figural proportions reflect lack of sculptural expertise. Although the lintel was
incorporated in a 12th-century remodeling of the church, it is significant as a precursor of
Romanesque architectural sculpture.
Karen Gould
Durlait, Marcel. “Les premiers essais de decoration de façades en Roussillon au XIe siècle.”
Gazette des beaux arts 67(1966): 65–78.
SAINT-GERMAIN-EN-LAYE
. In 1124, Louis VI built a fortress overlooking the Seine on the hillside of Saint-Germain
(Yvelines), on the site of the present château. The keep, often attributed to Charles V,
belongs to this first phase of construction. Between 1230 and 1238, Louis IX added to the
castle and had its Sainte-Chapelle built. Burned by Edward, the Black Prince, during the
Hundred Years’ War, the fortress was restored by Charles V ca. 1368. In 1539, Francis I
razed the entire castle with the exception of the its keep and the chapel built by St. Louis.
Perhaps the work of Pierre de Montreuil, this Sainte-Chapelle recalls the style of the
apsidal chapels of the cathedral of Reims. The nave, spanned by slender columns and
illuminated by tall windows (without their stained glass, unfortunately), is 80 feet long
and 33 feet wide. The western façade, including its rose window, was covered over by
Francis I with a symmetrically angled turret. The carved keystones of the vaulting
provide one of the most interesting ornamental details. In these stones, one seems to
recognize the heads of St. Louis; his wife, Marguerite de Provence; his mother, Blanche
of Castile; and his brothers.
E.Kay Harris
Poisson, Georges. Evocation du Grand Paris, la banlieue nordouest. Paris: Minuit, 1956.
SAINT-GERMER-DE-FLY
. The abbey church of Saint-Germer-de-Fly (Oise), undertaken ca. 1150, represents an
attempt to combine the ambulatory and radiating-chapel plan from Senlis or Saint-Denis
with the compound-pier tradition of the Vexin. The four-story elevation here consists of
aisles, groin-vaulted gallery, rectangular slots opening into the gallery roof space, and
clerestory windows with a narrow, corbeled ledge below them, suggesting a regional
interpretation of the Anglo-Norman clerestory wall passage. The galleries of the chevet
and nave are connected by a wall passage around the transepts. The elaborate west end,
of which only the east wall remains, was a western transept resembling that built slightly
later at Noyon. Saint-Germer has suffered disasters over the centuries and is in poor
condition, but most of the architectural decoration is intact and confirms the dating to the
third and last quarters of the 12th century. The beautiful abbot’s chapel added beyond the
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