The difficulties imposed by the economic hardships of the Hundred Years’ War in
Paris are illustrated by the parish church of Saint-Séverin on the left bank. The west end
and first three nave bays date from the mid-13th century. The church was enlarged
laterally to the south in the 14th century because there was no room to expand to the east.
The property was acquired in 1445, but construction was delayed by the need to rebuild
the nave. The chevet foundations were laid in 1489, but the east end was not finished
until ca. 1520, and it is the work of the 15th century that governs the character of the
church. Its broad double-aisled plan, at first the result of lack of space to expand
longitudinally, came to resemble the double-aisled plan of the cathedral after the 15th-
century rebuilding. It is a broad, laterally expansive space that is filled with light, even
with the added nave chapels. The restrained Flamboyant of the east end, with its
extraordinary piers that contribute to the dynamic sense of movement, sets the
conservative tone characteristic of Late Gothic architecture in Paris.
An analogous situation exists for the church of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois, another old
foundation, located on the right bank near the western port of Paris and adjacent to the
Louvre. Engulfing an eastern tower of the first half of the 12th century, a 13th-century
chevet, and a west portal, it was almost entirely rebuilt in the first half of the 15th
century. With tall aisles and a low central vessel consisting simply of broad arcades and
clerestory windows, Saint-Germain also has a sense of lateral expansiveness and
architectural restraint, What decoration that does exist is concentrated in the window
tracery or in the Burgundian-style porch added 1435–39.
Broad, expansive spaces are found in other Parisian churches of the 15th century, even
in those like Saint-Laurent, Saint-Médard, and Saint-Merri, with its elegant Flamboyant
façade, that do not have double-aisled plans. The one Late Gothic church in Paris that
returns to an emphasis on the vertical, the parish church of Saint-Gervais/ Saint-Protais,
located adjacent to the Porte de Grève and behind the Hotel de Ville, is frequently
attributed to the most prodigious architect working in the late 15th and early 16th
century, Martin Chambiges, who is known to have worked on the Hotel de Ville. The
church was begun in 1494, but the nave was not constructed until after 1600. Yet the
interior is remarkable for the uniformity and continuity of the first design and for the
restraint of the window tracery, as well as for its tall, narrow proportions that look back to
nearby Notre-Dame rather than to its immediate 15th-century predecessors. When the
Renaissance style is introduced in Paris, with the remodeled chevet of Saint-Nicholas-
des-Champs or the extraordinary church of Saint-Eustache, which challenged even the
cathedral in its grandeur, it will be, interestingly enough, characterized by the tall, narrow
proportions of Saint-Gervais, which itself has a famous Renaissance façade, rather than
the more laterally expansive spaces of the early 15th century.
William W.Clark/John Bell Henneman, Jr.
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1330