buttress. That the nave of Notre-Dame in Paris was the source of this feature is confirmed
by the interior el-
Mantes (Yvelines), Notre-Dame, north
side. Photograph courtesy of Whitney
S.Stoddard.
evation of Mantes, which clearly shows the Parisian aesthetic. The main part of the work
was completed ca. 1200, although the buttress design was revised again, ca. 1225–30.
Two of the western portals survive but without their statue columns and, in the case of
the center portal (the Coronation of the Virgin), badly mutilated. The north door (the
Three Marys at the Tomb and Christ in Majesty) is the earliest; the south door was rebuilt
1285–1325, during which time radiating chapels were added to the original plan. The
building underwent two drastic restorations in the 19th century, although much of the
original early 13thcentury roof structure survives.
William W.Clark
Bailly, Robert. La collégiale Notre-Dame a Mantes-la-Jolie. Mantes, 1980.
Bony, Jean. “La collégiale de Mantes.” Congrès archéologique (Paris-Mantes) 104(1946):163–
220.
——. Notre-Dame de Mantes. Paris: Cerf, 1947.
MANUSCRIPTS, HEBREW
ILLUMINATED
. The fate of the books of the “people of the book” in medieval France was not a happy
one. The “burning of the Talmud” in the Place de Grève on June 6, 1242, was a large-
scale destruction of Hebrew books of all kinds. Tractates of the Talmud were certainly
among the many volumes consigned to the flames, but illuminated manuscripts for public
The Encyclopedia 1099