Caen, La Trinité, plan. After Musset.
In the last quarter of the 11th century, William the Conqueror transformed the site on the
River Orne into a forest of Norman architecture. Despite destruction from World War II,
well-preserved Norman Romanesque and Gothic structures surround vestiges of the
Conqueror’s 11th-century fortress. Conveniently and strategically located, Caen also
served as a place of atonement for the Conqueror and Queen Matilda. Between 1059 and
1065, Matilda founded the Abbaye-aux-Dames with its church of La Trinité. By 1063,
William followed his wife with the foundation of the Abbaye-aux-Hommes, including the
church of Saint-Étienne at the other end of Caen. The town grew between the two abbeys
and fortress.
Built in one campaign, the sleek, rectilinear surface of the west façade of Saint-
Étienne stretches to three stories before the western towers, topped with 17th-century
spires, begin. Four massive buttresses and a series of regular roundheaded windows
divide the west front into three sections, which correspond to the interior space with nave
and side aisles. Inside the nave, alternating cluster piers delineate eight bays and a three-
story elevation with arcade, triforium gallery, and clerestory with wall passage. The
vaulted ceil-ing from 1130 is one of many subsequent alterations in the 11th-century
fabric, which ends with the short transept arms. In the 13th century, Master William
(whose tombstone can be found in the south part of the choir) replaced the original
Romanesque choir with a Gothic chevet that retains the three-story elevation but departs
from the original apse-in-echelon plan. Some conventual buildings of the Abbaye-aux-
Hommes survive from the 13th to 15th centuries, and other portions were rebuilt in the
18th century.
At the far end of the rue Saint-Pierre, La Trinité (dedicated 1066) offers an alternative
to the austerity of Saint-Étienne. While the west front shares the twin-tower design with
Saint-Étienne, an accurate 19th-century reconstruction of molded blind arcades and
windows achieves an exciting balance with variation in size and ornament. The narthex is
lost. Although the central-portal tympanum sculpture is a 19th-century addition, much
11th- and 12th-century sculpture survives within the fabric: fanciful corbels line the
exterior, and creatures reside in ambulatory capitals and one of the crypt capitals. The
nave is notable for its great length and width, and the two-story elevation sports a false
triforium on exterior and interior. Despite periodic campaigns of construction from 1059
until 1130, La Trinité is remarkably coherent in execution. Only a few parts of the church
date from later than the 11th century: the 12th-century (1125–30) apse with
semiambulatory and concurrent alterations in the transept arms, a 13th-century chapter
house off the south arm, and modern apsidal chapels adjoining the the north arm. A
black-marble slab designates the remains of Queen Matilda near the entrance to the choir.
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