Poitiers Cathedral
The Saint-Pierre Cathedral in Poitiers in the French department of Vienne ( Nouvelle-Aquitaine region ) is the seat of the Bishop of Poitiers . The mostly Gothic cathedral of considerable dimensions, which was built between 1166 and 1271, apart from the 15th century towers, stands in the center of the city and became a minor basilica in 1912 . The Saint-Jean Baptistery can be found in the immediate vicinity .
history
When the construction of the cathedral began, the Diocese of Poitiers united around 1200 parishes. At this point Eleanor of Aquitaine was 44 years old and had been Queen of England for over a decade. In the year the foundation stone was laid, she gave birth to her 10th child, Johann Ohneland, and lived in her castle in Poitiers , which she expanded into a center of court life.
architecture
The construction began as usual with the choir head , continued with the transept and nave and finished with the west facade . As with many other church buildings in France, the twin towers were built much later.
The various construction campaigns can be clearly seen both from the outside and inside the cathedral. The early vaults of the two easternmost bays and the southern arm of the transept are underlaid with thick cross ribs . As with the ambulatory of the Saint-Denis abbey church , the starting point of the Gothic vaulting technique, the decorative but statically irrelevant keystones were omitted. The further the building progresses to the west, the finer the vault ribs become , while the design of the side wall takes on the forms of High Gothic. The straight east end can be seen as an expression of the affiliation of the city and cathedral to the Angevin Empire connected to the English crown . In English church construction, Gothic forms were adopted at around the same time, but not the common choir .
Most of the west facade dates from the second third of the 13th century. The three west portals with their tympana are reminiscent of the great cathedrals of the Capetian crown land of the Île-de-France and its surroundings. The three-portal system was already anticipated with the blind arcades of the Romanesque abbey church Notre-Dame-la-Grande in Poitiers, completed in 1150 . The arched fields of the west facade of the Saint-Pierre cathedral show the resurrection of the dead in the lower register in the middle portal, above the blessed and the damned, at the top Jesus as judge of the world , in the left portal the Assumption and Coronation of Mary , in the right portal the unbelieving Thomas . The robes lost their statues during the French Revolution . The magnificent rose window above the portals was preserved.
The interior is typical of the Poitou as a staggered hall , but its design with Gothic vaults is an essential innovation. The context of the hall is much more impressive than that of the Romanesque relay halls with their barrel vaults, as they had been built since the 11th century. In addition, this hall of the cathedral with a length of almost 100 meters and a height of 27 meters is significantly larger than the Romanesque halls - and than many basilicas.
Since Heinrich the Lion and his follower Bernhard II von Lippe spent most of their "English" exile not in England, but in the Angevin region of western France, well-known art historians assume that when the Gothic hall church was introduced in Westphalia and, based on this, in northern Germany and in large Parts of Central Europe were inspired by the Cathedral of Poitiers.
In contrast to the Basilica lying naves of the nave of a church hall on the same or approximately the same height, so that one of the features of this type of building the absence of the clerestory is the side wall of the central vessel rises to the vault over the full height. The incidence of light does not come from above, as in the significantly raised central nave of the basilica, through an independent window zone, but only from the sides. Compared to the axis-related nature of the basilica, the oblique views in the hall often result in the most beautiful views and spatial enhancements.
A special feature is the wall labyrinth of just under one meter in diameter carved into the southern side wall in the third yoke of the central nave at eye level . It is not clear whether this is a plan of a previously lost labyrinth in the floor of the church. It is interesting to know in this context that the third yoke was often chosen as the location for the floor labyrinth in other churches.
window
The stained glass windows in the choir and transept are of paramount importance : most of them are originals from the 12th and 13th centuries.
Particularly noteworthy is the window in the apse, which is dated to the second half of the 12th century, making it one of the earliest stained-glass windows to survive in France, and according to various sources even the earliest preserved in Christianity. For the early date of creation, it is exceptional in size (8.35 mx 3.10 m). The masterpiece of stained glass , also called the crucifixion window after the central motif , is subdivided into three main registers, which show from bottom to top the martyrdoms of the namesake of the church Peter and Paul , above that Jesus on the cross and at the top the ascension of Christ . Also shown are the resurrection of Christ (below the crucifixion scene), the empty tomb pointed to by an angel (left) and, at the foot of the composition, King Henry II of England and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine.
The French state took over the financing of the complete restoration of the masterpiece carried out in December 2004 by the specialists at the Barthe-Bordeau workshop. The cost was over 170,000 euros.
organ
The Saint-Pierre cathedral has one of the most beautiful organs in France. It comes from the workshop of the court organ builder François-Henri Clicquot (1732–1790), who in 1787 received an order from the cathedral chapter. It was not until 1791, a year after his death, that the instrument, one of the last two “great” French organs of the 18th century in France, took its place in the cathedral today. It has been a listed building since 1908 and was restored between 1988 and 1994 at the expense of the French state. The two titular organists are currently Jean-Baptiste Robin and Olivier Houette (2007).
The organ has the following disposition :
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Furniture and cathedral treasure
The choir stalls , believed to have been a gift from Bishop Jean de Melun (Bishop from 1235 to 1257), are among the oldest surviving works of this type in France, if not, as other sources indicate, the oldest is. Of the originally existing stalls (choir stalls) only 37 are left on each side of the choir screen . In the high dorsal (back wall) the gussets of a row of arches are decorated with religious and profane motifs of an extraordinarily large variety. They show, among other things, the virgin, angels, animals, mythical animals and scenes from everyday life.
The other former church furniture fell victim to the destruction of the revolutionaries in the 18th century . It was replaced after the revolution with items from the surrounding monasteries and abbeys that were destroyed during the revolution. The baroque marble altar (end of 17th century) of the central apse comes from the Benedictine abbey of La Trinité, the large wooden altarpiece (17th century) of the south transept from the Dominican monastery, that of oak (18th century) of the north transept arm from a Capuchin monastery, his tabernacle (1700–1701) from a Carmelite monastery. A pulpit and a confessional (both 18th century), paintings and statues (16th / 17th century) complete the furniture of the cathedral.
The cathedral treasure with cult and art objects (12th / 17th century) is exhibited in the southern facade tower.
See also
- List of cathedrals and domes (France)
literature
- Thorsten Droste : Das Poitou , Cologne, 1984, 4th edition 1990, pp. 79–80, figs. 7, 10, 11
- Marcel Durliat : Romanesque Art , Freiburg-Basel-Vienna, 1983, color plate 155
Web links
- Poitiers Cathedral on one page monumentshistoriques.free.fr (French)
- Poitiers Cathedral - The maze of walls on one side of the diocese (French, illustrated)
- Poitiers Cathedral - The Crucifixion Window on one side of the Diocese (French, illustrated)
- Poitiers Cathedral - The Clicqot organ on one side of the diocese (French)
Footnotes
- ↑ Regional Association Westphalia-Lippe: The cathedral buildings of the 13th century in Paderborn and Riga (PDF)
- ^ Institution du Rosaire
Coordinates: 46 ° 34 ′ 49.8 ″ N , 0 ° 20 ′ 57.5 ″ E