Normandie romane: l’Abbaye aux Hommes
Today I am going away for the weekend to photograph some more churches in Auvergne. I will resume uploading photographs of Normandy on Sunday evening, or possibly only on Monday morning. Thank you for your understanding.
For someone like me, who has set himself the task to visit and document photographically as many as possible of those wonderful Romanesque churches and monasteries, a trip to Normandy is both cause for despair and for enchanted amazement. Despair, because the Norman architect, at the time of the Romanesque which coincided with the conquest of Britain by Duke William in 1066 and the tremendous influx of power and riches that ensued, that architect is above all focused on efficiency and the projection of power and majesty. For that architect, the absolute must, the beginning and the end of church building, is the wall. Sculpture doesn’t matter. When it exists at all, it is often relegated to simple modillions under the cornice that supports the roof. The bare wall, perfectly aligned and appareled, reigns as the undisputed king of Norman Romanesque. He who likes to smile and wonder at the ingenuity and inventiveness of Mediæval sculptors, is most of the time sorely disappointed by the utter lack of adornment of those great and tall Norman churches, next to which the barest Cistercian sanctuaries look positively alive and overflowing under the comparatively unbridled abundance of rinceaux, human figures and assorted creatures.
No sculpture to speak of, then, is the norm in Normandy. But on the other hand, the masterfulness of the architects and masons turns the job of putting one stone on top of another into a veritable art: it is here, in Normandy, that was first experimented the very innovation that would bring about the end of the Romanesque: the voûte d’ogives, the rib vaulting from which the whole world of Gothic derives. It is in Normandy that it was first imagined and implemented, even as the 11th century hadn’t yet come to a close. We will see where, and how.
Founded around 1060 by Duke William, Conqueror to be, and dedicated to saint Étienne (Saint Stephen), the first martyr, the Abbaye aux Hommes (“Men’s Abbey”) was for the Duke, just like the Abbaye aux Dames (“Ladies’ Abbey”) was for his wife Mathilda of Flanders, a gesture of atonement for the sin of having married at a level of kinship prohibited by canon law —unless a special dispensation had been requested in advance from the Pope, which hadn’t been the case. The wedding took place in 1047 and the ducal couple was interdicted by Pope Leon IX in 1049. It is dubious that such interdiction had any substantial consequences in practice, as it is only in 1059 that Lanfranc of Pavia, then the most prominent intellectual figure of Normandy, was sent to Rome to obtain the required dispensation from Pope Nicholas II. William and Mathilda were subsequently “officially” married in 1063, and part of the deal was that each would found an abbey.
It is to be noted that, out of the 18 abbeys founded in Normandy under Duke William, only those two were directly founded by the ducal couple. William was buried in the Abbaye aux Hommes, just like Mathilda was in the Abbaye aux Dames, which we will soon visit.
Lanfranc was appointed first abbot of Saint Stephen’s Abbey in 1066 and archbishop of Canterbury in 1070. The founding charter of the abbey, granted in 1066 by William, freshly ascended to King of England, still exists and is kept in the municipal archives of the city of Caen, one of the two major cities of Normandy with Rouen.
The abbey, and in particular the church, was built between 1065 and 1083. The influx of riches from the Conquest, as well as the existence of stone quarries nearby, providing ample quantities of the famous pierre de Caen, explain the swiftness. Generously endowed by the Duke with revenues from land, villages and towns all over Normandy, but also in England, the abbey was to become, for many centuries, one of the richest and most powerful in all of what is today’s France.
Architecturally, the abbey church is of Lombard inspiration, as Lanfranc was himself from Lombardy. It inherited architectural features from the abbey church of Jumièges, completed a few decades earlier, such as the western massif with two towers, but more importantly brought about a decisive innovation: the façade harmonique (“harmonious façade”), which can be briefly described as unadorned but of such perfect proportions and apparel that it radiates majesty, power and visual harmony. This type of façade will be found in many Norman churches.
The abbey church was listed as a Historic Landmark on the very first list of 1840. The conventual buildings were rebuilt in the 18th century and are occupied today by the city hall.
Even though no one disputes that Norman architects and masons were true innovators in their own right, they also integrated influences from Cluniac architects: to wit, the use of broken or “pointy” arches which, no more than rib vaulting, were inventions of the Gothic Age but indeed of the Romanesque one...
This is a view of the southern aisle, looking through the transept arm and into the ambulatory at the back of the church, with its radiating chapels.
Normandie romane: l’Abbaye aux Hommes
Today I am going away for the weekend to photograph some more churches in Auvergne. I will resume uploading photographs of Normandy on Sunday evening, or possibly only on Monday morning. Thank you for your understanding.
For someone like me, who has set himself the task to visit and document photographically as many as possible of those wonderful Romanesque churches and monasteries, a trip to Normandy is both cause for despair and for enchanted amazement. Despair, because the Norman architect, at the time of the Romanesque which coincided with the conquest of Britain by Duke William in 1066 and the tremendous influx of power and riches that ensued, that architect is above all focused on efficiency and the projection of power and majesty. For that architect, the absolute must, the beginning and the end of church building, is the wall. Sculpture doesn’t matter. When it exists at all, it is often relegated to simple modillions under the cornice that supports the roof. The bare wall, perfectly aligned and appareled, reigns as the undisputed king of Norman Romanesque. He who likes to smile and wonder at the ingenuity and inventiveness of Mediæval sculptors, is most of the time sorely disappointed by the utter lack of adornment of those great and tall Norman churches, next to which the barest Cistercian sanctuaries look positively alive and overflowing under the comparatively unbridled abundance of rinceaux, human figures and assorted creatures.
No sculpture to speak of, then, is the norm in Normandy. But on the other hand, the masterfulness of the architects and masons turns the job of putting one stone on top of another into a veritable art: it is here, in Normandy, that was first experimented the very innovation that would bring about the end of the Romanesque: the voûte d’ogives, the rib vaulting from which the whole world of Gothic derives. It is in Normandy that it was first imagined and implemented, even as the 11th century hadn’t yet come to a close. We will see where, and how.
Founded around 1060 by Duke William, Conqueror to be, and dedicated to saint Étienne (Saint Stephen), the first martyr, the Abbaye aux Hommes (“Men’s Abbey”) was for the Duke, just like the Abbaye aux Dames (“Ladies’ Abbey”) was for his wife Mathilda of Flanders, a gesture of atonement for the sin of having married at a level of kinship prohibited by canon law —unless a special dispensation had been requested in advance from the Pope, which hadn’t been the case. The wedding took place in 1047 and the ducal couple was interdicted by Pope Leon IX in 1049. It is dubious that such interdiction had any substantial consequences in practice, as it is only in 1059 that Lanfranc of Pavia, then the most prominent intellectual figure of Normandy, was sent to Rome to obtain the required dispensation from Pope Nicholas II. William and Mathilda were subsequently “officially” married in 1063, and part of the deal was that each would found an abbey.
It is to be noted that, out of the 18 abbeys founded in Normandy under Duke William, only those two were directly founded by the ducal couple. William was buried in the Abbaye aux Hommes, just like Mathilda was in the Abbaye aux Dames, which we will soon visit.
Lanfranc was appointed first abbot of Saint Stephen’s Abbey in 1066 and archbishop of Canterbury in 1070. The founding charter of the abbey, granted in 1066 by William, freshly ascended to King of England, still exists and is kept in the municipal archives of the city of Caen, one of the two major cities of Normandy with Rouen.
The abbey, and in particular the church, was built between 1065 and 1083. The influx of riches from the Conquest, as well as the existence of stone quarries nearby, providing ample quantities of the famous pierre de Caen, explain the swiftness. Generously endowed by the Duke with revenues from land, villages and towns all over Normandy, but also in England, the abbey was to become, for many centuries, one of the richest and most powerful in all of what is today’s France.
Architecturally, the abbey church is of Lombard inspiration, as Lanfranc was himself from Lombardy. It inherited architectural features from the abbey church of Jumièges, completed a few decades earlier, such as the western massif with two towers, but more importantly brought about a decisive innovation: the façade harmonique (“harmonious façade”), which can be briefly described as unadorned but of such perfect proportions and apparel that it radiates majesty, power and visual harmony. This type of façade will be found in many Norman churches.
The abbey church was listed as a Historic Landmark on the very first list of 1840. The conventual buildings were rebuilt in the 18th century and are occupied today by the city hall.
Even though no one disputes that Norman architects and masons were true innovators in their own right, they also integrated influences from Cluniac architects: to wit, the use of broken or “pointy” arches which, no more than rib vaulting, were inventions of the Gothic Age but indeed of the Romanesque one...
This is a view of the southern aisle, looking through the transept arm and into the ambulatory at the back of the church, with its radiating chapels.