Dominican church. Photograph
courtesy of Whitney S.Stoddard.
tronage, but the mendicants could be found throughout France. Several difficulties are
encountered, however, in studying their impact on French art and architecture. Because
of their mendicancy and vows of poverty, their conventual structures and furnishings,
which emphasized function and simplicity, did not conform to particular stylistic
characteristics. The orders did not produce their own art but rather relied on secular
artisans. And finally, they preferred urban centers, where many of their buildings and
possessions have been destroyed or dispersed. Despite these limitations, several
approaches provide insight into their influence on late-medieval French art.
Because so many mendicant structures have been destroyed, knowledge of French
mendicant architecture is based on a few surviving buildings, primarily in southern
France, and on plans and drawings. For example, none of the four Dominican churches in
Paris is extant, but plans reveal that the major church of the Jacobins had parallel naves
supported by center piers.
This type of plan recurs in one of the most impressive surviving mendicant churches
in France, the Dominican church of the Jacobins in Toulouse. In this late 13th-century
edifice, the long nave of six rib-vaulted bays is supported by central columns and
terminates in a polygonal choir. Although other double-nave Dominican churches were
built in France, as at Agen, the Dominicans and Franciscans favored simple structures
with a large single nave that either had a flat roof or was vaulted, as in the now destroyed
church of the Cordeliers (Franciscans) at Toulouse.
In some cases, royal patronage promoted more elaborate architecture. In 1295, Charles
II, count of Provence, entrusted to the Dominicans a foundation dedicated to St.
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