Bourg-en-Bresse (Ain), Church of
Brou, plan. After Nodet.
The understatement of the architecture showcases the liturgical furniture, including the
jubé and choirstalls; lavishly sculpted retables, such as the Seven Joys; the rich stained
glass, whose program revolves around the Resurrection and particularly the aristocratic
tombs of Marguer-ite de Bourbon, Duke Philibert le Beau of Savoy, and Marguerite of
Austria. Designed in 1516 by Jean de Bruxelles, with the effigies cut 1526–31 by Conrad
Meyt, the tombs rival those of the dukes of Burgundy in splendor. The tombs of Philibert
and Marguerite of Austria are unusual in their inclusion of two gisant figures, the corpse
in a burial shroud below and the deceased lying in state in ceremonial costume above.
Michael T.Davis
Frankl, Paul. Gothic Architecture. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1962.
Nodet, Victor. L’église de Brou. Paris: Laurens, 1928.
Sanfaçon, Roland. L’architecture flamboyante en France. Laval: Presses de Université de Laval,
1971.
Vitry, Paul. “L’église de Brou.” Congrès archéologique (Lyon et Maçon) 98(1935):261–65.
BRUGES
. The Flemish commercial city of Bruges was the chief port of northern Europe in the
14th and 15th centuries. By the second half of the 9th century, it was the administrative
center of the pagus Flandrensis, the nucleus from which the counts extended their power.
The counts had a fortification there by 892. Its name means “bridge” or “harbor,”
although Bruges is not known to have had commercial significance before the 11th
century. By the 12th century, it had an active trade with England and at the fairs of
Champagne. The rise of the sea level gave Bruges easy access to overseas trade. As the
waters receded, Bruges founded Damme and Sluis as outports where merchandise would
be discharged for eventual consignment in the halls of Bruges and undertook continual
dredging operations against the silting of the Zwin River, which linked the city with the
sea.
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