medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
jbugslag wrote:
>
> A useful, very full, and highly informed overview of fairly recent
> work on Saint-Denis (and virtually any other major Gothic church) can
> be found in the copious notes added by Paul Crossley to his revised
> edition of Paul Frankl, Gothic Architecture (Yale U.P./Pelican,
> 2000).
I'm reading that now, and I have to say that I am a bit disappointed. He
doesn't discuss John James's paper, or list it in his bibliography. He
doesn't list Eric Fernie's paper either (see below) although he does include
William Clark's paper from the same volume. I suppose Crossley had a
difficult balancing act, as he was commenting on Frankl's text, and Frankl
had been associated with Crosby's early work - I may tax Alexandra Gajewski
about this if I see her. He does seem overly influenced by Christopher
Wilson, and buys into Wilson's flying buttress theory - which I don't.
jbugslag also wrote:
>
> I'm far from being an expert in masonry structure, but I don't think that
> structural weaknesses, if they existed, would necessarily show up in the
> crypt or even at ground level: they might just as well have manifested
> themselves as deformations in the vaults or upper walls -- difficult to
> know since all reconstructions of the upper parts of Suger's hemicycle are
> speculative (the arrangement at Vezelay is often cited as a probable close
> copy).
I disagree - I see no reason for the upper parts to be unstable (especially
if there were flying buttresses to stabilise them!) I would be more worried
about the columns of the straight part of the choir, which rest on the crypt
vaults (they are widely spaced and would carry a substantial load) - the
thirteenth-century masons thought so too, as additional supports were
inserted in the crypt at that time.
> Even as things stand now, the supports of the hemicycle are far from beefy
> and probably carried symbolic weight.
Yes, they are very close together, so they don't carry too much load. Even
so, the thirteenth-century masons replaced their column shafts with ones of
larger diameter. Crosby and Bruzelius suggest that the originals were
probably monoliths, which would be prone to splitting even if they were not
actually weaker - the replacements are made up of drums. The hemicycle
columns are not exactly positioned over the supports in the crypt below, but
the thirteenth-century masons concluded that they were strong enough.
> Besides encasing the Carolingian crypt, Suger actually had columns from
> the Carolingian church incorporated in his new chevet, and the columnar
> supports used throughout there are not as typical in early Gothic churches
> as compound piers.
I shall discuss the issue of spolia from the Carolingian building below. The
use of columns in Suger's chevet is not too surprising, because his choir is
essentially Romanesque - the crypt is completely so, and the only really
Gothic element is the rib-vault of the ambulatory - and I believe that was
introduced for practical reasons related to speed and ease of construction
and may not have been planned from the start. I suspect that Suger's choir
arcade also looked considerably less Gothic. It strains credulity to think
that Gothic was invented in the year between the construction of the crypt
and the construction of the choir. But columns were chosen for the new choir
precisely because they were to blend in with the columns of the Carolingian
nave (and that was also the reason for monolithic shafts) - in that sense
the conservatism was deliberate.
> There are still many unknowns about Suger's structure, as is pointed out
> by Christopher Wilson's contention in The Gothic Cathedral that Suger's
> east end originally incorporated flying buttresses, which rested on the
> still apparent broad buttress piers located between the chevet chapels;
> this possibility, to my knowledge, has not received unanimous support
> (although it seems reasonable to me).
No, I don't believe in the flying buttresses - they would be much too early,
and Suger's building was consciously conservative. I shall argue below that
flying buttresses were unnecessary.
> As you say, the 13th-century rebuilding was certainly somewhat higher than
> Suger built and would have necessitated demolition of some of Suger's
> elevation, not only for structural purposes but also for "aesthetic"
> demands, since the Rayonnant design of Saint-Denis is remarkably
> harmonized and synthetic -- apart from the hemicycle piers and chevet
> which may have been retained, in a spirit comparable to Suger's, for its
> symbolic value of maintaining the venerable identity of the structure.
No, I don't think there was any necessary "aesthetic" demand, because as
Bony points out, Suger's choir was a retrochoir/feretory completely to th
east of the high altar. If the aim had been to retain as much as possible of
Suger's structure - and I believe that was the intention - it could easily
have been retained (appearing as a lower "lady chapel", for example.) I
believe that if there had been a complete three-storey vaulted structure,
less than a hundred years old, it would have been retained.
> What I've never been clear about is why Suger would have had the old crypt
> enlarged, since I believe his intention from the beginning was to move the
> relics from the crypt up to the main floor level of the new church.
Well, the purpose of the crypt ambulatory and chapels is to provide a
foundation structure for the choir ambulatory and chapels. And the purpose
for them was to provide a circulation route for pilgrims, just as there had
been aisles flanking Hilduin's crypt. But I think Hilduin's apse was
two-storey, and there already relics at the upper level - albeit somewhat
inaccessible. I think relics were still to be retained at crypt level. Bony
suggests that the idea of a two-storey retrochoir/feretory goes back to
Fleury.
> In any case, I'm not so sure that there may not have been structural
> problems with Suger's upper parts (we will probably never know for sure),
> but I think, as well, that you should also consider the symbolic
> importance of at least aspects of the structure of Saint-Denis. On
> Suger's reuse of Carolingian materials in his new east end, see the
> articles by Eric Fernie and Bill Clark in Artistic Integration in Gothic
> Buildings, ed. Virginia Raguin et al (University of Toronto Press,1995).
I've tracked those down: Eric Fernie's article doesn't claim re-use of
Carolingian materials. What he is claiming is that Suger was seeking to
integrate his new work with the Carolingian building (hence the use of
columns). Interestingly, he suggests that the elevation of Suger's choir
may only have been two-storey - arcade and clerestory - to integrate with
the Carolingian structure. Would the eighth-century nave have been vaulted?
I wouldn't have thought so - I which case, I am quite excited at the idea of
an unvaulted choir consisting of arcade and low clerestory only. (I shall
have to ask Eric about this if I see him.) This is not too dissimilar to
John James's suggestion (on totally different grounds: speed of building,
setting of mortar, etc) for a single-storey choir with temporary roof. This
would explain why the thirteenth-century masons were quite happy to unpick
the choir upper structure, whilst carefully retaining the ambulatory vault.
You can see why I don't require flying buttresses! The radiating stubwalls
above the chapel and ambulatory vaults (apparently tied into the buttress
piers) could be to support a roof structure for the ambulatory that allowed
for low clerestory windows in the 'choir'.
William Clark's paper does indeed make claims for re-use of Carolingian
columns in the choir chapels. This seems quite convincing until you realise
that they do not actually exist - Clark claims that they were replaced by
ones brought in from another church (on Napoleon's instructions) during
early restorations, only to be themselves replaced by Viollet-le-Duc.
Crosby felt that there had been so much disturbance during restorations that
he flatly refused to consider the issue. Clark promises (in 1995) to give a
full analysis in his forthcoming book - which has so far failed to
materialise.
> I'm not familiar enough with Bruzelius to know if she makes similar
> symbolic claims for the 13th-century building.
Yes, indeed - Bruzelius claims that just as Suger sought to integrate his
structure into the existing building, preserving as much of the Carolingian
(or Merovingian) structure as possible, so the thirteenth-century builders
sought to preserve Suger's structures themselves and integrate them into the
new abbey church. That is precisely why I find it difficult to believe that
they would have demolished an extant three-storey vaulted 'choir', whilst
carefully preserving the ambulatory and its vault.
John Briggs
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