Troyes, Saint-Urbain, chevet vaults.
Photograph: Clarence Ward
Collection. Courtesy of Oberlin
College.
tion deteriorated. In 1288, thirteen Jews were framed and executed for the murder of a
Christian, and in 1306 the entire community was banished as a result of Philip IV’s
general expulsion of the Jews from the royal domains.
The 13th century was a period of energetic church construction in Troyes, and the
variety of architectural styles visible in the major edifices reflects the city’s diverse
horizons. The nave and transept of La Madeleine (ca. 1200) adopt a Burgundian idiom,
while the contemporaneous choir of the catheral of Saint-Pierre-Saint-Paul seems to have
been begun by a Champenois master. By ca. 1230, the cathedral workshop was under the
direction of an Îlede-France mason, often identified as the Master of Saint-Denis, who
introduced the glazed triforium and elaborate tracery effects into the upper levels of the
choir. Saint-Urbain (1262 and ca. 1280), erected as a shrine at the birthplace of Pope
Urban IV (r. 1261–64), achieved an opulent complexity through a play of gables and
tracery that drew upon the latest Parisian and northern French developments.
With the waning importance of the fairs at the end of the 13th century and the opening
years of the 14th, the Black Death, and the Hundred Years’ War, Troyes endured a
century and a half of economic stagnation and political instability. As a result of the
Treaty of Troyes (1420), Henry V of England, recognized as heir to the French throne,
married Catherine of France, daughter of King Charles VI, at Saint-Jean-au-Marché.
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