Majesty, surrounded by the four Evangelists, is located in the tympanum. The lintel and
trumeau were destroyed in the 18th century to enlarge the entrance to the cathedral. The
figure style resembles that of some of the sculpture on the archivolts of the three west
portals and on the tympana of the side portals of Chartres. This sculptural campaign is
probably contemporary with or slightly later than the vaulting of the nave of the cathedral
(1149–53).
Carved capitals in the choir and apse of Saint-Martin are mostly nonfigurative. In the
apse and eastern bay, six statues once stood on columns with capitals and visually
supported the ribs. In style, they appear to date ca. 1180. They are now in the Yale
University Museum.
The ornamental and figurative sculpture on capitals, keystones of some arches, and on
all complicated keystones of each vault of the choir of Saint-Serge echoes, in its detailed
carving and polychromy, the elegance of the architecture.
Whitney S.Stoddard
[See also: ANJOU; APOCALYPSE TAPESTRY; GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE]
Forsyth, George H., Jr. The Church of St. Martin at Angers: The Architectural History from the
Roman Empire to the French Revolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953, esp. pp.
167–86, figs. 200–07.
Mussat, André. Le style gothique de l’ouest de la France (XIIe– XIIIe siècles). Paris: Picard, 1963,
esp. pp. 173–239.
Sauerländer, Willibald. Gothic Sculpture in France 1140–1270. London: Thames and Hudson,
1972.
Urseau, Charles. La cathédrale d’Angers. Paris: Laurens, 1927.
ANGLO-NORMAN LITERATURE
. The conquest of England by William, duke of Normandy, in 1066 had consequences in
linguistic and literary development no less far-reaching than in the political, economic,
and social domains. For over 300 years, a dialect of French was to be the official
language of the ruling class in both church and state. That dialect, deriving principally
from the western (Norman) French of William’s followers, was destined to become for a
time one of the most important literary languages of northern Europe. Cut off from its
continental roots by the natural barrier of the English Channel and forced into an uneasy
cohabitation with the Anglo-Saxon dialects of the resident English aristocracy and
merchant class, it proceeded to develop along independent lines and within little more
than a generation had produced a written form recognizably different from its continental
cousin. These differences not only are apparent in phonology, morphology, and syntax
but extend to metrical form and syllabic count. Thus, from the early 12th century on, it
becomes necessary to distinguish between continental Norman and what for want of a
better name has come to be called Anglo-Norman. The advent of the Angevin dynasty in
1154 with the coronation of Henry II brought new and varied continental influences to
bear upon the dialect and its literature. Anglo-Norman writers begin to be conscious of
the “insular” nature of their dialect, and some continental writers poke fun at Anglo-
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