Bayeux Cathedral
The Cathedral Notre-Dame de Bayeux is the seat of the Bishop of Bayeux-Lisieux and one of the most important sacred monuments of Normandy . The cultural monument was classified as a monument historique in 1862 . Originally built in the Norman- Early Romanesque style, the cathedral is largely Gothic today .
history
At the site of today's cathedral, the presumed forum of the Roman Augustodurum , there was already a Carolingian predecessor building in the early Middle Ages , which was destroyed by the Normans in 891. The Carolingian pre-Romanesque cathedral was probably not built until after Rollo was appointed the first Duke of Normandy in 911. Destroyed in the great fire of Bayeux in 1047. The underground crypt is said to be the last remnant of this pre-Romanesque cathedral. According to a book from 1733 (Histoire sommaire de la ville de Bayeux par M. Beziers Chanoine du St. Sépulchre & Membre de l'Academie Royale des belles Lettres de Caen), a first prayer chapel was built on the instructions of St. Exupère (Exuperius; † approx . 410) built in the 4th century on a Gallic sanctuary. It was only his successor, Saint Regnobert, who built the first cathedral in the 5th century and founded the bishopric of Bayeux.
The consecration of the from 1047 under Bishop Hugo III. The new episcopal church was built on July 14, 1077 by Odo von Bayeux , a half-brother of William the Conqueror . At the same time, the famous Bayeux Tapestry was completed, which was kept here until 1793 and exhibited annually to the public in memory of the Norman subjugation of England.
As early as 1105 during Henry I's campaign against Robert Curthose and shortly after the choir was expanded again in 1160, the building was ravaged by fire, which for a long time may have resembled an extensive construction site.
In addition, from around 1180 the bishop and chapter demanded a new cathedral in the then new Gothic style, which had just been minted in the Île-de-France . Unlike in nearby Lisieux , at that time still an independent diocese with the Saint-Pierre Cathedral , Notre-Dame was never completely replaced by a new building, but it was Gothicized by the end of the 15th century. Mainly the crypt and the bases of the towers of the west transept still give a glimpse into the time before, while many old structures have since been hidden in Gothic garb.
However, the outbreak of the Hundred Years War delayed construction work. During this time the church served as a fortress with a garrison in the fight against the English. In 1562/63 the church was sacked by Huguenot troops under the nobleman François de Bricqueville. Reliquaries, windows, organs and many sacred objects were lost. Another church fire in 1676 destroyed the roof structure, which was not rebuilt into the next century. The dome, which was built in the 18th century, was considered a stylistic foreign body, it was removed again in the next century.
With the revolution in 1790, new looting followed. Since religion was officially considered backward, the building was temporarily declared a "Temple of Reason and the Supreme Being" in 1793. A freedom tree near the church, which has been replanted several times since then, still reminds of this time.
The crossing lantern typical of the Norman Gothic represented a special static load on the supporting pillars on which cracks were found in 1850 because the whole cathedral was built on unsafe ground, which first led to difficulties in the area of the very heavy crossing tower . However, it was discovered that solid ground could be reached at a shallow depth, and so the crossing tower was saved. Its load was supported and "lifted" with complicated scaffolding. Then the crossing piers underneath were provided with foundations down to the solid ground and could then be lowered again onto this new foundation. A few years later, the crossing tower was given its present shape in the 19th century with a second floor and a baroque roof dome.
A radical solution by demolishing the crossing tower, as suggested by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc , could not prevail.
Also in the middle of the 19th century, the renovation of the old organ from 1597 dragged on in a process marked by setbacks over decades, in which the church, politics and various organ builders played their part. In 1862 it was renewed by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll and before and after that it was renovated several times, the organ and the organ prospect were officially declared historical landmarks in the 1970s.
In 1906/07 the writer Marcel Proust , a connoisseur and admirer of regional sacred architecture, also visited Notre-Dame Cathedral. The Allied invasion of June 1944, which began just a few kilometers away, survived Bayeux and its cathedral, unlike most other cities in the area, without bombardment.
architecture
The Notre-Dame Cathedral today presents itself as a three-aisled cruciform basilica 96 meters long. The lavishly decorated with sculptures Westwerk welcomes the visitor with a major and two minor portal . On top of it rise two massive, pointed towers 75 meters high.
A gallery protrudes from the Gothic facade (Last Judgment tympanum from 1427) , over which a four-lane tracery window arches. Above it, a row of ten garb figures look down between the mighty towers.
The transept is crowned with a massif that supports a square platform, guarded by twelve chimera figures, ten meters above the crossing. An octagonal , high-Gothic crossing tower rises on top of it , replacing a previously existing dome. The main nave and choir are supported by an extensive buttress made of circumferential, free-standing buttresses.
The interior is characterized by ornamental patterns such as zigzag ribbons and stone wickerwork while at the same time being modest when it comes to figurative representations. A comparison of the flat reliefs with their counterparts in the south of England comes to mind. Some of the figures that do appear appear grotesque and puzzling in their iconographic reference.
To the east , the main nave opens up to those entering , whose symmetrical three-zone elevation stretches upwards. The six- bay cross - ribbed vault over the top and triforium rises 23 meters (25 meters above the crossing) and spans a width of ten meters. The six meter wide aisles can be entered through arcades . The end of the church is flanking side chapels, for the construction of which at the end of the 13th / beginning of the 14th century the side walls from the Romanesque period were broken through.
The transept, already in place early on and redesigned in the Gothic period, opens the space to a width of 37 meters. At its north end the light falls through windows from the 14th century. In the south wall of the transept there is another Gothic side portal, the portail du doyen with the Thomas Becket tympanum, which traces the life of the saint.
In the choir, which is surrounded by a wreath of chapels, with its characteristic pointed arches, openwork rosettes and medallions , the abundance of Gothic sacred architecture from Normandy unfolds.
The crypt was walled up and forgotten in the Middle Ages . It was not rediscovered until the 15th century. This fact probably contributed to the fact that the original design was retained. A Romanesque cross vault spans two rows of columns with simplified Corinthian capitals . The arch reveals above the capitals are decorated with ocher-colored drawings of angels playing music with various instruments. There are colorful frescoes on the side walls .
A library is connected to the north side of the cathedral building. The neighboring chapter house has a mosaic that is well worth seeing . Both rooms are only accessible to the public to a limited extent.
Dimensions
- Main nave: height 23 meters, width 10 meters, length 96 meters
- Aisles: width 6 meters
- Side chapels: width 5 meters
- Transept: width 10 meters, length 37 meters
- West towers: 70 meters
- Crossing tower: approx. 95 meters
organ
The cathedral has two organs , both of which were built by the organ builder Cavaillé-Coll: The large organ on the west gallery dates from 1862, the choir organ from 1861.
The history of the organs goes back to the 16th century. The first instrument was destroyed by the Huguenots in 1562, the second instrument was built in 1597 with 36 stops on four manuals and a pedal. This organ proved in need of repair in 1838. After several repairs and changes, the instrument was finally restored in 1862 by the organ builder Cavaillé-Coll, who had previously rebuilt a choir organ. Today the organ has 43 registers on three manuals and a pedal. The actions are mechanical.
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
- Coupling: I / II, II / II 16 ', III / II, I / P, II / P
Bells
The cathedral has a collection of 15 bells .
Four bells form the liturgical peal, which is distributed in 2 pairs on the two west towers. The four smaller bells hang in the southwest tower. The north-west tower carries the two Bourdons, also called Trémondes . In 2014, two bells were cast to mark the seventieth commemoration of Operation Overlord and rung for the first time on June 14th.
|
No. |
Name (position) |
Casting year |
Foundry, casting location |
Ø (mm, approx.) |
Mass (kg, approx.) |
Chime |
tower |
| 1 | Sophie-Françoise (holiday bell) |
1858 | Paul Havard, Villedieu-les-Poêles | 1,870 | 4,000 | b 0 | North tower |
| 2 | Jeanne-Frederique (Sunday bell ) |
1,670 | 2,800 | c 1 | |||
| 3 | Marie (angelus bell) |
1,500 | 1,900 | d 1 | South tower | ||
| 4th | Thérèse-Bénédicte | 2014 | Cornille-Havard, Villedieu-les-Poêles | 1,150 | f 1 −5 | ||
| 5 | Marie (measuring bell) |
1819 | Fonderie Dubosq, Bayeux | 900 | 600 | as 1 | |
| 6th | Rose-Françoise | 2014 | Cornille-Havard, Villedieu-les-Poêles | 518 | b 1 −4 |
11 bells belong to the carillon, which is housed in the crossing tower. Among them is the Cécile hour bell .
|
No. |
Name (position) |
Casting year |
Foundry, casting location |
Ø (mm, approx.) |
Mass (kg, approx.) |
Chime |
tower |
| I. | Cécile (hour bell, carillon) |
1727 | Claude Brocard, Jean-Baptiste les Brocard, F. Poisson and A. de la Paix, Bayeux | 1,400 | 1,200 | cis 1 | Crossing tower |
| II | (Carillon) | 1797 | Pierre-Francois Dubosq, Quibou | 819 | 274 | a 1 | |
| III | 731 | h 1 | |||||
| IV | 642 | c sharp 2 | |||||
| V | 618 | d 2 | |||||
| VI | 548 | e 2 | |||||
| VII | 496 | f 2 | |||||
| VIII | 457 | f sharp 2 | |||||
| IX | 415 | g 2 | |||||
| X | 411 | g sharp 2 | |||||
| XI | 355 | a 2 |
Stained glass
Very few of the medieval stained glass have survived. In particular, the English occupation in the period from 1417 to 1450 resulted in such great damage and losses that Pope Eugene IV granted an indulgence in 1442 to finance repairs. A century later, in 1562 and 1563, there were further losses due to an iconoclasm during the Huguenot Wars . In 1760, a total of 87 of the medieval stained glass windows that had survived until then were dismantled and kept under the condition that they were restored. This plan was never realized as the Chapter wanted more light to enter the cathedral. More windows were removed in 1802 and some of them were kept in the chapter's library when damage became visible that could lead to the destruction of the transept windows. The few remaining fragments were restored in the 20th century and integrated into new windows.
The two best-preserved fragments show two holy bishops from Bayeux, Exupère and Loup. Both come from a series of nine bishops of Bayeux from Exupère to Hugo , described in 1705 , which was written in the 1260s. The two fragments were restored by Michel Durand in 1983 and 1984 and embedded in modern glass. You are now in the St. Vincent side chapel in the north ambulatory .
literature
- Marcel Durliat : Romanesque Art. Freiburg / Basel / Vienna 1983, color plate 158.
- Werner Schäfke : Normandy. 7th edition. DuMont, Cologne 1990 (= DuMont Art Travel Guide. ), P. 213.
- M. Beziers: Histoire sommaire de la ville de Bayeux. J. Manoury, Père, Libraire, Caen 1733, p. 37.
Individual evidence
- ↑ More information about the organs
- ↑ Jérôme Beaunay: Cloches, horloges & Carillon de la cathédrale Notre-Dame Bayeux . In Quarto, Caen 2012, ISBN 978-2-84769-422-2 .
- ^ Marine Callias Bey and Véronique David: Les vitraux de Basse-Normandie . Presses universitaires de Rennes, Rennes 2006, ISBN 2-84706-240-8 , p. 73-74 .
- ^ Marine Callias Bey and Véronique David: Les vitraux de Basse-Normandie . Presses universitaires de Rennes, Rennes 2006, ISBN 2-84706-240-8 , p. 74-75 .
Web links
- Bayeux Cathedral. In: Structurae (French)
- Old photographs of the cathedral
Coordinates: 49 ° 16 ′ 31.5 " N , 0 ° 42 ′ 12.3" W.