly not as lively and vigorous as those at Reims, Amiens, or Rouen; none have the splendour and vast extent of old gla.s.s as at Chartres, and none of the smaller examples equal the symmetry and delicacy of those at Noyon or Senlis.

Some there be, however, which for magnificence and impressiveness take rank with the most notable of any land. This is true of those of Albi, Le Puy, Perigueux, and Angouleme. Avignon, too, in the _ensemble_ of its cathedral and the papal palace, forms an architectural grouping that is hardly rivalled by St. Peter's and the Vatican itself.

In many of the cities of the south of France the memory of the past, with respect to their cathedrals, is overshadowed by that of their secular and civic monuments, the Roman arenas, theatres, and temples. At Nimes, Arles, Orange, and Vienne these far exceed in importance and beauty the religious establishments.

The monasteries, abbeys, and priories of the south of France are perhaps not more numerous, nor yet more grand, than elsewhere, but they bring one to-day into more intimate a.s.sociation with their past.

The "Gallia-Monastic.u.m" enumerates many score of these establishments as having been situated in these parts. Many have pa.s.sed away, but many still exist.

Among the first of their kind were those founded by St. Hilaire at Poitiers and St. Martin at Tours. The great Burgundian pride was the Abbey of Cluny; much the largest and perhaps as grand as any erected in any land. Its church covered over seventy thousand square feet of area, nearly equalling in size the cathedrals at Amiens and at Bourges, and larger than either those at Chartres, Paris, or Reims. This great church was begun in 1089, was dedicated in 1131, and endured for more than seven centuries. To-day but a few small fragments remain, but note should be made of the influences which spread from this great monastic establishment throughout all Europe; and were second only to those of Rome itself.

The lovely cloistered remains of Provence, Auvergne, and Aquitaine, the comparatively modern Charterhouse--called reminiscently the Escurial of Dauphine--near Gren.o.ble, the communistic church of St. Bertrand de Comminges, La Chaise Dieu, Clairvaux, and innumerable other abbeys and monasteries will recall to mind more forcibly than aught else what their power must once have been.

Between the seventh and tenth centuries these inst.i.tutions flourished and developed in all of the provinces which go to make up modern France.

But the eleventh and twelfth centuries were the golden days of these inst.i.tutions. They rendered unto the land and the people immense service, and their monks studied not only the arts and sciences, but worked with profound intelligence at all manner of utile labour. Their architecture exerted a considerable influence on this growing art of the nation, and many of their grand churches were but the forerunners of cathedrals yet to be. After the twelfth century, when the arts in France had reached the greatest heights yet attained, these religious establishments were--to give them historical justice--the greatest strength in the land.

In most cases where the great cathedrals were not the works of bishops, who may at one time have been members of monastic communities themselves, they were the results of the efforts of laymen who were direct disciples of the architect monks.

The most prolific monastic architect was undoubtedly St. Benigne of Dijon, the Italian monk whose work was spread not only throughout Brittany and Normandy, but even across the Channel to England.

One is reminded in France that the nation's first art expression was made through church-building and decoration. This proves Ruskin's somewhat involved dicta, that, "architecture is the art which disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man ... a building raised to the honour of G.o.d has surely a use to which its architectural adornment fits it."