MAP18-1Europe around 1200.BourgesMoissacParisSt.-DenisReimsCologne
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HerefordDurhamCarcassonneLeón AvignonAutunBruges
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FRAN
CELOMBARDY0 200 400 miles
0 200 400 kilometers462 Chapter 18 GOTHIC EUROPE18-2Plan of the east end, abbey church, Saint-Denis, France,
1140–1144 (after Sumner Crosby).
The innovative plan of the east end of Saint-Denis dates to Abbot
Suger’s lifetime. By using lightweight rib vaults, the builders were
able to eliminate the walls between the radiating chapels.N0 10 20 30 40 50 feet
0 105 1 5 metersRadiating Ambulatory
chapelsFrench Gothic
The Gothic style first appeared in northern France around 1140, and
some late medieval writers called Gothic art in general opus franci-
genum (“French work”). By the 13th century, the opus modernum of
the region around Paris had spread throughout western Europe, and
in the next century it expanded still farther. Saint Vitus Cathedral in
Prague (Czech Republic), for example, begun in 1344, closely emu-
lates French Gothic architecture. Today, Gothic architecture lives on
in the chapels, academic buildings, and dormitories of college cam-
puses throughout North America. But although the Gothic style
achieved international acclaim, it was a regional phenomenon. To
the east and south of Europe, the Byzantine and Islamic styles still
held sway. And many regional variants existed within European
Gothic, just as distinct regional styles characterized the Romanesque
period.
Architecture and
Architectural DecorationArt historians generally agree that the birthplace of Gothic architec-
ture was at Saint-Denis, a few miles north of Paris. Saint Dionysius
(Denis in French) was the apostle who brought Christianity to Gaul
and who died a martyr’s death there in the third century. The Bene-
dictine order founded the abbey at Saint-Denis in the seventh cen-
tury on the site of the saint’s burial. In the ninth century, the monks
constructed a basilica at Saint-Denis, which housed the saint’s tomb
and those of almost all of the French kings dating back to the sixth
century, as well as the crimson military banner said to have belonged
to Charlemagne. The Carolingian basilica became France’s royal
church, the very symbol of the monarchy (just as Speyer Cathedral,
FIG. 17-19,was the burial place of the German rulers of the Holy Ro-
man Empire).
SUGER AND SAINT-DENIS By 1122, when a monk named
Suger became abbot of Saint-Denis, the old church was in disrepair
and had become too small to accommodate the growing number of
pilgrims. Suger also believed the basilica was of insufficient grandeur
to serve as the official church of the French kings (see “Abbot Suger