was reunited to the French crown in 1285. During the Hundred Years’ War,the city saw
the crushing of the Jacquerie in 1358; although the town was burned, the cathedral was
somehow spared. There are remains of the Gallo-Roman city walls, and recent
archaeology has revealed a number of early churches. The cathedral of Saint-Étienne,
begun ca. 1180, was continued in various Gothic styles into the 16th century. Its
triportaled façade (14th-16th c.) is pure Flamboyant, but 13th-century sculpture from the
earlier campaign was successfully reemployed in the central (Christ in Majesty) and
south portals (dedicated to the Virgin). Only the north tower was completed. The north-
transept portal has a 12th-century statue of St. Stephen, and both portals contain bas-
reliefs showing scenes of his life. The south transept, both interior and exterior, is a
beautiful example of Rayonnant Gothic. Below its enormous rose is a delicately carved
openwork triforium that opens onto the lancet windows. The interior consists of a lofty,
welllighted nave with impressive double side aisles, transept, and Rayonnant Gothic
chancel with double ambulatory and five apsidal chapels, built by an architect inspired by
Soissons.
The adjacent rectangular chapter house, with its four corner turrets, is a rare example
of 13th-century capitular architecture. Thought to have been originally the chapter’s tithe
barn, it is a three-story rectangular structure, consisting of a cellar, a ground floor with
ogival vaulting, and an upper room with wooden ceiling, which is reached by a covered
exterior staircase (15th c.). Nearby, the episcopal palace (15th-17th c.) preserves a 12th-
century chapel.
William W.Kibler/William W.Clark
Deshoulières, François. La cathédrale de Meaux. Paris: Laurens, 1921.
Formigé, Jules. Cathédrale de Meaux: histoire et développements. Pontoise, 1917.
Kurmann, Peter. La cathédrale de Meaux: étude architecturale. Geneva: Droz, 1971.
MEDICAL PRACTICE AND
PRACTITIONERS
. The image of premodern medicine is skewed to the extent that our evidence is scriptural
rather than material and discursive or demonstrative rather than factual. It remains
difficult to do justice to the varied group of men and women who catered to the health
needs of most people and who were far less marginal throughout the Middle Ages than
their modern counterparts. They ranged from herbalists to bath attendants and from
midwives to miracle workers, but in France their protagonist, as the successor to the
Roman medicus, was the mège (metge, metgesse) or mire (miresse). Together with
popular medicine in general, this figure was eclipsed, more completely than the
analogous læce, or “leech,” in England, by the learned physician or doctor and his Latin
writings.
The sources from the first two-thirds of the medieval millennium are meager, yet they
reveal some persistent characteristics of French medical practice. A disproportionate
prominence of royal patients, the influence of imported healers and Mediterranean
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1144