Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism by Erwin Panofsky (Art eBook)

'Gothic

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Architecture and Scholasticism An inquiry into the analogy of tlie arts, philosophy, and religion in the Middle Ages.

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Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism

Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism

by Erwin Panofsky

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A MERIDIAN BOOK

INieVU

AMERICAIVi LiBRAfyy

NEW YORK. LONDON AND SCARBOROUGH. ONTARIO

—

Copyright 1951, 1957 by Saint Vincent Archabbey All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Catalog Card

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Number: 57-6681 U.S. PAT.

®AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

OFF.

REGISTERED TRADEMARK MARCA REGISTRADA HECHO EN WESTFORD, MASS., U.S.A. Signet, Signet Classics, Mentor, Plume, Meridian and NAL Books are published in the United States by

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1633 Broadway, New York, New York 10019, in Canada by The New American Library of Canada Limited, 81 Mack Avenue, Scarborough, Ontario MIL 1M8 First Printing/ World Publishing First

4

5

Company, 1957

Printing/New American Library, March, 1976 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Foreword

Professor Erwin Panofsky's ture

study, Gothic Architec-

and Scholasticism, captured and holds an eminent

place in a series that

Wimmer

Lectures.

not without distinction, the

is

Established

in

memory

of

the

founder of the Benedictine Order in America, Boniface

Wimmer,

the series has brought to St. Vincent

College such fine scholars as Jacques Maritain (Man's

Approach

to

God"), William

Humanism"), Helen C. White ("Prayer

a Theistic

and Poetry"), and in the

("Toward

F. Albright

Lowe ("The

Elias A.

Finest

Book

World").

Boniface

Wimmer would

surely have approved the

matter and the manner of this lecture. In a

letter

written nearly a hundred years ago he said:

In a country like America

.

.

.

religion

and

art

must work

together to give our liturgy an outward splendor, great dignity, teries art,

and even grandeur.

have a solemn duty

to

improve

it

and

.

.

.

Therefore the monas-

to foster art, especially religious

to spread

it,

because our shop-

keepers and our farmers will never do that.

I

am

firmly

Foreword

vi

convinced that a monastic school which does not

advance

much

art as

ficient in its

work. In

and

as science

scientific matters

be more readily condoned,

strive to

religion will be de-

shortcomings

may

beginning, but

at least in the

neglect in the promotion of art must be censured.

Nine decades have not diminished

the force of these

words. Professor Panofsky represents that firm,

and humane learning

that

is

mature,

the ideal and the despair

of so many. Since 1935 he has been associated with

the School of Humanistic Studies at

Advanced Study, Princeton, before that took

him from

universities of Berlin,

burg.

New

The

Institute for

Jersey.

his native

His career

Hanover

to the

Munich, Freiburg, and Ham-

An authority on iconology, medieval, renaissance,

and baroque nation,

art,

and Dutch and Flemish book

he has been a lecturer or professor

universities in the

Knowledge sification as

insight

it

as is

United

and penetrating

at various

States.

comprehensive precise

illumi-

in its grasp

and sure

and

diver-

in detail, brilliant

analysis, stimulating, radiant,

Foreword

and

artistic

tomary

presentation— these are qualities

to take for

Panofsky.

It is

ative lecture

\ii

it

is

cus-

granted in a study by Professor

a source of satisfaction to see his provoc-

made

available to a wider public through

Meridian Books. Extremely heavy demands upon Professor Panofsky's time

ducing into the desirable.

We

have prevented him from

text revisions

do not hesitate

intro-

he would now consider to issue the text in

original form, quite willing to let

it

stand on

its

its

own

merits.

+

QUENTIN

L.

SCHAUT, O.S.B.

List of Illustrations

Figure i.

Tombstone of the Architect Hugues Libergier 1263), Reims Cathedral.

(died

Figure 2.

Autun Cathedral, west

portal. Ca. 11 30.

Figure 3, Paris,

Notre-Dame, central portal of the west fa9ade Ca. 121^-1220.

(much restored)

.

Figure 4,

Henry

I

of France bestowing privileges upon the Priory

of St.-Martin-des-Champs, Book illumination between

1079 and 1096, London, British Museum, ms. Add. 1

162,

fol. 4.

Figure 5.

Henry

I

of France bestowing privileges upon the Priory

of St.-Martin-des-Champs.

Book

illumination

of

ca,

1250, Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, ms. Nouv. Acq. lat.

1359,

fol.

I.

Figure 6.

Philip

I

of France bestowing privileges upon the Priory

of St.-Martin-des-Champs. Book illumination between

IX

Illustrations

1079 and 1096, London, British Museum, ms. Add. 1

162,

fol.

£ V.

Figure 7.

Philip

I

of France bestowing privileges upon the Priory

St. -Martin-des- Champs.

of

125^0, Paris, lat.

13^9,

Book

illumination

of

ca.

Bibliotheque Nationale, ms. Nouv. Acq.

fol. 6.

Figure 8,

Maria Laach, Abbey Church from the northwest. 1093II 56.

Figure p.

Pima

(Saxony), Marienkirche, interior. Begun 1502.

Figure 10,

Cluny,

Third Abbey Church, groundplan,

io88-cd.

**The Third Church

go. (After K. J. Conant, of Cluny,*' Medieval Studies in

Memory of A. Kingsley

Porter,

1 1

20

;

narthex

ca.

1 1

lo-ca.

1 1

Cambridge, 1939.)

Figure 11,

Amiens Cathedral, groundplan. Begun 1220. Figure 12.

Sens Cathedral, groimdplan. Constructed ca. 114.0-ca. 1

168. (After E. Gall, Die gotische Baukunst in Frankreich

und Deutschland, Leipzig, 192^). Figure 13.

Laon Cathedral, groundplan. Begun

ca.

1160.

. .

Illustrations Figure 14.

Laon Cathedral from the northwest. Begun

1160.

ca,

Figure 15,

Reims Cathedral from the northwest. Begun

1

2

1 1

Figure 16,

Amiens Cathedral from the Figure

northeast.

Begun 1220.

J J.

Lessay (Normandy),

Abbey Church,

interior.

End of the

Xlth century. Figure 18,

Laon Cathedral, interior of the choir. Begun after 1205 in conformity with elevation designed ca, 1160. Figure 19,

Chartres Cathedral, interior of the nave. Begun shortly after

1 1

94.

Figure 20.

Reims Cathedral,

interior of the nave.

Begun

1

2

1 1

Figure 21,

Amiens Cathedral,

interior of the nave.

Begun 1220.

Figure 22,

St.-Denis, interior of the nave.

Begun 1231.

Figure 23.

Caen, St.-Ettienne, vaults of the northern transept. Ca.

mo.

(After E. Gall, op.

cit.)

.

.

Illustrations Figure 24.

Soissons Cathedral, vaults of the southern side aisle in

course of restoration after

World War

I.

Beginning of

the Xlllth century. Figure 25.

Soissons Cathedral, section of the northern nave wall

damaged during World War

I.

Beginning of the Xlllth

century. Figure 26.

Chartres Cathedral, flying buttress of the nave. Design established shortly after 1194. Figure 27.

Reims Cathedral, Madonna the northern transept. Ca.

in the right 1

2

1

i-i

2

1

hand portal of

2

Figure 28.

Durham

Cathedral, concealed flying buttresses.

the XI th century. (After R. Illustrations

W.

End of

Billings, Architectural

and Description of the Cathedral Church of Dur-

ham, London, 1843.) Figure 29.

Reims Cathedral, open Design established

ca.

1

flying buttresses of the nave. 2

1 1

Figure 30.

St.-Denis, w^est fa9ade. Dedicated 1140. (After an en-

Xll

Illustrations graving by A. and E. Rouargue, executed before the restoration of 1 833-1 837.) Figure 31, Paris,

Notre-Dame, west

200

clerestory ca. 1220.

1

;

facade.

Begun shortly

after

Figure 32,

Laon Cathedral, west fa9ade. Designed cuted from

cfl.

1

11

ca,

60; exe-

190.

Figure 33-

Amiens, west facade. Begun 1220; clerestory completed 1236; tracery of the rose ca. 1500, Figure 34-

Reims, St.-Nicaise (destroyed), west fa9ade. Between ca.

1230 and 1263; rose restored

ca.

1550. (After an

engraving by N. de Son, of 1625.) Figure 35.

Reims,

St.-Nicaise

(destroyed),

rose

in

the

west

facade (partial reconstruction). Figure 36.

Reims Cathedral, nave window. Designed

ca.

1211.

Figure 37-

Caen, Ste.-Trinite, triforium. Ca.

mo.

Figure 3S.

Sens Cathedral, triforium galleries. Towards 11 50.

xiu

Illustrations Figure 39-

Noyon

Cathedral, nave galleries and triforium. Design

established ca. 1 1

70 and

1 1

1170; eastern bay executed between

85, rest later.

Figure 40,

Chalons-sur-Mame, Notre-Dame-en-Vaux, choir ies

and triforium. Ca.

Figure 41

1

galler-

185^.

.

Chartres Cathedral, nave triforium. Design established ca.

1

194.

Figure 42.

Reims Cathedral, nave triforium. Design established ca. i2i I.

Figure 43.

Villard de

Honnecourt, interior elevation of Reims

Cathedral. Drawling of

ca.

1235, Paris, Bibliotheque

Nationale (enlarged detail). Figure 44.

Amiens Cathedral, nave ca.

triforium. Design established

1220.

Figure 45.

St.-Denis, nave triforium. Design established ca. 1231. Figure 46.

Canterbury Cathedral, choir piers. xiv

1

1

74-1 178.

Illustrations Figure 47.

Chartres Cathedral, capital of nave pier. Design established ca.

1

194.

Figure 48,

Reims Cathedral, ca.

121

capital of nave pier.

Design established

1.

Figure 49.

Amiens Cathedral,

capital of nave pier.

Design estab-

lished ca. 1220. Figure SO. St. -Denis,

capital of nave pier.

Design established

ca,

1231. Figure 5/.

Amiens Cathedral,

cross section of pier in relation to

wall and vault-ribs. Design established ca. 1220. Figure £2. St. -Denis, cross

vault-ribs.

section of pier in relation to wall and

Design established

ca.

1231.

Figure 53,

Cologne Cathedral, cross section of pier

in relation to

wall and vault-ribs. Design established ca. 1248. Figure 54,

Canterbury Cathedral, capital of pier. 11 74-1 178 gram).

XV

(dia-

Illustrations Figure 55.

Chartres Cathedral, capital of pier. Design established shortly after

1

194 (diagram).

Figure 56.

Reims Cathedral, 121

1

capital of pier.

Design established

ca.

Design established

ca.

(diagram).

Figure 57-

Amiens Cathedral,

capital of pier.

1220 (diagram). Figure 58.

Beauvais Cathedral, capital of pier. Design established ca.

1247 (diagram).

Figure 39St. -Denis, capital

of pier. Design established

ca.

1231

(diagram). Figure 60.

Villard de Honnecourt, ideal groundplan of a chevet

from his discussion with Pierre de Corbie. Drawing of ca. 1235, Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale.

resulting

XVI

Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism

THE

HISTORIAN CANNOT HELP DIVIDING

his material into ^^periods,'* nicely de-

fined in the Oxford Dictionary as **dis-

tinguishable portions of history.*'

To

be distinguishable, each of these portions has to have a certain unity

;

and

if

verify this unity instead of

the historian w^ishes to

merely presupposing

it,

he must needs try to discover intrinsic analogies

between such overtly disparate phenomena arts,

literature,

philosophy,

social

currents, religious movements, etc.

laudable and even indispensable in

and

as the

political

This effort,

itself,

has led to

a pursuit of **parallels'' the hazards of w^hich are 1

Gothic Architecture

only too obvious.

one

No man

fairly limited field;

can master more than

every

man

has to rely on

incomplete and often secondary information v^henever he ventures

ultra crepidam,

Yew men

can

resist

the temptation of either ignoring or slightly deflecting such lines as refuse to

a

run

parallel,

and even

genuine parallelism does not make us really

happy

if

we

cannot imagine

how

it

came about.

Small wonder, then, that another diffident attempt

Gothic architecture and Scholasti-

at correlating

cism'

is

bound

to be looked

upon with suspicion by

both historians of art and historians of philosophy. Yet, setting aside for the analogies, there exists

moment

all

intrinsic

between Gothic architecture

and Scholasticism a palpable and hardly accidental concurrence in the purely factual domain of time

and place

—

a

concurrence so inescapable that the

historians of mediaeval philosophy,

uninfluenced

by ulterior considerations, have been led to period2

And

Scholasticism

ize their material in precisely the

same way

as

do

the art historians theirs.

To

the Carolingian revival of the arts there cor-

responds, in philosophy, the

phenomenon of John

the

equally

Scot

(ca,

810-877),

magnificent,

equally unexpected, and equally charged with po-

not to be realized until a

tentialities

date.

both

About fields

later

hundred years of fermentation

a

were followed,

contrariety of

much

in art,

in

by the variety and

Romanesque which ranges from the

planar simplicity of the Hirsau school and the severe

structuralism of

Normandy and England

to the rich

proto-classicism of southern France and Italy in theology ity

;

and,

and philosophy, by a similar multiplic-

of divergent currents, from uncompromising

fideism (Peter Damian,

Manegold of Lautenbach

and, ultimately, St. Bernard) and ruthless rational3

Gothic Architecture

ism (Berenger of Tours, Roscellinus) to the proto-

humanism of Hildebert of Lavardin, Marbod of Rennes and the school of Chartres. Lanfranc and Anselm of Bee (the former died in

1089, the latter in settle the conflict

1

made

109)

a heroic attempt to

between reason and

faith

before

the principles of such a settlement had been ex-

plored and formulated. This exploration and formulation

was

initiated

by Gilbert de

la

Porree (died

11^4) and Abelard (died 1142). Thus Early Scho-

was

lasticism

bom

same environment ture was

the

new

bom

at the

in

same moment and

which Early Gothic

in Suger*s Saint-Denis.

style of thinking

ing (opus Francigenum)

and the new

international

architec-

For both

style of build-

—though brought about by

**many masters from different nations,** said of his artisans,

in the

as

Suger

and soon developing into truly

movements

—spread from an

area com-

—

And

Scholasticism

prised within a circle radius of less than a

drawn around

Paris with a

hundred miles. And they con-

tinued to be centered in this area for about one

century and a

half.

Here High Scholasticism

generally assumed to

is

begin with the turn of the twelfth century, precisely first

when

triumphs in Chartres and Soissons

*

'classic*'

fields

was

the High Gothic system achieved ;

and here

a

or climactic phase was reached in both

during the reign of

Louis (122 6- 1270).

St.

in this period that there flourished such

Scholastic

its

philosophers

It

High

Alexander of Hales,

as

Albert the Great, William of Auvergne,

St.

Bona-

venture, and St.

Thomas Aquinas and such High

Gothic architects

as

Jean

le

Loup, Jean d'Orbais,

Robert de Luzarches, Jean de Chelles, Hugues Libergier, and Pierre de Montereau; and the distinctive features of

—

High

as

opposed to Early

—

Gothic Architecture Scholasticism are remarkably analogous to those

which characterize High Gothic It

—

as

opposed to Early

art.

has justly been remarked that the gentle ani-

mation that distinguishes the Early Gothic figures in the

west facade of Chartres from their Roman-

esque predecessors reflects the renewal of an interest in psychology

which had been dormant

several centuries;^ but this psychology

based upon the Biblical

omy between

the

the ground.*'

The

**

was

for still

—and Augustinian—dichot-

breath of

infinitely

not, as yet, portraitlike

life''

more

—High

and the **dust of lifelike

—though

Gothic statues of

Reims and Amiens, Strassburg and Naumburg and the natural

—though

not,

as

yet,

naturalistic

fauna and flora of High Gothic ornament proclaim

the victory of Aristotelianism.

though recognized

as

The human

immortal, was

now

soul,

held to

be the organizing and unifying principle of the body

And itself

A

Scholasticism

rather than a substance independent thereof.

plant was thought to exist as a plant and not as

the copy of the idea of a plant.

God was

The existence of

believed to be demonstrable from His

creation rather than a priori.^ In formal organization, too, the

Summa

from the

differs

comprehensive,

less

and much

strictly organized,

High Scholastic

less

less

uniform encyclo-

pedias and Lihri Sententiarum of the eleventh and

twelfth centuries

High Gothic very

style

word summa

jurists) did

much

from

(first

not change

compendium'*

in the its

(singulorum

1 1

i^o)

tematic,

does the

ancestry. In fact, the

book

by the

meaning from a

**brief

as a

brevis

compendiosa coUectio, as Robert of in

as

title

used its

same way

or

comprehensio

Melun defined

it

to a presentation both exhaustive and sys-

from Summary'' to summa *

as

we know

until the final lustra of the twelfth century.* earliest fully

developed specimen of

this

new 7

it,

The

kind,

Gothic Architecture the

Summa

Theologiae

by Alexander of Hales, which, **

according to Roger Bacon, as

weighed about

one horse can carry," was begun

as

much

in 1231, the

very year in which Pierre de Montereau began the

new nave The

of

fifty

St. -Denis.

or sixty years after the death of Saint

Louis in 1270 (or,

venture and called the

St.

if

we

prefer, that of St. Bona-

Thomas

in

1274) mark what

is

end phase of High Scholasticism by the

historians of philosophy, and the

Gothic by the historians of

art

end phase of High

—phases

in

which

the various developments, however important, do

not

as yet

add up to a fundamental change in

atti-

tude but rather manifest themselves in a gradual

decomposition of the existing system. Both in tellectual

and in

which from about

artistic 1

life

—including

in-

music,

170 had been dominated by the

school of Notre-Dame in Paris

—we can observe

a

growing trend towards decentralization. The cre8

And ative impulses

Scholasticism

tended to

shift

from what had been

the center to what had been the periphery: to

South France, to

Italy,

to the

Germanic countries,

and to England, which, in the thirteenth century had shown a tendency toward splendid isolation.^

A

decrease of confidence in the supremely syn-

thetic

power of reason which had triumphed

Thomas Aquinas may be sulted in a resurgence level,

the

by

to be sure

** classic*'

tion.

from the sition to

tenets

—on

an entirely different

of currents suppressed during

The Summa was

again displaced

and ambitious types of presenta-

Pre-Scholastic

among other

discerned, and this re-

—

phase.

less systematic

in

Augustinianism

things, ttie

intellect)

(asserting,

independence of the will

was vigorously revived

in

oppo-

Thomas, and Thomas's anti-Augustinian

were solemnly condemned three

his death. Similarly, the

was abandoned

*

years after

'classic" cathedral type

in favor of other, less perfectly sys9

Gothic Architecture

tematized and often somewhat archaic solutions;

and in the

plastic arts

we

can observe the revival of

a pre-Gothic tendency toward the abstract and the linear.

The doctrines of

**

classic''

High Scholasticism

either stiffened into school traditions, or

were sub-

jected to vulgarization in popular treatises such as the Somme-le-Rof (1279) and the Tesoretto by Bru-

netto Latini, or were elaborated and subtilized to the limits of

human

capacity (not without reason

does the greatest representative of

Duns

Scotus,

who

became

period,

died in 1308, bear the agnomen

Doctor Subtilis). Similarly,

either

this

**

classic''

High Gothic

doctrinaire, to use Dehio's phrase,

or was reduced and simplified (especially in the

mendicant orders), or was refined and complicated into the harp work of Strassburg, the

embroidery of

Freiburg, and the flowing tracery of Lincoln. But 10

it

was not

until the

end of

Hawton or this

period

—

And that a basic change until

Scholasticism

announced

itself;

and

it

was not

the middle of the fourteenth century

—

in

histories of philosophy the conventional date for

the shift from High to Late Scholasticism

when

the teachings of William of

made

so

much headway

—

demned

1340,

is

Ockham had

that they had to be con-

that this change

became thoroughly and

universally effective.

By

this

time the energies of High Scholasticism

setting aside the ossified schools of Thomists and Scotists that persisted

much

as

academic painting

—had

survived and survives after Manet

either been

channelled into poetry and, ultimately, humanism

through Guido Cavalcanti, Dante, and Petrarch; or into anti-rational mysticism through Master Eckhart and his followers.

And

insofar as philosophy

remained Scholasticism in the term,

it

strict sense

of the

tended to become agnostic. Apart from the

—^who became more and more an

Averroists

11

iso-

Gothic Architecture lated sect as time

—

went on

this

happened

in that

mighty movement, rightly called **modem*' by the later (ca.

schoolmen, which began with Peter Aureolus

1280— 1323) and came to fruition

Ockham

(ca.

129^-1 349 or

1

in

William of

nom-

3i^o): in critical

inalism C'criticar* as opposed to the dogmatic, pre-Scholastic

name of

nominalism

associated

with

the

Roscellinus and apparently quite dead for

nearly 200 years). In contrast even to the Aristotelian, the nominalist denies all real existence to uni-

versal and grants

it

only to particulars, so that the

nightmare of the High Scholastics

—the problem of

the principium individuationis by virtue of which

Universal Cat materializes into an infinite

of particular cats

—

Peter Aureolus puts

The

number

dissolved into nothingness. As it,

**

every thing

is

individual by

virtue of itself and by nothing else*' (omnis res

est se

ipsa singularis et per nihil aliud).

On

the other hand, there reappeared the eternal 12

And

Scholasticism

dilemma of empiricism

:

since the quality of reality

belongs exclusively to that which can be appre-

hended by *

notitia intuitiva, that is, to the particular

by the

'things*' directly perceived

senses,

and to

the particular psychological states or acts

(joy,

known through

inner

grief, willing, etc.) directly

experience,

all

that

which

is

physical objects and the

world of

real, viz., the

world of psychological

processes, can never be rational, while

which

is

all

that

rational, viz., the concepts distilled

from

these

two worlds by

real

so that

;

lems

all

notitia abstractiva,

can never be

metaphysical and theological prob-

—including the existence of God, the immor-

tality

of the soul, and in at least one case (Nicholas

of Autrecourt) even causation

—can be

discussed

only in terms of probability.^

The conmion denominator of these new is,

of course, subjectivism

in the case of the

—

currents

^aesthetic subjectivism

poet and humanist, religious sub13

Gothic Architecture jectivism in that of the mystic, and epistemological

subjectivism in that of the nominaUst. these

In

fact,

two extremes, mysticism and nominalism,

are, in a sense, nothing but opposite aspects of the

same thing. Both mysticism and nominahsm cut the tie

between reason and

faith.

But mysticism

more emphatically divorced from

—much

Scholasticism in

the generation of Tauler, Suso, and John of Ruys-

broeck than

in that of

Master Eckhart

—does

so in

order to save the integrity of religious sentiment, while nominalism seeks to preserve the integrity of rational thought

ham

explicitly

and empirical observation (Ock-

denounces

attempt to subject

*

as

**

temerarious" any

'logic, physics,

and grammar"

to the control of theology).

Both mysticism and nominalism throw the vidual back

upon the resources of

and psychological experience;

private sensory

intuitus is a favorite

term and central concept of Master Eckhart 14

indi-

as well

And as of as

Ockham. But

Scholasticism

the mystic depends on his senses

purveyors of visual images and emotional stimuli,

w^hereas the nominalist relies on

them

as

of reality ; and the intuitus of the mystic

upon

a unity

beyond the

conveyors

distinction even

man and God and even between

focused

is

between

the Persons of the

Trinity, whereas the intuitus of the nominalist

is

focused upon the multiplicity of particular things

and psychological processes. Both mysticism and

nominalism end up with abolishing the borderline

between the

finite

and the

But the mystic

infinite.

tends to infinitize the ego because he believes in the self-extinction of the

human

soul in

God, whereas

the nominalist tends to infinitize the physical world

because he sees no logical contradiction in the idea of an infinite physical universe and no longer accepts

the

wonder

theological

objections

thereto.

Small

that the nominalistic school of the four-

teenth century anticipated the heliocentric system 15

Gothic Architecture of Copernicus, the geometrical analysis of Des-

and the mechanics of Galileo and Newton.

cartes,

Similarly, Late Gothic art

broke up into a variety

of styles reflecting these regional and ideological differences. But this variety, too,

is

unified

by a

subjectivism which, in the visual sphere, corre-

sponds to what can be observed in intellectual

The most tivism

is

life.

characteristic expression of this subjec-

the emergence of a perspective interpreta-

tion of space which, originating with Giotto and

Duccio, began to be accepted everywhere from

1330-40. In redefining the material painting or

drawing surface

as

an immaterial projection plane,

perspective—however imperfectly handled beginning

—renders

seen but also of the conditions

i

It

at the

account, not only of what

way

it is

records, to

is

seen under particular

borrow Ockham's term,

the direct intuitus from subject to object, thus paving the

way

16

for

modem

*

'naturalism** and lending

And

Scholasticism

visual expression to the

concept of the

infinite

;

for

the perspective vanishing point can be defined only as **the projection of the point in

which

parallels

intersect.*'

We

understandably think of perspective as a de-

vice of only the tw^o-dimensional arts. this

new way

—

of seeing

However,

or, rather, of designing

with reference to the very process of sight

—was

bound

sculp-

tors

to change the other arts as well.

and architects

also

began to conceive of the

forms they shaped, not so solids as in

The

much

in

terms of isolated

terms of a comprehensive

**

picture

space,'* although this **picture space*' constitutes itself in

the beholder's eye instead of being pre-

sented to

him

in a prefabricated projection.

three-dimensional media, too, supply, as material for a pictorial experience. This all

Late Gothic sculpture

principle

is

not carried so

—even

if

it is

The

were,

true of

the pictorial

far as in Claus Sluter's 17

Gothic Architecture stagelike portal of

Champmol,

the typical fifteenth-

century *'Schnitzaltar," or those trick figures that

look up a spire or also true of

**

down from

and

a balcony;

it is

Perpendicular'' architecture in Eng-

land and of the

new

types of hall church and semi-

church in the Germanic countries.

hall

All this applies not only to those innovations

which may be

and par-

said to reflect the empiristic

ticularistic spirit of

nominalism

:

the landscape and

the interior with concomitant emphasis on genre features,

and the autonomous and completely

vidualized portrait

which represents the

Peter Aureolus would say, as ual

by virtue of

somewhat as it

itself

image.

It

sitter, as

something individ-

and nothing else," where

earlier likenesses

were, a Scotian

**

indi-

merely superimpose,

haecceitas

upon

also applies to those

new

a

still

typified

Andachtsbilder

which are commonly associated with mysticism:

18

And

Scholasticism

the Pietd, St. John on the

Man

the Lord, the

of Sorrows, Christ in the Winepress, etc. In

their

own way,

pathy," *

Bosom of

as the

such

**

images for worship by em-

term may be paraphrased, are no

less

'naturalistic," often to the point of gruesomeness,

than are the portraits, landscapes, and interiors

which have been mentioned; and where the portraits,

infinity

landscapes, and interiors induce a sense of

by making the beholder aware of the unend-

ing variety and limitlessness of God's creation, the Andachtsbilder induce a sense of infinity by permit-

ting the beholder to

submerge

his

being in the

boundlessness of the Creator Himself.

Once more

nominalism and mysticism prove to be qui se touchent.

We

les

extremes

can easily see that these appar-

ently irreconcilable tendencies could variously in-

terpenetrate in the fourteenth century and ulti-

mately merge, for one glorious moment,

in the

19

.1-

^

p

^^^^srsm

Gothic Architecture painting of the great Flemings,

much

as

they did in

the philosophy of their admirer, Nicholas of Cusa,

who died in the same year as Roger van der Weyden. II

During the ishingly

**

concentrated'* phase of this aston-

synchronous development,

in

viz.,

the

period between about 1130-40 and about 1270,

we

can observe,

tween Gothic

it

art

seems to me, a connection beis

more

^parallelism" and yet

more

and Scholasticism which

concrete than a mere

*

general than those individual (and very important) **

influences"

which are

inevitably

painters, sculptors, or architects ers. In contrast to a

tion

which

I

mere

by erudite

is

but in contrast to an individual

diffaision rather

20

advis-

a genuine cause-and-

fluence, this cause-and-effect relation

by

on

parallelism, the connec-

have in mind

effect relation;

exerted

in-

comes about

than by direct impact.

It

comes

And

Scholasticism

about by the spreading of what may be called, for

want of this

a better term, a mental habit

overworked cliche

to

its

—reducing

precise Scholastic

sense as a '^principle that regulates the act,'' principium importans ordinem ad actum, habits are at

work

in all

and every

"^

Such mental

civilization. All

modem writing on history is permeated by the idea of evolution (an idea the evolution of which needs

much more

study than

seems to enter a

it

critical

has received thus far and

phase right now)

;

and

all

of us, without a thorough knowledge of biochemistry

or psychoanalysis, speak with the greatest of

ease of vitamin deficiencies, allergies, tions,

mother

fixa-

and inferiority complexes.

Often

it is difficult

or impossible to single out

one habit-forming force from many others and to imagine the channels of transmission. However, the period from about **

1

130-40 to about

1

270 and the

IOC-mile zone around Paris'' constitute an ex21

Gothic Architecture ception. In this tight

possessed what tion.

By and

little

amounted

sphere Scholasticism

to a

monopoly

in educa-

large, intellectual training shifted

from

the monastic schools to institutions urban rather

than rural, cosmopolitan rather than regional, and, so to speak, only half ecclesiastic

:

to the cathedral

schools, the universities, and the studia of the

new

—nearly of them products of the thirteenth century—whose members played an

mendicant orders

all

increasingly important role within the universities

themselves.

And

as the Scholastic

movement, pre-

pared by Benedictine learning and initiated by Lanfranc and

Anselm of Bee, was carried on and

brought to fruition by the Dominicans and Franciscans, so did the Gothic style, prepared in Bene-

dictine monasteries and initiated by Suger of St.-

Denis, achieve

churches.

It is

its

culmination in the great city

significant that

during the Roman-

esque period the greatest names in architectural 22

And

Scholasticism

history are those of Benedictine abbeys,

in

High Gothic period those of cathedrals, and

the

in the

Late Gothic periods those of parish churches. It is

not very probable that the builders of Gothic

structures read Gilbert de la Porree or

Thomas

Aquinas in the original. But they were exposed to the Scholastic point of view in innumerable other

ways, quite apart from the fact that their automatically brought ciation with those

them

who

into a

own work

working

asso-

devised the liturgical and

iconographic programs. They had gone to school; they listened to sermons; they could attend the public disputationes de quolibet which, dealing as

they did with all imaginable questions of the day, had

developed into social events not unlike our operas, concerts, or public lectures;* and they could

come

into profitable contact with the learned on

many

other occasions. The very fact that neither the natural

sciences

nor the humanities nor even 23

«<

Gothic Architecture

mathematics had evolved their special esoteric

methods and terminologies kept the whole of

human know^ledge

w^ithin the range of the normal,

non-specialized intellect; and

important point

—the

—perhaps

entire

social

the most

system was

rapidly changing toward an urban professionalism.

Not

as yet

hiitten"

hardened into the

systems,

where the

priest

it

later guild

and ''Bau-

provided a meeting ground

and the layman, the poet and the

lawyer, the scholar and the artisan could get to-

gether on terms of near-equality. There appeared the professional, town-dwelling publisher

hence our

narius,

strictly supervised

script

books

** stationer''),

1

who, more or

less

by a university, produced manu-

en masse

with the aid of hired scribes,

together with the bookseller

about

(statio-

(mentioned from

170), the book-lender, the bookbinder, and

the book-illuminator (by the end of the thirteenth

24

And

Scholasticism

century the enlumineurs already occupied a whole street in Paris);

the professional, town-dwelling

painter, sculptor, and jeweller; the professional,

town-dwelling cleric, yet

who,

scholar

though

devoted the substance of his

ing and teaching (hence the words

and

**

usually life

**

a

to writ-

scholastic**

scholasticism'*); and, last but not least, the

professional, town-dwelling architect.

—

This professional architect contradistinction

what

in

modern times

—would

tect

work

to

rise

the is

* ^

professional* *

in

monastic equivalent of

called the gentleman archi-

from the ranks and supervise the

in person. In doing so

he grew into a

man

of

the world, widely travelled, often well read, and

enjoying a social prestige unequalled before and

unsurpassed since. Freely selected propter sagacitatem ingeniiy he

clergy and

drew

a salary envied

would appear

at

the

by the lower

site,

*

'carrying

25

Gothic Architecture gloves and a rod''

(virga)y

to give

orders that became a

byword

in

whenever

a writer

those curt

French literature

wished to describe a man

who

does things well and with superior assurance: ^'Par cy

me

le taille.^^^

His portrait would figure together

with that of the founding bishop in the

''laby-

rinths" of the great cathedrals. After Hugues Libergier, the

master of the lost St.-Nicaise in Reims,

had died in 1263, he was accorded the unheard-of

honor of being immortalized in an

him not only

ilege previously

most

i).

And

shows

clad in something like academic garb

but also carrying a model of

(fig.

effigy that

*'his''

church

—

a priv-

accorded only to princely donors

Pierre de Montereau

logical architect

who

—indeed —

ever lived

is

the

desig-

nated on his tombstone in St.-Germain-des-Pres as ^*

Doctor

Lathomorum'': by 1267,

architect himself had

kind of Scholastic. 26

come

it

seems, the

to be looked

upon

as a

And

Scholasticism III

When

asking in what

manner the mental

habit

induced by Early and High Scholasticism may have affected the formation of Early and

architecture,

we

shall

High Gothic

do well to disregard the

notional content of the doctrine and to concentrate, to

selves, ets in

borrow

upon

a

term from the schoolmen them-

modus operandi. The changing ten-

its

such matters

as the relation

body or the problem of naturally

were

reflected

between soul and

universals vs. particulars in

the representational

arts rather than in architecture. True, the architect

lived in close contact with the sculptors,

glass

whose work he

stud-

painters,

ied

wood

carvers, etc.,

wherever he went (witness the

Villard de Honnecourt),

supervised in his

own

whom

**

Album'* of

he engaged and

enterprises, and to

whom

he

had to transmit an iconographic program which,

we remember, he

could work out only in close 27

ffw^

Gothic Architecture

cooperation with a scholastic adviser. But in doing this,

all

he assimilated and conveyed rather than

applied the substance of contemporary thought.

What he w^hile

vv^ho

**

devised the form of the building

not himself manipulating

its

matter' '^° could

and did apply, directly and qua architect, was

method of procedure which

rather that peculiar

must have been the the

thing to impress itself upon

first

mind of the layman whenever

it

came

in touch

with that of the schoolman. This method of procedure follows,

modus operandi does, from a modus

lows from the very Scholasticism,

is

every

essendi;^^ it fol-

raison d^etre of Early

which

as

and High

to establish the unity of

truth.

The men of the

turies

attempted a task not yet clearly envisaged by

twelfth and thirteenth cen-

their forerunners and ruefully to be

abandoned by

their successors, the mystics and the nominalists:

the task of writing a permanent peace treaty be28

And tween

faith

and reason.

Thomas Aquinas,

**

that

is

human

*

'Sacred doctrine/' says

makes use of human reason, not

to prove faith but to

ever else

Scholasticism

make

clear (manijestare) what-

set forth in this doctrine.

' '

^^

This means

reason can never hope to furnish direct

proof of such

articles of faith as the tri-personal

structure of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the temporality of Creation, etc.; but that

it

can, and

does, elucidate or clarify these articles.

human

reason can furnish direct and

com-

plete proof for whatever can be deduced

from

First,

principles other than revelation, that ethical, physical,

for

is,

all

and metaphysical tenets including

the very praeambula Jidei, such as the existence

(though not the essence) of God, which can be

proved by an argument from ond, self:

it

effect to cause.

Sec-

can elucidate the content of revelation

by argument, though merely negatively,

refute

'^

all

it

it-

can

rational objections against the Articles of

29

Gothic Architecture Faith

—objections

false

or inconclusive;^'^ and positively, though not

by argument,

must of necessity be either

that

can supply similitudines w^hich

it

**manifest" the mysteries by

when

way of

analogy, as

the relation between the Three Persons of

the Trinity

Hkened to

is

work

of the

between being, knowl-

own mind, ^^

edge and love in our to the

that

human

artist.

or divine creation ^^

Manifestatio, then, elucidation or clarification,

what

I

would

call

the

first

controlling principle of

Early and High Scholasticism. this principle into

plane

^^

But in order to put

operation on the highest possible

—elucidation of

applied to reason

is

faith

by reason

itself: if faith

—

it

had to be

had to be **mani-

fested" through a system of thought complete and self-sufficient

within

its

own

limits yet setting itself

apart

from the realm of revelation,

sary

to ''manifest"

30

it

became neces-

the completeness,

self-suflfi-

—

And

Scholasticism

ciency, and limitedness of the system of thought.

And

this

could be done only by a scheme of literary

would

presentation that

elucidate the very proc-

esses of reasoning to the reader's imagination just as reasoning

was supposed to elucidate the very

nature of faith to his intellect. Hence the

much

derided schematism or formalism of Scholastic writing which reached

Summa^^ with (sufficient

its

climax in the classic

its

three requirements of (i) totality

enumeration), (2) arrangement accord-

ing to a system of homologous parts and parts of parts (sufficient articulation), and (3) distinctness

and deductive cogency all

this

(sufficient interrelation)

enhanced by the

Thomas Aquinas 's

literary

similitudines

:

equivalent of

suggestive termi-

nology, parallelismus membrorum, and rhyme.

A

knowTi instance of the two

—both

artistic as

well as

mnemonic

latter devices

—

is St.

well-

Bonaventure's

31

Gothic Architecture succinct defense of religious images which he declares admissible * ^propter simplicium ruditatem, propter

affectuum tarditatem, propter memoriae Jabilitatem,^

^

^^

We take it for granted that major works of scholand doc-

arship, especially systems of philosophy

scheme

toral theses, are organized according to a

of division and subdivision,

condensable into a

table of contents or synopsis,

where

noted by numbers or

on the same

letters of the

logical level

;

parts de-

all

same

class are

so that the same relation

of subordination obtains between, say, sub-section (a),

section (i), chapter

between, (IV) and atic

(I)

and book (A)

say, sub-section (b), section (^),

book

(C).

articulation

However,

this

as

does

chapter

kind of system-

was quite unknown

until

the

advent of Scholasticism.^® Classical writings (except perhaps for those that consisted of denumerable items such as collections of short

poems or

treatises

on mathematics) were merely divided into 'books. *

32

And

When we

Scholasticism

wish to give what we, unsuspecting heirs

to Scholasticism, call an exact quotation,

we must

either refer to the pages of a printed edition con-

we do with

ventionally accepted as authoritative (as Plato and Aristotle), or to a

scheme introduced by

some humanist of the Renaissance

was,

it

when we quote

i, 3.'*

a Vitruvius passage as "VII, It

as

seems, not until the earlier part of the

Middle Ages that "books" were divided into numbered "chapters'

'

however, imply or dination; and

it

the sequence of which did not, reflect a system of logical subor-

was not

until the thirteenth cen-

tury that the great treatises

were organized accord-

ing to an overall plan secundum ordinem disciphnae^^ so that the reader

is

led, step

proposition to the other and

by is

step,

from one

always kept in-

formed as to the progress of this process. The whole is

of

divided into partes which

—

Thomas Aquinas 's Summa

like the

Second Part

Theologiae

—could be 33

^pp

Gothic Architecture divided into smaller partes ; the partes into membra, quaestiones or distinctiones,

Within the

articuli,

and these into

articuli,'^'^

the discussion proceeds accord-

ing to a dialectical scheme involving further subdi-

and almost every concept

vision,

two or more meanings tripliciter,

etc.) according to

On

others.

quaestiones,

its

the other hand, a

or

into a group.

distinctiones are

The

Thomas

stitute

(intendi

first

is

split

potest

up

into

dupliciter,

varying relation to

number of membra, often tied together

of the three partes that con-

Aquinas 's

Summa

Theologiae,

a

veritable orgy both of logic and Trinitarian sym-

bolism,

is

an excellent case in point. ^^

All this does not lastics

mean, of course, that the Scho-

thought in more orderly and logical fashion

than Plato and Aristotle; but

it

does

mean

they, in contrast to Plato and Aristotle, felt

pelled to

make

com-

the orderliness and logic of their

thought palpably explicit 34

that

—

that the principle of

And manifestatio

Scholasticism

which determined the direction and

scope of their thinking also controlled

and subjected

this

its

exposition

exposition to what

may be

termed the postulate of clarification for clarification's sake.

IV

Within Scholasticism

itself

this

principle

re-

sulted not only in the explicit unfolding of what,

though necessary, might have been allowed to

main

re-

implicit, but also, occasionally, in the intro-

duction of what was not necessary at

all,

or in the

neglect of a natural order of presentation in favor of

an

artificial

Summa

symmetry. In the very Prologue of the

Theologiae,

Thomas Aquinas complains, with

an eye on his forerunners, of **the multiplication of useless questions, articles,

and arguments'' and of a

tendency to present the subject **not according to the order of the discipline itself but rather accord35

9^^

Gothic Architecture ing to the requirements of literary exposition.*'

However, the passion for itself

—quite

** clarification*'

imparted

naturally in view of the educational

—

monopoly of Scholasticism

mind engaged

to

virtually

every

grew

into a

in cultural pursuits;

it

**mental habit."

Whether we read book of

classical

a treatise

on medicine,

mythology such

Fulgentius MetaforaliSy a political

as

a hand-

Ridewall's

propaganda sheet,

the eulogy of a ruler, or a biography of Ovid,*-*

we

always find the same obsession with systematic division and subdivision, methodical demonstration,

terminology, parallelismus membrorum, and rhyme.

Dante's Divina Commedia

much

of

its

is

Scholastic, not only in

content but also in

its

deliberately

Trinitarian form.^^ In the Vita Nuova the poet himself

goes out of his

way

sonnet and canzone by

**

to analyze the tenor of each

parts" and

in perfectly Scholastic fashion,

36

** parts

of parts"

whereas Petrarch,

And half a century later,

Scholasticism

was to conceive of the

struc-

ture of his songs in terms of euphony rather than logic.

**I

thought of changing the order of the four

stanzas so that the first quatrain

would have come second and marks of one sonnet, **but the fuller sound

I

and the

first

terzina

vice versa/' he re-

gave

it

would have been

up because then middle and

in the

the hollo wer at the beginning and the end/'^^

What

applies to prose and poetry applies

emphatically to the

arts.

Modem

no

less

Gestalt psychol-

ogy, in contrast to the doctrine of the nineteenth

century and very thirteenth,

**

much

in

harmony with

refuses to reserve the capacity of syn-

thesis to the higher faculties of the

and

stresses '*the formative

quote

—with

a kind of

**

human mind*'

powers of the sensory

processes.'' Perception itself I

that of the

is

now

credited

—and

intelligence" that

*'

or-

ganizes the sensory material under the pattern of

simple, *good' Gestalten" in an

''effort

of the org anil

^^m

Gothic Architecture ism to assimilate stimuli to

of which

the

is

own organization^^

its

modem way

;^^ all

of expressing precisely

what Thomas Aquinas meant when he wrote:

**the

senses delight in things duly proportioned as in something akin to them; for, the sense, too, reason as

is

is

a kind of

every cognitive power^^ (^*sensus delectantur

in rebus debite proportionatis sicut in sibi similibus;

nam

et sensus ratio

quaedam

est, et

omnis virtus cogno-

scitiva'').^^

Small wonder,

deemed

it

then,

necessary to

appeal to reason and to

that

make

**

mentality which

faith **clearer''

make reason

an appeal to imagination, also imagination

a

felt

by an

** clearer'*

bound

to

by

make

clearer" by an appeal to the senses.

Indirectly, this preoccupation affected even philo-

sophical and theological literature in that the intellectual articulation of the subject matter implies

the acoustic articulation of speech by recurrent phrases, and the visual articulation of the written 38

And

Scholasticism

page by rubrics, numbers, and paragraphs. Directly, it

affected

all

the arts. As music became articulated

through an exact and systematic division of time

was the

(it

Paris school of the thirteenth century

that introduced the mensural notation

and

still

in use

still

referred to, in England at least, by the

original terms of

*

*

'breve," **semibreve,*'

im,*' etc.), so did the visual arts

become

'min-

articu-

lated through an exact and systematic division of

space, resulting in a

*

'clarification for clarification's

sake'* of narrative contexts in the representational arts,

and of functional contexts

in architecture.

In the field of the representational arts this

might

be demonstrated by an analysis of almost any single figure; but

it is still

more evident

ment of ensembles. Barring such pened

at

in the arrange-

accidents as hap-

Magdeburg or Bamberg, the composition

of a High Gothic portal, for example, tends to be subjected to a strict and fairly standardized scheme 39

m^

Gothic Architecture

which, in imposing order upon the formal arrange-

ment, simultaneously tent. Suffice

it

to

not

'* clarified''

(fig.

2)

—

clarifies

the narrative con-

compare the

beautiful but as yet

Last

Judgement portal of Autun

with those of Paris or Amiens

in spite of an

summate

3)

where

even greater wealth of motifs

—con-

clarity prevails.

The tympanum

divided into three registers

Romanesque

(a

device

sharply

unknown

in

and Pompierre), the

Deesis being separated from the

Damned and

the

and these again from the Resurrected. The

Apostles, precariously included in the at

is

save only such well-motivated excep-

tions as St.-Ursin-de-Bourges

Elect,

(fig.

tympanum

Autun, are placed in the embrasures where they

surmount the twelve Virtues and parts (developed

their counter-

from the customary heptad by

a

correct subdivision of Justice)

in

such a manner that Fortitude corresponds to

St.

Scholastically

Peter, the **rock,'' and Charity to St. Paul, the

40

And author of

/

Scholasticism

Corinthians,

3

1

;

and the Wise and Fool-

ish Virgins, antetypes of the Elect

and the Damned,

have been added in the doorposts by way of a marginal gloss.

we

In painting,

cation in

vitro,

can observe the process of clarifi-

so to speak.

extraordinary chance,

a

We can compare, series

by an

of miniatures of

about 12^0 with their direct models, produced in the latter half of the eleventh century probably after

1079 and certainly before 1096

The two Philip

I

best

known

(fig.

(fig.

6 and 7) represent King

conferring privileges and donations,

them the church of St. -Samson, upon St. -Martin-des- Champs.

4-7).^^

among

the Priory of

But where the Early Ro-

manesque prototype, an unframed pen drawing, shows

a

jumble of

tions, the

figures, buildings,

High Gothic copy pulls the

ized picture.

It

(adding, in a

new

is

and inscrip-

a carefully organ-

whole together by a frame

feeling for realism and

communal 41

—

Gothic Architecture

ceremony

dignity, a consecration

at the

Neatly segregating the different elements,

bottom). it

divides

the area within the frame into four sharply delimited fields

which correspond to the categories of

the King, the Ecclesiastical Structures, the Episco-

and the Secular Nobility. The two buildings

pate,

St. -Martin

itself

and

St. -Samson

—

^are

not only

brought up to the same level but also represented in

pure side elevation instead of being shown

mixed projection. The

in

fact that the dignitaries,

formerly unattended and uniformly frontalized, are

accompanied by some minor personages and have acquired the faculties of

movement and intercom-

munication enhances rather than weakens their individual significance; and the only ecclesiastic

who, the

for

good reasons, has found

counts and princes.

42

among

Archdeacon Drogo of

Paris, is clearly set off against

and mitre.

his place

them by

his chasuble

And It

Scholasticism

was, however, in architecture that the habit of

achieved

clarification

its

greatest

triumphs.

As

High Scholasticism was governed by the principle of maniJestatiOy so was High Gothic architecture

dominated

—

what may be

^as

already

called the

' *

observed

by

Suger

—

^by

principle of transparency.

'

*

Pre-Scholasticism had insulated faith from reason

by an impervious barrier much structure

(fig.

as a

Romanesque

8) conveys the impression of a space

determinate and impenetrable, whether

we

find

ourselves inside or outside the edifice. Mysticism

was to drowm reason

in faith,

and nominalism was

to completely disconnect one from the other; and

both these attitudes may be said to find expression in the Late

Gothic

hall

church.

Its

bamlike

shell

encloses an often wildly pictorial and always ap-

parently boundless interior

(fig.

9) and thus creates

a space determinate and impenetrable

from without

but indeterminate and penetrable from within. 43

Gothic Architecture

High

however,

philosophy,

Scholastic

severely

limited the sanctuary of faith from the sphere of rational know^ledge yet insisted that the content of this sanctuary

remain clearly discernible. And so

did High Gothic architecture delimit interior vol-

ume from

exterior space yet insist that

itself, as it w^ere,

ture

ig and

(fig.

it

through the encompassing struc1

6);

so that, for example, the

cross section of the nave can be read off

facade

(fig.

project

from the

34).

Like the High Scholastic Summay the High Gothic cathedral aimed,

first

of all, at

*'

totality'*

and there-

fore tended to approximate, by synthesis as

elimination, one perfect and final solution;

vv^ell

as

we may

therefore speak of the High Gothic plan or the High

Gothic system with

much more

confidence than

would be

possible in any other period. In

agery, the

High Gothic cathedral sought to embody

the whole of Christian knowledge,

44

its

im-

theological,

And

Scholasticism

moral, natural, and historical, with everything in its

place and that which no longer found

suppressed. In structural design, to synthesize

all

it

its

place,

similarly sought

major motifs handed down by

separate channels and finally achieved an unparalleled balance

plan type,

endanger ies,

between the

suppressing

this balance,

basilica

all

elements that might

such as the crypt, the galler-

and towers other than the two

The second requirement of *

and the central

in front.

Scholastic writing,

'arrangement according to a system of homologous

parts

and parts of

parts,'* is

most graphically ex-

pressed in the uniform division and subdivision

of the whole structure. Instead of the Romanesque variety of western and eastern vaulting forms, often

appearing in one and the same building (groin vaults, rib vaults, barrels,

we

domes, and half-domes),

have the newly developed rib vault exclusively

so that the vaults of even the apse, the chapels and 45

Gothic Architecture the ambulatory

no longer

of the nave and transept

differ in

kind from those

lo and ii).

(fig.

Since

Amiens, rounded surfaces were entirely eliminated, except, of course, for the webbing of the vaults. Instead of the contrast that normally existed be-

tween

tripartite naves

and undivided transepts (or

quinquepartite naves and tripartite transepts)

have tripartition in both cases

;

we

and instead of the

disparity (either in size, or in the type of covering,

or in both) between the bays of the high nave and those of the side travee,'^ in

aisles,

we

have the

which one rib-vaulted

*

'uniform

central bay con-

nects with one rib-vaulted aisle bay on either side.

The whole

is

thus

composed of smallest

might almost speak of

articuli

gous in that they are

all

—which

units

are

its

46

neighbors.

homolo-

triangular in groundplan

and in that each of these triangles shares with

—one

its

sides

And As a

result of this

Scholasticism

homology we perceive what

corresponds to the hierarchy of

'*

logical levels" in

a well-organized Scholastic treatise. Dividing the

entire structure, as was customary in the period itself,

into three

main

parts, the nave, the transept,

and the chevet (which

in turn comprises the fore-

choir and the choir proper), and distinguishing,

within these parts, between high nave and sideaisles,

latory,

on the one hand, and between

apse,

ambu-

and hemicycle of chapels, on the other,

can observe analogous relations to obtain:

first,

we be-

tween each central bay, the whole of the central nave, and the entire nave, transept or fore-choir, respectively; second,

between each

the v/hole of each side transept

or fore-choir,

aisle,

side aisle bay,

and the entire nave,

respectively;

tween each sector of the

apse, the

third,

whole

beapse,

and the entire choir; fourth, between each section

47

msm^m^

Gothic Architecture of the ambulatory, the whole ambulatory and the entire choir; and

between each chapel, the

fifth,

whole hemicycle of chapels, and the entire choir. It is

not possible here

describe

how

ity (or, to

—nor

is it

—

necessary

to

this principle of progressive divisibil-

look at

the other way, multiplicability)

it

increasingly affected the entire edifice

smallest detail.

down

to the

At the height of the development,

supports were divided and subdivided into main piers,

major

shafts,

minor

shafts; the tracery of

shafts,

windows,

and

still

triforia,

minor

and blind

arcades into primary, secondary, and tertiary mullions

and

moldings

profiles; ribs (fig.

22).

It

and arches into a

series of

may be mentioned, however,

that the very principle of

homology

that controls

the whole process implies and accounts for the relative

uniformity

which

distinguishes

the

High

Gothic vocabulary from the Romanesque. All parts that are

48

on the same

^'logical level"

—and

this is

And

Scholasticism

especially noticeable in those decorative and repre-

sentational features which, in architecture, corre-

spond to Thomas Aquinas 's

—came

be conceived of as members of one

enormous

to

similitudines

the

class, so that

variety in, for instance, the shape of

canopies, the decoration of socles and archevaults,

and, above

all,

the form of piers and capitals tended

to be suppressed in favor of standard types admitting only of such variations as

nature

among

individuals of

one

would occur

in

Even

in

species.

the world of fashion the thirteenth century tinguished

is

dis-

by a reasonableness and uniformity

(even as far as the difference between masculine

and feminine costumes

is

concerned) which was

equally foreign to the preceding and to the following period.

The edifice

theoretically illimited fractionization of the is

limited by what corresponds to the third

requirement of Scholastic writing:

'*

distinctness

49

Gothic Architecture

and deductive cogency/' According to

classic

High

Gothic standards the individual elements, while forming an indiscerptible whole, yet must proclaim their identity by remaining clearly separated

—the

from each other

shafts

from the wall or the

core of the pier, the ribs from their neighbors, vertical

members from

their arches;

all

and there

must be an unequivocal correlation between them.

We

must be able

to tell

which element belongs

to

which, from which results what might be called a **postulate of

mutual

inferability'

sions, as in classical architecture,

tion. in,

'

—

^not in

dimen-

but in conforma-

While Late Gothic permitted, even delighted

flowing transitions and interpenetrations, and

loved to defy the rule of correlation by, for instance,

over-membrification

of the

under-membrification of the supports classic style

demands

that

we be

ceiling (fig.

and

9), the

able to infer, not

only the interior from the exterior or the shape of 50

And

Scholasticism

the side aisles from that of the central nave but also,

say,

the organization of the whole system

from the cross section of one

The last-named

instance

is

pier.

especially instructive.

In order to establish uniformity

among

all

the sup-

ports, including those in the rond-point (and also,

perhaps, in deference to a latent classicizing impulse), the builders of the

tures after Senlis,

the

compound

most important

Noyon, and Sens had abandoned

pier and had sprung the nave ar-

cades from monocylindrical piers

of course,

struc-

made

it

impossible to

(fig. '*

1

8). 3° This,

express," as

it

were, the superstructure in the conformation of the supports. In order to accomplish this and yet

preserve the

vented the

now

accepted form, there was inthe columnar pier with

pilier cantonne,

four applied colonnettes

(fig.

19-21).

However,

while this type, adopted in Chartres, Reims, and

Amiens, 3»

permitted

the

'^expression"

of the 51

—

Gothic Architecture transverse ribs of the nave and side aisles as w^ell as the longitudinal arches of the

did not permit the (fig.

_^i).

The

final

'*

nave arcades,

it

expression'* of the diagonals solution was found (in St.-

Denis) by the resumption of the reorganized, however, in such a

compound way

that

pier, ''ex-

it

pressed" every feature of a High Gothic super-

The inner

structure

(fig.

arches

taken up by a strong colonnette, their

is

22).

profile of the nave

outer profile by a slighter one, the transverse and diagonal ribs of the nave by three central one stronger than the

(the

tall shafts

two others)

to

which

correspond three analogous colonnettes for the transverse and diagonal ribs of the side-aisles

even what remains of the nave wall

ment *

is

;

—the only

and ele-

that stubbornly persisted in being ''walF'

'manifested'' in the rectangular,

core of the pier This

is

52

still

"mural'*

itself (fig. 52).^^

indeed "rationalism."

It is

not quite the

And

Scholasticism

rationalism conceived by Choisy and Viollet-le-

Duc,33 for the

no functional, the

piliers

neither lieve

the

—

is

compound let alone

economic, advantages over

cantonnes

of Reims

—

Abraham would have

it

as

Pol

**illusionism."34

modern

piers of St. -Denis have

From

us be-

the point of view^ of

archaeologist this famous quarrel be-

tween Pol Abraham and the settled

Amiens; but

or

functionalists can

be

by the reasonable compromise proposed by

Marcel Aubert and Henri Focillon and,

as a

matter

of fact, already envisaged by Ernst Gall.^^

No

doubt Pol Abraham

is

wrong

in

denying the

practical value of even such features as ribs and flying buttresses.

The skeleton of

constructed ribs" (arcus singulariter heavier and

more robust

lead us to believe

(fig.

webs

independently

Koiuti),^^

much

than their graceful profiles 24), did have considerable

in freehand

made

it

possible to

(which saved

much wood

technical advantages in that vault the

'*

it

53

^^^^

— ;

Gothic Architecture

and labor for centering) and to reduce their thickness

compHcated

for according to

;

tions, the simple result of which

modem

calcula-

was so well known,

empirically, to the Gothic builders that they took it

for granted in their writings, ^7 an arch twice

as thick as

strong; vault.

vive

is,

which means

ceteris paribus, just

that ribs

twice

as

do reinforce the

That Gothic vaults have been known to sur-

when

fire in

another

the ribs were blasted away by artillery

World War I does not prove

that they

would

have survived had they been deprived of their ribs after seven

weeks instead of

for ancient

masonry

after seven centuries

will hold together

by sheer

cohesion so that major portions even of the walls

may be seen

hanging, as

the loss of their supports

it

were, in position after

(fig.

2^).^^

Buttresses and flying buttresses do counteract

the deformative forces which threaten the stability

of every vault. ^9 54

And

that the Gothic masters

And

Scholasticism

excepting only those headstrong Milanese ignora-

muses

who blandly contended

the buttresses

arches"

is

—were

that '*no thrust

upon

exerted by vaults with pointed

aware of

fully

this

is

documented

by several texts and attested to by their very trade expressions such as

contrefort,

*

'buttress'*),

arc-boutant,

or

bouterec

the

(hence our

German

(hence, interestingly enough, the Spanish all

strebe

estribo)^

of which denote the function of a thrust or

counterthrust.-^^ tresses

The upper range of

—subsequently

added

in

flying

but-

Chartres

but

planned from the outset in Reims and in most

major

edifices

after

that

—may

well have been

intended to lend support to the steeper, heavier roofs and, possibly, against them.^'

value in that

to resist the

Even tracery has

it facilitates

wind pressure

a certain practical

the installation and aids

the preservation of glass.

On

the other hand,

it

is

equally true that the 55

Gothic Architecture earliest

genuine ribs appear in connection with

heavy groin vaults, w^here they could not have been *

constructed

and

'independently''

neither have saved centering nor

much

statical value

afterwards

thus

would

would have had

(fig.

23);'*^^ it is

also

true that the flying buttresses of Chartres, their functional importance notwithstanding, to the aesthetic sense so

much

appealed

so that the master

of the beautiful Madonna in the north transept of Reims Cathedral repeated them, en miniature, in the

Madonna's aedicule

(fig.

26 and 27).

The

admirable architect of St.-Ouen in Rouen, whose design

most closely approximates the modern

standards of statical efficiency,

"^^^

rnanaged with-

out an upper range of flying buttresses.

And on no

account could there have been any practical reason for that elaboration of the buttressing system

transforms

it

into a filigree of colonnettes, taber-

nacles, pinnacles, 56

which

and tracery

(fig.

29).

The

largest

And of

Scholasticism

stained glass windows, the west

all

window

of

Chartres, has survived seven centuries without any tracery ; and that the blind tracery applied to solid

no technical importance whatsoever

surfaces has

goes without saying.

However,

With

point.

whole discussion

this

reference to twelfth and thirteenth

century architecture, the alternative, tion

—

all is

not to the

is

illusion,"

is

^*all is

as little valid as

func-

would

be,

with reference to twelfth and thirteenth century philosophy, the alternative

—

all is

ribs of voluti,

to

do

'*all is

intellectual gymnastics

search for truth

and oratory." The

Caen and Durham, not

as yet singulahter

began by saying something before being able it.

The

flying buttresses of

Caen and Durham,

still

hidden beneath the roofs of the side

(fig.

28), began

aisles

by doing something before being

permitted to say

so.

Ultimately, the flying but-

tress learned to talk, the rib learned to

work, and 57

Gothic Architecture

both learned to proclaim what they were doing in language

more

circumstantial, explicit, and ornate

than was necessary for mere efficiency; and this applies also to the conformation of the piers and

the tracery which had been talking as well as working

all

We

the time. are faced neither with ''rationalism" in a

purely functionalistic sense nor with ''illusion" in the sense of

We

modem

are faced with

logic"

illustrative

sensus ratio

quaedam

Scholastic habit

Vart pour Vart aesthetics.

what may be termed

a

*

'visual

Thomas Aquinas *s nam

of est,

A man

imbued with the

would look upon the mode of

architectural presentation, just as he looked

the

mode

et

upon

of literary presentation, from the point

of view of manifestatio.

He would

have taken

granted that the primary purpose of the

it

for

many

elements that compose a cathedral was to ensure stability, just as

58

he took

it

for granted that the

And

Scholasticism

primary purpose of the many elements that constitute a

Summa was

to ensure vaHdity.

But he would not have been

satisfied

had not the

membrification of the edifice permitted him to re-

experience

very

the

composition just

as

Summa permitted him

processes

the

membrification of the

to re-experience the very

processes of cogitation.

To him,

buttresses,

tracery,

shafts,

ribs,

of architectural

the panoply of pinnacles,

and

crockets was a self-analysis and self-explication of architecture

much

as the

customary apparatus of

parts, distinctions, questions,

articles was, to

and self-explication of reason.

him, a

self-analysis

Where

the humanistic

of **harmony''

and

mind demanded

a

maximum

(impeccable diction in writing,

impeccable proportion, so sorely missed in Gothic structures by Vasari,^^ in architecture), the Scholastic It

mind demanded

a

maximum

of explicitness.

accepted and insisted upon a gratuitous

clarifica-

59

^m^m

Gothic Architecture

form

tion of function through

and

upon

insisted

a

just as

gratuitous

it

accepted

clarification

of

thought through language.

To reach

its classic

no more than

phase the Gothic style needed

hundred years

a

—from Suger's

Denis to Pierre de Montereau's; and expect to see

this rapid

we

St.-

should

and uniquely concentrated

development proceed with unparalleled consistency and directness. Such, however, Consistent the development

On

the contrary,

when

receive the impression that

steps forward

the builders their

own 60

'

but

not the case. it is

*

'final it

solutions,"

went on almost

we

after

'jumping procession,'' taking two

and then one backward,

were

way.

not direct.

observing the evolution

from the beginning to the

the fashion of a

is,

is

as

though

deliberately placing obstacles in

And

this

can be observed not only

And under such adverse tions as normally

financial or geographical condi-

produce a retrogression by de-

speak, but in

fault, so to first

monuments of

the very

rank.

The

**finar'

reached,

solution of the general plan was

we remember,

partite nave;

in a basilica having a tri-

a transept,

distinctly projecting as it

Scholasticism

likewise tripartite and

from the nave but merging,

were, into the quinquepartite fore-choir; a

concentric chevet with ambulatory and radiating chapels 1

6).

;

At

and only two towers first

in front (fig.

glance, the natural thing

been a rectilinear development

Germer and pate nearly

1 1

and

would have

starting

from

St.-

St.-Lucien-de-Beauvais which antici-

all

these features in the early twelfth

century. Instead,

we

find a dramatic struggle be-

tween two contrasting solutions each of which seems to lead away from the ultimate Suger's St.-Denis and Sens Cathedral

(fig.

result.

12) pro61

—

Gothic Architecture

vided a strictly longitudinal model, with only two

towers in front and the transept either stunted or

—

entirely omitted

adopted

a plan

of Paris and Mantes, and

still

in

Notre-Dame

retained in the High

Gothic Cathedral of Bourges.^^ As though in protest against this, the masters of

possibly swayed

Laon

(fig.

1

3

and 14)

by the unique location of their

cathedral on the crest of a hill

—reverted

Germanic idea of

group with a pro-

a multinomial

tripartite transept

jecting,

to the

and many towers

(as

exemplified by the Cathedral of Tournai), and

it

took the succeeding generations two more cathedrals to get rid of the extra

towers surmounting

the transept and the crossing. Chartres was planned

with no itself,

less

than nine towers; Reims, like Laon

with seven

Amiens

(fig.

front towers

(fig.

ig); and

it

was not

16) that the disposition with only

two

was reinstated.

Similarly, the '^final" solution of the nave

62

until

com-

And position

(fig.

Scholasticism

19-22) implied, in plan, a succession

of uniform, oblong, quadrupartite vaults and uni-

form, articulated piers; and, in elevation, a triadic

sequence of arcades, triforium, and clerestory. Again

it

would seem

that this solution

might have

been reached by going ahead, straightforwardly,

from such early twelfth-century prototypes Etienne-de-Beauvais or Lessay in

and Chartres sport sixpartite cylindrical piers

shows

**

(fig.

(fig.

mono-

vaults over

18) or even revert to the

alternating system.'' Their elevation

galleries

which, in the most important build-

ings later than

forium

Normandy

major structures prior to Soissons

17). Instead, all

antiquated

as St.-

Noyon, are combined with

(or, as in

a tri-

Notre-Dame-de-Paris, with the

equivalent thereof) into a four-story arrangement (fig.

i8).4^

In retrospect,

it is

easy to see that

what seems to

be an arbitrary deviation from the direct road 63

is

in

—

Gothic Architecture reality

an indispensable prerequisite of the

solution.

Had

** final*'

not been for the adoption of the

it

many- towered group

in Laon,

no balance would

have been achieved between the longitudinal and the centralizing tendencies,

much

less a unification

of a fully developed chevet with an equally fully

developed tripartite transept. Had

it

not been for

the adoption of sixpartite vaults and a four-story elevation,

it

would not have been possible

cile the ideal of a

east In

with the

uniform progression from west to

ideals of transparency

both cases the

to recon-

** final'*

solutions

and verticalism.

were arrived

at

by the acceptance and ultimate reconcilia-

tion OF CONTRADICTORY

come upon

And

if

helped us to understand looks, this second

64

Here we

the second controlling principle of

Scholasticism.

understand

POSSIBILITIES. ^^

how

—

the

first—manifestatio

how

classic

concordantia

classic

High Gothic

—may

help us to

High Gothic came about.

And

Scholasticism

man

All that mediaeval revelation, and

much

know about

could

divine

of what he held to be true in

other respects, was transmitted by the authorities (auctoritates): primarily,

the Bible

which furnished arguments

and irrefutable'* arily,

by the canonical books of **

intrinsic

(proprie et ex necessitate); second-

by the teachings of the Fathers of the Church,

which furnished arguments

*

'intrinsic"

though

merely ''probable," and of the "philosophers"

which furnished arguments "not tranea)

Now, ties,

and merely probable for

it

this

(ex-

very reason.*^

could not escape notice that these authori-

even passages of Scripture

flicted

intrinsic"

itself,

often con-

with one another. There was no other way

out than to accept them just the same and to interpret and reinterpret

them over and over

again until

they could be reconciled. This had been done by theologians from the earliest days. But the problem

was not posed

as a

matter of principle until Abe65

Gothic Architecture lard

wrote

showed the greeing on

famous

his

human

et

Non, wherein he

authorities, including Scripture, disaI

^8 important points

problem whether or not in

Sic

reason

down

faith

—from the

initial

ought to seek support

to such special questions as

the permissibility of suicide (iss) or concubinage (124). Such a systematic collection and confrontation of conflicting authorities had long been a practice of the canonists

was, after

all,

;

but law, though God-given,

man-made. Abelard showed himself

very conscious of his boldness in exposing the ^'differences or even contradictions" diversa, verum etiam invicem adversa)

sources of revelation **

all

ously to inquire into the truth the

of Scripture

is

within the very

when he wrote

would stimulate the reader

ity

(ab invicem

the

that

more

more

this

vigor-

the author-

extolled. '''^^

After having laid down, in his splendid introduction, the basic principles of textual criticism (in-

66

And

Scholasticism

eluding the possibility of clerical error in even a

Gospel, such as the ascription of a prophesy of Zacharias to Jeremias in Matthew, xxvii, 9), Abelard

mischievously refrained from proposing solutions.

But

it

was inevitable

that such solutions should

be

w^orked out, and this procedure became a more and

more important part,

of the

part, perhaps the

most important

method.

Roger Bacon,

Scholastic

shrew^dly observing the diverse origins of this Scholastic *

method, reduced

division into

many

it

to three components:

parts as

do the

dialecticians;

rhythmical consonances as do the grammarians;

and forced harmonizations used by the It

was

jurists.

this

(concordiae violentes) as

''^°

technique of reconciling the seem-

ingly irreconcilable, perfected into a fine art through

the assimilation of Aristotelian logic, that deter-

mined the form of academic

instruction, the ritual

of the public disputationes de quoUhet already men67

Gothic Architecture tioned, and, above

all,

the process of argumenta-

tion in the Scholastic writings themselves. Every

topic (e.g., the content of every aniculus in the

Summa

had to be formulated

Theologiae)

as a quaestio

the discussion of w^hich begins with the alignment

of one set of authorities (videtur quod the other (sed contra (respondeo dicendum

.

,

.

.

.

.

.)

against

proceeds to the solution

.),

.),

and

is

followed by an

individual critique of the arguments rejected (ad

primumy ad secundum, etc.)

—

rejected, that

is,

only

insofar as the interpretation, not the validity, of

the authorities

Needless to a

is

concerned.

say, this principle

mental habit no

less decisive

was bound to form and all-embracing

than that of unconditional clarification. Combative

though they were in dealing with each other, the Scholastics of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries

were unanimous

in accepting the authorities and

prided themselves on their 68

skill in

understanding

And

Scholasticism

and exploiting them rather than on the originaHty of their era

own

thought.

when WilHam

was to cut the

who this,

of

ties

One

new

feels the breath of a

Ockham, whose nominahsm

between reason and

faith

and

could say: **What Aristotle thought about don't care,''^^ goes out of his way to deny

I

the influence of his most important forerunner,

Peter Aureolus.^^

An

attitude similar to that of High Scholasticism

must be presupposed

in the builders of the

High

Gothic cathedrals. For these architects the great structures of the past had an auctoritas quite similar to that

Of two

which the Fathers had

for the schoolmen.

apparently contradictory motifs, both of

them sanctioned by

authority, one could not simply

be rejected in favor of the other. They had to be

worked through

to the limit and they had to be

reconciled in the end;

much

as a saying of St.

Au-

gustine had ultimately to be reconciled with one of

69

— :

Gothic Architecture

Ambrose. And

St.

this,

I

believe, accounts to

some

extent for the apparently erratic yet stubbornly consistent evolution of Early and High Gothic archi-

tecture videtur I

;

it,

quod

too, proceeded according to the

—

sed contra

—

respondeo dicendum,

should like to illustrate

this,

three characteristic Gothic w^e

might

scheme

*

most

cursorily, by

^problems*'

say, quaestiones: the rose

—

or,

as

window^ in the

west facade, the organization of the wall beneath the clerestory, and the conformation of the nave piers.

So

far as

we know, west

facades

normal windows, and not by

were pierced by

roses, until Suger

perhaps impressed by the magnificent specimen in the north transept of St.-Etienne in Beauvais

chose to adopt the motif for the west facade of

St.-

Denis, superimposing a magnificent No/i upon the Sic

of the big

window beneath

it (fig.

30).

The

fur-

ther development of this innovation was fraught 70

—

And with great

Scholasticism

difficulties. ^3 If

the diameter of the rose

remained comparatively small or was even reduced (as in Senlis),

of wall was If

an awkward and **un-Gothic'* space

left

on either

side as well as underneath.

the rose was enlarged to approximately the

width of the nave, nave vaults

when

it

full

tended to conflict with the

seen from within and required on

the exterior as wide an interval as possible between the buttresses of the facade, thus uncomfortably

diminishing the space available for side portals.

Apart from

this,

the very concept of an isolated,

circular unit conflicted with the ideals of Gothic taste in general,

facade

and with the

Gothic

ideal of a

—adequate representation of

the interior

in particular.

Small wonder that

few

exceptions

Normandy and

—England

plainly

whole idea and simply enlarged the

dow

until

it filled

—with

a very

rejected

the

traditional win-

the available space (while 71

Italy,

Gothic Architecture characteristically, greeted the rose

because of

its

aufond anti-Gothic character). ^"^ The

architects of the Royal

however,

felt

with enthusiasm

bound

Domain and Champagne,

to accept a motif sanctioned

by the authority of St. -Denis, and

it is

almost amus-

ing to observe their perplexities.

The in that

architect of

Notre-Dame

(fig. 3

1

)

was lucky

he had a quinquepartite nave. Courageously

though not quite honestly ignoring

this fact,

he

built a tripartite facade the lateral sections of which

were so wide

in

problems were

comparison to the middle that

easily solved.

all

The master of Mantes,

however, had to make the distance between the buttresses considerably smaller than the width of

the nave (as small, in fact, as was technically possible); and even then the space for the side portals

was

far

from ample. The master of Laon, who

wanted both

a full-sized rose and generous side

portals, resorted to a trick;

72

he broke the buttresses

And

Scholasticism

so that their lower sections, framing the central portal, are closer together than the

upper ones that

frame the rose; and then he concealed the break

by the enormous

fig-leaf

masters of Amiens,

finally,

slender nave, needed

two

the other without) to rose and the portals It

was not

of his porch

until

32).

The

with their inordinately

galleries (one

fill

(fig.

(fig.

with kings,

the space between the

33).

1240-^0

that the school

of

Reims, culminating in St.-Nicaise, discovered the **finar'

solution

(fig.

34 and 3^):

the rose was

inscribed within the pointed arch of a huge

window,

thereby becoming

could be

lowered so

as

space beneath glass.

elastic, as it

It

not to conflict with the vaults; the it

could be

filled

with mullions and

The whole arrangement mirrored

section of the nave, and yet the a

were.

window and

the cross

window remained

the rose a rose. For the window-and-

rose combination of St.-Nicaise

is

not, as might be 73

Gothic Architecture thought, a simple enlargement of a bipartite bartracery

window

Cathedral

(fig.

Reims

as seen, for the first time, in

36). In such a

window

element surmounting the openings

is

the circular

not, as

is

the

rose, a centrifugal but a centripetal form: not a

wheel, with spokes radiating from a hub, but a

roundel with cusps converging from a rim. Hugues Libergier could never have arrived at his solution

by merely magnifying a motif already extant

;

his

is

a genuine reconciliation of a videtur quod with a sed contra, ^^

Concerning the problem of organizing the wall beneath the clerestory (unless

this wall

was elimin-

ated by genuine, independently lighted galleries) the

Romanesque

ing,

two contrasting

style

had offered, roughly speak-

solutions,

one emphasizing the

two-dimensional surface and horizontal continuity, the other depth and vertical articulation.

On

the

one hand, the wall could be enlivened by a contin74

And

Scholasticism

uous band of small, evenly spaced wall arches Ste.-Trinite in cherville,

Caen

as in

37), St.-Martin-de-Bos-

(fig.

Le Mans, and the churches of the Cluny-

Autun type

;

on the other, by

arches (mostly

two

a

sequence of major

to each bay and subdivided by

colonnettes so as to constitute dead windows, so to speak) which open onto the roof space above the side aisles as in Mont-St. -Michel, the narthex of

Cluny, Sens

The genuine about types:

1

170 it

38), etc.

(fig.

(fig.

triforium, 39),

is

introduced in Noyon

a first synthesis of these

two

combines horizontal continuity with an

emphasis on shadowy depth. But vertical articulation within the bay was entirely suppressed, and this

was bound to be clerestory

two

lights.

felt all

the

windows had begun Thus

at

as the

to be divided into

in the choir of St.-Remi at

and in Notre-Dame-en-Vaux (fig.

more keenly

Reims

Chalons-sur-Mame

40), a shaft or shafts (two in St.-Remi, one in 75

—

Gothic Architecture

Chalons) were carried from the lower ledge of the triforium right up into the clerestory,

where they

serve as frames for the windows, trisecting or bisecting the triforium

itself.

however, rejected in Laon

Such

a solution was,

(fig.

i8) as well

about the turn of the century, in Chartres

and Soissons.

where

In these first

galleries

lights of the

windows were

or, rather, again stices

—

41)

High Gothic churches,

were dropped

partite plate-tracery

(fig.

as,

for

good and the two

unified into

one

window, the triforium

bi-

still

consists of perfectly equal inter-

separated by perfectly equal colonnettes;

horizontal continuity rules supreme, so because the

string courses

all

the

more

overlap the wall

shafts.

A

reaction against this unmitigated horizontalism

set in at

Reims where the

vertical axis of the tri-

forium bays was emphasized by thickening the central

colonnettes so that they might correspond to 76

And the mullions above

Scholasticism

them

it.

42). This was done

modem

so discreetly that the

overlook

(fig.

visitor

is

Hkely to

But the master's colleagues did per-

ceive the imiovation and thought

it

his sketch of the inner elevation of

Reims Cathedral

Villard de

Honnecourt

so

important: in

enormously exaggerated

the slightly stouter proportions of the central col-

onnette that no one can help noticing

What had been explicit

44). as

a

mere

hint in

it (fig.

43).^^

Reims became an

and emphatic statement in Amiens

Here the triforium bay was

had been the case

in

actually bisected,

Chalons-sur-Mame and,

an earlier stage of evolution, in Sens: apart into

two

(fig.

it

at

was cut

separate units, with the central col-

onnette transformed into a clustered pier the main shaft of

which connects with the

central mullion

of the window.

However,

in

doing

this,

the masters of

Amiens

almost negated the whole idea of the triforium, 77

Gothic Architecture dividing as they did each bay into

two **bHnd win-

dows'' and transforming the even sequence of colonnettes into an alternation of

and clustered

in kind, viz., colonnettes

though to counteract articulation,

made

a

overemphasis on vertical

Each of the two is

**

window

horizontal element

is

is

blind windows'' that

divided into three sec-

whereas each of the two

clerestory

As

piers.

independent of that of the

it

constitute a triforium bay tions,

different

they accelerated the rhythm of the

triforium and clerestorv.

this

members

lights that constitute

divided into two.

The

further stressed by the elab-

oration of the lower string course into a band of floral It

ornament.

was

left to

Pierre de Montereau to say the

respondeo dicendum

triforium of

:

as in Soissons

St. -Denis

(fig.

45^)

and Chartres, the is

a

continuous

sequence of four equal openings, separated by bers of the same species. 78

final

However

—and

mem-

this

is

And where Amiens comes

now

Scholasticism in

—

all

of these

members

are

clustered piers instead of colonnettes, the one

somewhat stronger than the others;

in the center

them

are carried up into the quadrupar-

and

all

tite

window, the

of

central pier by

means of three

connecting with the primary mullion, the

shafts

others by means of one shaft connecting with the secondaries. Pierre de Montereau*s triforium

only the

first

to be glazed but also the

first

is

not

to effect

a perfect reconciliation of the Sic of Chartres and

Soissons (or,

if

you

and

like, Ste.-Trinite-de-Caen

Autun) with the Non of Amiens

(or, if

Chalons-sur-Mame and Sens). Now,

you

finally,

like,

the big

wall shafts could be carried over the string courses

without fear of disrupting the horizontal continuity of the triforium

;

and

this brings us to the last of

our

''problems," the conformation of the nave piers.

The far as

I

earliest

know,

genuine

piliers cantonnes

occur, so

in Chartres Cathedral (begun

1

79

194)

Gothic Architecture

where they

are,

however, not

— cyHndrical colonnettes—but show,

homogeneous elements cylindrical a

composed of

as yet

and

core

a

in alternation,

combination of a cylindrical core with octagonal

colonnettes and a combination of cylindrical colonnettes with an octagonal core. This latter motif

would seem to

indicate that the master of Chartres

was familiar with a movement, apparently originating in the borderline district between France and

the Netherlands, which has

left its

most important Here

traces in the choir of Canterbury Cathedral.

William of Sens, magister

operis

from

1

1

74 to

had almost playfully indulged in inventing

all

1

1

78,

kinds

of variations on a modish theme enthusiastically received in England but hardly ever utilized in

France

—the

theme of

light-colored masonry

piers in is

which

a

core of

picturesquely contrasted

with completely detached and monolithic shafts fashioned of darkest marble. ^^ 80

He had produced

And

Scholasticism

what may be called a sample card of fancy pier and one of these consisted,

types,

like the alternate

supports at Chartres,

of an octagonal core and

cylindrical shafts

46, third pier from left;

fig-

(fig.

^4).

The master of Chartres adopted veloped

it

this idea

but de-

in an altogether different spirit.

He

retransformed the detached, monolithic shafts into

engaged colonnettes constructed of ordinary masonry a

;

he substituted

cylindrical

above

all,

in every second pair of piers

core for the octagonal one; and,

he employed the

pilier cantonne,

not

as

an

interesting variant but as the basic element of the

whole system. And to

all

the

first

master of Reims had

do was to eliminate the charming but not quite

logical difference in shape

between the colonnettes

and the core. In this perfected form, the pilier cantonne self a Sic et

Non solution

in that

it

is

in

it-

shows colonnettes, 81

Gothic Architecture originally applied only to angular elements (splay-

ings or piers), in combination with a cylindrical

nucleus. But as the early type of triforium tended to suppress vertical articulation in favor of hori-

zontal continuity, so did the early type of pilier

tend

cantonne

to

remain columnar rather than

**mural/' Like a column,

whereas,

in

a

facing the nave

it

compound

ended with a

pier,

the colonnettes

were carried through

ings of the vaults. This created

capital

to the spring-

problems which

gave rise to a zigzag development similar to that

which could be observed

in the treatment of the

triforium. First, since

Gothic capitals are proportioned to

the diameter rather than to the height of their shirfts,^*

there

came about

a

combination of one big

capital (that of the nucleus)

with four small ones

(those of the colonnettes) only half as high. Second,

82

And

Scholasticism

and more important, the three

—or even — five

wall

shafts rising into the vaults still started afresh

above

the capitals as had been the case w^hen the piers

were monocylindrical, and

it

became imperative

to establish a visible connection betw^een at least

the central wall shaft and what

I

shall call for short

the **nave colonnette," viz., that colonnette of the pier which faces the nave and not the side aisle

or the neighboring pier. The master of Chartres sought to achieve this end by omitting the capital of the **nave colonnette," which thus continues up to the base of the central wall shaft gg). Far ters of

(fig.

47 and

from pursuing the same course, the mas-

Reims reverted

to the earlier form,^^ leaving

the **nave colonnette" in possession of

its

capital,

and concentrated instead on the other problem, the inequality of the capitals' heights. it

They solved

by providing each colonnette with two

capitals,

83

Gothic Architecture

one superimposed upon the other, whose combined heights equalled the height of the pier capital

(fig.

48 and ^6).^°

Amiens, on the contrary, reverted to the Chartres type,

taking,

however, one step farther

in

the same direction in that not only the capital of the **nave colonnette'' but also the base of the central wall shaft

was eliminated, so

that the **nave

colonnette'' continues into the central wall shaft itself,

not only into

its

base as in Chartres

(fig.

49

and £y). The older piers of Beauvais are generally similar to those of Amiens, but revert to the pre-

Amiens

tradition in restoring the base to the central

wall shaft tical

;

and

coherence

this is

renewed interruption of ver-

further emphasized by decorative

foliage (fig. ^8).

Yet,

when

the choir of Beauvais was built, the

Gordian knot had already been cut by Pierre de Montereau's bold revival of the compound pier 84

And which solved

all

Scholasticism

difficulties in that the big pier

and the single *'nave colonnette'' no longer

capital

existed

(fig.

^o and ^9). The three

tall shafts

re-

quired by the main vaults could be run from the floor bases to the springings without interruption,

cutting right through the capitals of the nave ar-

cades

(fig.

22).

However, Pierre de Montereau

endorsed the Non rather than reconciled the

Sic,

it

with

Wisely subordinating the minor problem

of the pier to the major problem of the whole sys-

tem, he chose to

sacrifice the

columnar principle

rather than to renounce that adequate tion'

has

'

'representa-

of the nave wall by the core of the pier which

been mentioned

respondeo dicendum

(fig.

^2).

In this case,

who combined

drical, four-shafted pilier cantonne of tall,

the

was to be spoken by the French-

trained master of Cologne

the

*

the cylin-

Amiens with

continuous shafts and subsidiary colon-

nettes of Pierre de

Montereau *s compound

pier.^^

85

Gothic Architecture

But he sacrificed thereby the logical correspond-

ence between the nave wall and the supports. Seen in a diagram,

the ground plan of the nave wall

again arbitrarily intersects that of the core of the

pier instead of coinciding with

The

gentle reader

Watson

felt

feel

about

^3).

all this as

Dr.

about the phylogenetic theories of

Sherlock Holmes:

And he may

may

it (fig.

**It

is

surely rather fanciful."

object that the development here

sketched amounts to nothing but a natural evolution after the Hegelian esis,

and synthesis''

—

a

scheme of scheme

'*

that

thesis, antith-

might

fit

other

processes (for instance, the development of Quat-

trocento painting in Florence or even that of individual artists) just as well as

from Early to High Gothic

However, what

it

does the progress

in the heart of France.

distinguishes the

development of

French Gothic architecture from comparable phe-

nomena 86

is,

first,

its

extraordinary consistency;

And

Scholasticism

second, the fact that the principle, videtur quod, sed contra, respondeo dicenduniy

seems to have been appHed

with perfect consciousness.

There

is

one scrap of evidence

be sure, but not light

—

as yet

—

knovm,

w^ell

to

considered in this particular

^w^hich shoves that at least

some of the French

thirteenth-century architects did think and act in strictly

court's

Scholastic **

terms.

Album'' there

is

In

de Honne-

Villard

to be found the ground-

plan of an **idear' chevet which he and another master, Pierre de Corbie, had devised, according to the slightly later inscription, inter 60).^^ Here, then,

(fig.

we

se

disputando

have two High Gothic

architects discussing a quaestio, and a third one re-

ferring to this discussion by the specifically Scholastic

term

or the like.

A

disputare instead of coUoqui, deliberare,

And what

is

the result of this disputatio?

chevet which combines,

Sics

with

all

possible Nons,

as it It

were,

all

possible

has a double

ambu87

Gothic Architecture latory fully

combined with

a continuous

developed chapels,

all

nearly equal in depth.

The groundplan of these chapels circular

and

—

Cistercian

hemicycle of

is

alternately semi-

fashion

—

square.

And

while the square chapels are vaulted separately, as

was the usual thing, the semicircular ones are

vaulted under one keystone with the adjacent sectors of the outer ambulatory as in Soissons and its

derivatives. ^3

Here

Scholastic

dialectics

has

driven architectural thinking to a point where

almost ceased to be architectural.

88

it

Notes

Notes

1.

To

trace the development of this parallel in

would require

literature

a separate study

;

modem

suffice it to refer

to the beautiful pages in Charles R. Morey's Mediaeval Art,

New 2.

York, 1942, pp. 25^5-267.

Cf.

W.

Koehler, "Byzantine Art in the West," Dum-

barton Oaks Papers,

3.

Cf.

M. Dvorak,

I,

{.

Idealismus und Naturalismus in der gotischen

Skulptur und Malerei, Zeitschrift,

1941, pp. Sg

Munich,

1

9 1 8 (originally in Historische

3rd ser., XXIIl), passim; E. Panofsky, Deutsche

Plastik des elften bis dreizehnten Jahrhunderts,

pp. 65

found

fif.

it

Munich, 1924,

We can easily see that the ecclesiastical authorities

hard to acquiesce in

this

new, Aristotelian point of

view. As late as 121^ the University of Paris resolution of the Synod of Paris of

demned

Aristotle's

Metaphysics and

i

2

1

o

enc^

orsed the

which had con-

Naturalia

(and

even

abridgments thereof) together with such outright heretics as

David of Dinant and Amaury de Bene

unity of tacitly

God with

who

taught the

His creation. In 1231 Pope Gregory IX

admitted the Metaphysics but reiterated the prohibi91

Notes tion of the Naturalia as long as they

and expurgated of errors." He even purpose; but by

this

this

had not been ''censored set

time the

up

commission for

a

moment

for effective

countermeasures had passed. 4.

The word compendium

had come to mean

more

*

(originally

'a

shortcut'

a

literary

figuratively,

docendi). In the resolutions of

note

the w^ord summa

3,

is

"a hoard,"

**a

saving")

(compendia montis) and,

'

"abridgment"

still

(compendium

i2io and i2i^ mentioned

still

used in

this sense:

in

"Non

legantur libri Aristotelis de metaphysica et naturali historia,

nee summa de iisdem." According to general assumption the first is

in

instance of a

that

Summa

Theologiae in the novv^ current sense

by Robert de Courzon of 1202 (not

full).

It

published

as yet

however, probable that the Summae by

is,

Prevostin and Stephen Langton (likewise active at Paris)

precede

it

by some ten or

fifteen years;

cf.

Histoire de la propriete ecclesiastique en France,

de la

fn

du VIW

cially pp.

£.

Cf.

249

siecle

25^1,

a la Jin du

XW)

Lille,

V

Lesne,

E.

(Les Ecoles

1940, espe-

676.

Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon,

also

William

Shyreswood. 6.

For Ockham,

cf.

the recent

book by R. Guelluy,

sophie et Theologie chez Guillaume d^ Ockham, Louvain,

92

Vhilo-

i947;

Notes for Nicholas of Autrecourt, J.

R. Weinberg, Nicolaus

oj

Autrecourt, a Study in 14th Century Thought, Princeton, 1948.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa

7.

5. r/j.), I-II,

qu. 49, art.

M. de Wulf,

8.

Theologiae (hereafter

as

History of Mediaeval Philosophj, 3rd English

ed. (E. C. Messenger, tr.), London,

"Here's where you cut

9.

quoted

3, c.

it

for

II,

1938, p. 9.

me." For

the proverbial

use of this famous phrase (Nicolas de Briart, reprinted in V.

Mortet and P. Deschamps, de

r architecture,

Paris,

Kecueil de textes relatifs a Vhistoire

1929, p. 290),

II,

cf.

G. P.

in: Ro-

mania, XVIII, 1889, p. 288. 10. 5. Th.,

11.

I,

qu.

I, art. 6, c.

Ibidem, qu. 89, art. i, c.

12. Ibidem, qu. i, art. 8,

13.

ad

2.

Ibidem, qu. 2, art. 2, c.

14. Ibidem, qu.

i,

veritati innitatur, strari

art.

8,

c:

impossibile

"Cum

enim

autem

sit

fides infallibili

de vero demon-

contrarium, manifestum est probationes quae contra

fidem inducuntur, non esse demonstrationes, sed solubilia

argumenta." Cf.

also the passage

quoted in

F.

Ueberweg,

93

Notes Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, iith ed., Berlin,

II,

1928, p. 429.

i^.

well

qu. 32, art.

5. Th.,

known,

i,

ad 2; qu. 27,

between the Three Persons, by way of between memory, 41-42, reprinted 16.

Ibidem, qu.

art.

and

i

As

3.

is

Augustine had already likened the relation

St.

intelligence,

a similitudo, to that

and love (De

Trinitate,

XV,

1088

ff.).

in Patrologia Latino, vol. 42, col.

27, art.

i,

ad

3,

and passim, for instance,

qu. i^, art. 3, ad 4.

17.

This general characterization does not, of course, fully

apply to a thinker such as

St.

Bonaventure, just

as a general

characterization of the High Gothic style does not fully

apply to a

monument such

both cases

which

we

as the

are faced with

monumental exceptions

earlier, essentially anti-Scholastic

anti-Gothic

—

traditions

—

style.

in

—

or, respectively,

and tendencies are developed within

the framework of a High Scholastic

Gothic

Cathedral of Bourges. In

—

or, respectively,

As Augustinian mysticism

the twelfth century) survives in

St.

(as

High-

cultivated in

Bonaventure, so does the

Early Christian concept of a transeptless or nearly transeptless basilica (as

exemplified by Sens Cathedral, the contem-

plated nave of Suger's St. -Denis, Mantes, and de-Paris) survive in the Cathedral of Bourges

94

Notre-Dame(cf.

S.

McK.

Notes Crosby,

"New

Excavations in the Abbey Church of Saint

Denis," Gazetu ff.

des Beaux- Arts, 6th ser.,

and below, pp. 61

XXVI, 1944, pp.

1

1^

Characteristically, both St. Bona-

ff.).

venture*s philosophy and Bourges Cathedral (which

may be

called an Augustinian church) remained without a following in

some of

cans,

their

however

most

significant aspects

:

even the Francis-

Thomism, could not maintain

critical of

St.

Bonaventure's persistence in an anti-Aristotelian attitude;

even those architects

who

did not subscribe to the ideals of

Reims and Amiens could not accept the Bourges master's retention of sixpartite vaults. 18.

Cf., e.g., A.

Dempf, Die Hauptform

mittelaherhcher Welt-

anschauung; eine geisteswissenschaftliche Studie uber die Summa,

Munich and 19.

Berlin, 192^.

Bonaventure, In Lib.

Ill Sent., dist., 9, art.

Bacon's criticism of such rhetorical devices,

i,

cf.

qu.

2.

For

below, p.

67. 20.

Cf. again

below, pp. 67

flF.

21. S. Th., Prologue.

22. Alexander of Hales, apparently the this elaborate articulation, articuli;

Thomas

first

to introduce

divides partes into membra and

in S. Th. divides partes into quaestiones

95

and

..

;

Notes Commentaries upon the Sentences generally divide

articuh.

the partes quaestiones

23

.

and

distinctiones,

articuli.

God and

the order of crea-

organized as follows:

is

Essence (qu. 2-26); a.

Whether God 1

Whether dent

b.

exists (qu. 2);

the proposition of His existence

c.

2.

Whether

3.

Whether He does

it is

demonstrable

(art. 2);

How He exists or, rather, does not exist (qu. How He is not (qu. 3-1 ) 2. How He is known to us (qu. 12); 3. How He is named (qu. 13); 1

His operation (qu. 14-26); 1.

His knowledge (qu. 14-18);

2.

His will (qu. 19-24);

3.

His

power

(qu. 2^-26);

Origin or procession (qu. 27);

b. Relations of origin (qu. 28); c. III.

The Persons

as

such (qu. 29-43);

Procession of creatures (qu. 44-end); a.

Production of creatures (qu. 44-46);

96

evi-

exist (art. 3);

Distinction of Persons (qu. 27-43); a.

is

i);

(art.

1

II.

being subdivided into

these

This First Part, dealing with

tion,

I.

into

3-13);

;

:

;

;

;

Notes b. Distinction of creatures (qu. c.

24.

A

Government of

characteristic masterpiece of a Scholastic eulogy

a CoUatio in

is

honor of Charles IV by Pope Clement VI (R.

Salomon, M.G.H., is

47-102);

creatures (qu. 103-end).

parallelized with

Leges, IV, 8, pp.

143

ff.),

where Charles

Solomon under the headings: Comparatur,

CoUocatur, Approbatur, Sublimatur, each heading being sub-

divided as follows

A. Comparatur. Solomon I.

II.

III.

in aliquibus pro/ecit

:

magnitudine;

a.

in latriae

b.

in prudentiae certitudine;

c.

in iustitiae rectitudine;

d.

in clementiae dulcedine.

In aliquibus excessit: a.

in sapientiae limpitudine;

b.

in abundantiae plenitudine

c.

in facundiae amplitudine;

d.

in quietae vitae pulchritudine.

in aliquibus Je/ecit a.

:

in luxuriae turpi tudine

b. in perseverantiae longitudine c.

in idolatriae multitudine

d. in rei bellicae fortitudine, etc., etc.

Ridewall's mythographical treatise was edited by H. Liebe-

97

Notes Warburg,

schiitz, Fulgentius Metaforalis (Studien der Bibliothek

IV, Leipzig and Berlin, 1926);

For the scholastic systemati-

zation of Ovid's Metamorphoses (naturalis, spiritualis, magica, moralis,

and de

re

animata in rem inanimatam, de

rem inanimatam, de in

rem animatam),

of Ovid,

'

The

show

cf. F.

ff.,

re

animata

Ghisalberti, "Mediaeval Biographies Institutes,

IX,

especially p. 42.

early manuscripts,

and commentaries

editions,

perfect awareness of the fact that the

really begins

inanimata in

re

inanimata in rem animatam, de

Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld

'

1946, pp. 10

ig.

re

with Canto

first

Cantica

would comprise 33

(so that it

2

Canti like the others). In the Trivulziana manuscript of

1

337

(L. Rocca, ed., Milan, 192 1) as well as in such incunabula as

Wendelin of Speyer's Venice

ing rubrics:

"Comincia

edition,

we

canto primo de

il

find the followla

prima parte

V opera' and "Canto secondo

nelaquale fae proemio a tutta

^

dela prima parte nela quale fae proemio ala prima canticha solamente, cioe ala

prima parte

Cf. Jacopo della Lana's belli's edition

di

questo libro solamente."

Commentary

(reprinted in L. Scara-

of the Divina Commedia of 1866, pp. 107 and

118): "In questi due primieri Capitoli

mostra sua disposizione. suo proema pregando poetria,

li

98

orator! in

.

.

Qui

la scienzia

sicome e usanza

trattati, e

.

li

...

{sciL, in

che lo

delli poeti in

li

fa

proemio e

Canto 2) segue

aiuti a trattare tale

principii delli suoi

principii delle sue arenghe.'*

Notes 26. T. E.

Mommsen

(Intr.), Petrarch, Sonnets

and Songs,

New

York, 1946, p. xxvii. 27.

R. Arnheim, ''Gestalt and Art,'' Journal of Aesthetics and

Art Criticism, 1943, PP- 7i

ff-

i^^em,

;

"Perceptual Abstrac-

tion and Art," Psjchological Review, LIV, 1947, pp. 66

ff.,

especially p. 79. 28. S. Th.

I,

qu.

5",

art. 4,

1

1662

i.

Nouv. Acq. 13^9 and London,

29. Paris, Bibl. Nat.,

Mus., Add.

ad

M. Prou, "Desseins du XF

(cf.

Brit.

siecle et

peintures du XIII^ siecle," Revue de

1890, pp. 122 Painting,

New

ff.

;

also

V Art Chretien, XXIII, M. Schild-Bunim, Space in Mediaeval

York, 1940,

30. Exceptions:

Fecamp

p. 115^).

(after

compound

1168), having

piers throughout; the eastern bay of St. -Leu d'Esserent (ca. 1

1

90) having an alternating system;

(after 1200), having

compound

St.-Yved-de-Braine

piers in the chevet; Long-

pont, having monocylindrical piers. 31.

The experiments

in the seventh

piers in the Cathedral of

and ninth pair of nave

Laon had no appreciable

effect

upon

the subsequent development; and the piers of Soissons, cylinders with only one colonnette facing the nave, are in

opinion a reduction of the full-fledged Chartres tonnk

with colonnettes on

all

my

pilier can-

four sides. Perfunctorily imi-

99

Notes tated in Notre-Dame-de-Paris (second pair of piers from

the west), this type

is

chiefly

important for

its

influence

upon

provincial structures erected after the middle of the thir-

teenth century rond-point

—and

(cf.

in the rond-point only

32.

Some

—

of Reims and Beau-

For the development of the

vais Cathedrals.

see pp. 79

note 6i), and upon the supports in the

pilier cantonnS

ff.

architectural historians are inclined to identify

the climactic phase of the Gothic style with Reims and

Amiens

(nave),

and to consider the

radical elimination of

the wall in the nave of St. -Denis, the Sainte-Chapelle, St.-

Nicaise-de-Reims, or St.-Urbain-de-Troyes

as the

beginning

of a disintegration or decadence (^^Gothique rajonnant** as

opposed to ''Gothique of definition

(cf.

Amiens," Art

would seem

classique*').

P. Frankl, **A

in America,

XXXV,

maximum

of course, a matter

1947, pp. 294

But

its

it

own

where the wall

is

possibilities while, at the

of ''inferability"

is

reached.

suspect that the above-mentioned view has verbal foundation in that the expressions

Gothic"

ff.).

measured by

fulfills itself

reduced to the limit of technical a

is,

French Gothic Cathedral:

that the Gothic style,

standards of perfection, only

same time,

This

I

even

some purely "classic

High

or ^^Gothique classique'^ automatically suggest the

plastic standards of

100

Greek and Roman, but not Gothic,

Notes "classicality.'*

In fact the masters of

Amiens themselves

eagerly adopted the glazed triforium of St. -Denis as soon as

they had

become

familiar with

33. Viollet-le-Duc's interpretation in L.

(transept and chevet).

it

is

carried to an extreme

Lemaire, "La logique du style Gothique," Revue neo-

scolastique,

Abraham,

34. P. Paris,

XVII, 1910, pp. 234 VioUet-le-Duc

ff.

et

le

rationalisme medieval,

1935- (cf. the discussion in Bulletin de

tional des Instituts d^ archeologie et d'histoire de

r office

Van,

interna-

II,

193^).

3^. E. Gall, Niederrheinische und normannische Architektur im Zeitalter der Fruhgotik, Berlin,

191^; idem, Die

kunst in Frankreich und Beutschland ,

literature concerning the Pol

I,

gotische Bau-

Leipzig, 1925. Further

Abraham controversy

is

cited

in G. Kubler, *'A Late Gothic Computation of Rib Vault

Thrusts," Gazette

13^

ff.

;

des Beaux-Arts,

to be added: Pol

tance des materiaux," pp. 788

ff.

6th ser., XXVI, 1944, pp.

Abraham, "Archeologie

La Construction Moderne, L,

(kindly brought to

my

1

et resis-

934-3 S»

M.

attention by Prof.

Schapiro). 36. Abbot Suger on the Abbej Church of Saint-Denis and

Its

Art Treasures (E. Panofsky, ed.), Princeton, 1946, p. 108,

8; for the emendation of

veluti

into voluti, see E. Panofsky,

'^Postlogium Sugerianum,'' Art Bulletin,

XXIX, 1947,

101

p.

119-

;

Notes 37. See G. Kubler, loc. Cf. E. Brunet,

38.

cit.

"La

restauration de

la

Cathedrale dc

Soissons," Bulletin Monumental, LXXXVII, 1928, pp. 6^

H. Masson, "Le rationalisme dans I'architecture du

Cf.

39.

ff.

Moyen-Age,"

Bulletin

Monumental, XCIV, 1935-, pp. 29

ff.

40. See, for instance, the treatise convincingly interpreted

by Kubler,

and

loc. cit.,

justified

or the French expert Mignot's violent

objections to the outrageous theory of his

Milanese confreres according to which "archi spiguti non dant impulzam contrafortibus" '*

(cf.

now^

J.

Ackerman,

S.

'Ars Sine Scientia Nihil Est* ;GothicTheorypf Architecture

at the Cathedral of

84

An

Bulletin,

As evidenced by the Milan

ff.).

man,

Milan,"

loc.

cit.,

pp.

108

XXXI, 1949, pp.

texts (reprinted in

Acker-

the terms contrejort and arc-

ff.),

boutant C'archi butanti") w^ere familiar even in Latin and Italian

by the end of the fourteenth century, and both w^ere

used in a figurative sense

as early as in the fifteenth

teenth centuries (pictionnaire historique de

r Academie

public par

Francaise,

III,

Paris, 1888, pp.

E. Littre, Dictionnaire de la langue francaise, p.

185-;

La Curne de

la

r ancienne languefrancaise,

The term Paris,

1

bouterec (F.

Palaye,

W

f

Paris

I,

^7^

Paris,

six-

ff .

1863,

Dictionnaire historique de

and Niort, 1877,

p. 227).

Godefroy, Lexique de Vancien Francais,

90 1, p. 62) must have been in use before

102

and

la langue franacise

i

388

when

Notes **buttress" occurs in English, and estribo

constantly

is

ployed in the treatise interpreted by Kubler, 41

.

has even

of the vaults

is

been accounted for by mere

explain

it

as a

proposed by K.

*

'timidity "

J.

42. See E. Gall, opp.

Guadet,

To

p. 188).

w^as

1

08 8-1 21 1," Gazette

cit.,

des Beaux- Arts,

f.

especially Die gotische Baukunst,

ff.

43. See

J.

Gaudet, op.

44. G. Vasari, Le

varono

(J.

presence

Conant, "Observations on the Vaulting

Problems of the Period

II

Ill,

superfluous its

countermeasure against wind pressure

6th ser., XXVI, 1944, pp. 127

pp. 31

is

concerned,

Elements de theorie d' architecture, Paris, n.d..

tetti,

loc. cit.

Since this upper range of flying buttresses

as far as the stability

em-

cit.,

Vite del

pp. 200

ff.,

fig.

1076.

piu eccellenti pittori, scultori e archi-

Part,

Proemio: "Perche nelle colonne non osser-

(scil.,

the Gothic masters) quella misura e propor-

zione che richiedeva Tarte,

ma

a la mescolata

con una loro

regola senza regola faccendole grosse grosse o sottili sottili,

come tomava lor meglio." In thus observing that the scale of the members in a Gothic edifice is not determined by anthropomorphic considerations, and that their proportions can change w^ithin one and the same building, Vasari

acumen sharpened by

hostility

—

has hit

upon

—

his

a fundamental

103

Notes principle distinguishing Gothic from Classical as well as

from Renaissance and Baroque architecture.

mann, **Die Wahl des

Platzes

fiir

Neu-

Cf. C.

Michelangelos David

in

Florenz im Jahr 1^04; zur Geschichte des Massstabprob-

lems," Kepertohumfur I

Kunstwissenschaft,

XXXVIII, 191

dem

Also E. Panofsky, **Das erste Blatt aus

flF.

Giorgio Vasaris

6, pp.

'Libro*

eine Studie iiber die Beurteilung der Gotik

;

in der italienischen Renaissance," Stadeljahrbuch, VI, 1929,

pp. 4

especially pp. 42

ff.,

45. See

S.

McK. Crosby,

ff.

loc. cit.

;

for Bourges, cf. above,

note 17. 46. Until fairly recently, the

arrangement

Two

vv^as

first

believed to occur in Tournai

very slightly earlier though

stances

instance of a four-story

—

much more

again demonstrating the close

tvv^een Flanders

and England

in

between 1090 and iioo);

cf.

1

J.

Bony, "Tewkesbury et

Pershore, deux elevations a quatre etages de

side aisles in

dral) represents a sacrifice of the case,

104

la fin

ff.,

^03

du XI^ ff.

Cologne Cathe-

dral (otherwise closely following the plan of

this

discov-

087) and Pershore (founded

siecle," Bulletin Monumental , 1937, pp. 281

The addition of secondary

iioo).

interrelation be-

—have, however, been

ered in Tewkesbury (founded

47.

{ca.

primitive in-

Amiens Cathe-

major consideration

(in

balance between centralistic and longitudinal

\

Notes tendencies) to the minor one (in this case, conformity of

nave and choir) not unlike that which can be observed in the

treatment of the supports 48. 5. Th.

qu.

I,

I, art.

(cf.,

8,

ad

pp. 8^

ff.).

2.

49. Patrologia Latina, vol. 178, cols. 1339 go.

Roger Bacon, Opus minus

quoted

as

schichte der wissenschaftlichen Studien

burg,

1904, p.

^i^:

divisiones per

membra

tria

textu principaliter

in

principaliter;

scilicet,

concor-

varia, sicut artistae faciunt,

sicut legistae utuntur,

dantiae violentes,

H. Felder, Ge-

in

im Franziskanerorden, Frei-

"Quae hunt

legendo et praedicando, sunt

ff.

et consonantiae

rhythmicae, sicut grammatici." For the anticipation of the Sic et

Non method by the canonists

of Constance), see tischen Methode,

M. Grabmann,

Freiburg,

1

909,

I,

pp. 234

£1. William of

Ockham, Quodhbeta,

Ueberweg,

cit.,

Aristoteles,

op.

p.

5^81:

non euro,

quia

Remold

(Ivo of Chartes,

Die Geschichte der scholas-

I,

ff.

;

I

and

II,

passim,

qu. 10, as quoted in

"Quidquid de hoc ubique

senserit

videtur

dubitative

loqui/* 52. William of

Ockham,

In I sent., dist. 27, qu.

3,

quoted

^74 f "Pauca vidi de dictis illius doctoris. Si enim omnes vices, quibus respexi dicta sua, simul congre-

ibidem, pp.

garentur,

.

;

non complerent spatium unius

diei naturalis

105

.

.

.

.

Notes

quam materiam antequam ^3.

See

Fr'uh-

^4.

tractavi, et fere

omnes

vidi

opinionem hie recitatam.**

H.

Kunze,

alias in

Das Fassadenproblem

und Hochgotik, Strassburg,

Germany, generally averse

(except for Strassburg and

its

1

9

1

primo

der franzosischen

2

to roses in the west facade

sphere of influence, in contrast

to Cologne, etc.), accepted the

rose-and-window combina-

tion for the longitudinal walls of hall churches

rated into facades as in Minden, in

libro,

Oppenheim,

St.

when

elabo-

Catherine's

Brandenburg.

gg.

Libergier's

transepts of

solution

was obviously inspired by the

Reims Cathedral (before 1241), where the big

roses are already inscribed within pointed arches

the whole does not, as yet, constitute a

;

but here

"window." The

spandrels above and below the roses are not, as yet, glazed,

and no vertical connection exists between the roses and the

windows beneath them. 5'6.

Villard

de

Honnecourt,

Kritische

Gesamtausgabe

Hahnloser, ed.), Vienna, 1935^, pp. 165 ^7. Cf.

now

J.

fF.,

(H.

R.

pi. 62.

Bony, "French Influences on the Origins of

English Gothic Architecture," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld

Institutes, XII,

106

1949, pp.

i

fF.,

especially pp. 8

ff.

Notes gS. See, e.g., A. Kingsley Porter, Medieval Architecture,

Haven, 191

2,

New

p. 272. Occasionally, as in St.-Martin-de-

II,

BoschervilleorSt.-Etienne-de-Caen (galleries),

this principle

had already been applied in Romanesque structures; but

became "standard,"

it

"expressed" by

different thicknesses are

minor

serve uniformity

differences in thickness in order to pre-

among

several adjacent capitals.

59. In Soissons, St.-Leu-d'Esserent, etc.,

more emphatic reversion a

capitals of three

There was, however, always an inclination

different sizes.

to overlook

it

seems, only after Sens, where three

we

find

an even

to the original Canterbury type:

"nave colonnette" with an individual

capital half as high

as that of the pier.

60. This applies also to the capitals of the major and

minor

colonnettes of the west portals which thus form a significant contrast to the corresponding ones in Amiens.

6

1

.

of a vais

A similar adaptation of a continuous shaft to pilier cantonne

(1284

ff.),

later piers of

the concept

can be observed in the later piers of Beau-

1260) and in the

in the piers of Seez (ca.

Huy

(131

1

ff.)-

In the

two

latter instances,

however, the colonnettes facing the arcades and the side aisles are

omitted

as

though the idea of

a

continuous shaft

had been superimposed, not upon the normal

pilier cantonne

107

.

Notes (with four colonnettes) but upon the Soissons pier (which has only one)

;

cf.

note

3

1

62. Villard de Honnecourt, op. inscription,

cit.,

pp. 69

Hunecort et Petrus de Corbeia inter added by 63.

fF.,

pi.

29; the

"Istud bresbiterium inuenerunt Ulardus

a disciple of Villard

The only

superficially

known

se disputando," as

de

was

"Master 2."

similar alternation of chapels

vaulted separately and chapels vaulted,

Soissons fashion,

under one keystone with the adjacent sector of the outer ambulatory can be observed in Chartres, where

ment

is

this arrange-

motivated by the necessity of re-using the founda-

tions of the eleventh-century choir with

its

three deep and

widely separated chapels. But in Chartres the Soissons-like chapels are really nothing but shallow protuberances of the

outer ambulatory, so that

all

the seven keystones could be

placed on the same perimeter. In Villard de Honnecourt 's

and Pierre de Corbie's ideal plan they are

fully

developed

units, their keystones placed, not in the center but on the

periphery of the adjacent sector of the outer ambulatory.

108

Illustrations

Figure 1.

Tombstone of the Architect Hugues Libergier

(died 1263),

Reims Cathedral.

Ill

^

ij:^,.-

..rteicr/.^fl

n

Figure 2.

112

Autun Cathedral, west

portal. Ca.

1130.

Figure 3. Paris,

Notre-Dame,

central

porul of the west facade (much

restored). Ca. iiis-1220.

113

Figure 4.

Henry

I

of France bestowing privileges upon the Priory of

St.-Martin-des-Champs. Book illumination between 1079 and 1096,

London,

114

British

Museum, ms. Add. 1162,

fol. 4.

\^^flnt^ry/£t/ A'^f^

(T pniiplrttnrintfi

tnamni

MfUif* ntntnia-

CanpUuit nnimno fcnr mVo notiutu tnr,o. Vtar* 1 mttntnr' snn* illf quifCqiiut iiUirf

fUm nift pn^rrcc nijr id d^ccraUd betuixn J4SLf. and t^S7 GtnerairwowUxcn cr/so-ctySr, nete altar*: newsta/ls jj'Si. Demolition lyifS-cJSi^

Figure 10. Cluny, Third

narthex ol'

ca.

iiio-ca.

Cluny," Medieval

1

Abbey Church, groundplan, 1088-ca. 11 20; (After K. J. Conant, "The Third Church

1^0.

Studies in

Memory of A.

1939)

120

Kir}gslejf Porter,

Cambridge,

**'** t.

4-i^i

n

I.

,

t *

f

i^

^l-t? Figure 11.

Amiens Cathedral, groundplan. Begun 1220. 121

*

t

n ^

-

-

«-

-

•

41 >f

^

r

w. >*"*'

i^

^

Figure 12. Sens Cathedral, groundplan.

Constructed E.

Gall,

ca.

1140-ca. 1168. (After

Die gotische Baukunst

Frankreich

in

und Deutscbland,

Leipzig, 1925.)

figure ij.

Laon Cathedral, groundplan.

Begun

122

ca.

1

160.

Swr->fc|

123

124

no

125

Figure ij. Lessay

(Normandy), Abbey Church, Xlth century.

126

interior.

End of the

Figure l8.

Laon Cathedral, interior of the choir. Begun in conformity with elevation designed ca.

1

after

120^

160.

127

Figure 19.

Chartres Cathedral, interior of the nave. Begun shortly after

128

1

194.

Figure 20.

Reims Cathedral,

interior of the nave.

Begun 121

1.

129

Figure 21.

BO

Amiens Cathedral,

interior of the nave.

Begun 1220.

Figure 22. St. -Denis, interior of the nave.

Begun 1231.

131

Figure 23.

Caen, St.-Etiienne, vaults of the northern transept. Ca. 1

132

110. (After E. Gall, op.

cit.)

133

Figure

2^.

Soissons Cathedral,

damaged during World War

134

section of the northern nave wall I.

Beginning of the XI 1 1th century.

135

Figure 28.

Durham

Cathedral, concealed flying buttresses. End of

the Xlth century. (After R.

W.

BilHngs, Architectural Illustrations and

Description of the Cathedral of

136

Durham, London, 1843.)

.

Figure

29.

buttresses

Reims Cathedral, open Hying

of the nave. Design estoblished ca.

1

2

1 1

137

Figure JO.

St. -Denis,

west facade. Dedicated 1140. (After an en-

graving by A. and E. Rouargue, executed before the restoration of

1833-1837.)

138

\

t

Figure 31. Paris,

Notre-Dame, west

fa