attribution to Pierre is not certain. At about the same time, Pierre completed a translation
of the Iter Hierosolymitanum, the Voyage de Charlemagne en Orient.
In verse, Pierre de Beauvais composed a Mappemonde (954 lines) dedicated to Robert.
It claims to be based on the De naturis rerum of Solinus (3rd c.), which Simon de
Boulogne had translated in the late 12th century, but is actually a translation of Honorius
of Autun’s Imago mundi. Other verse works include Lives of SS.Eustache, Germer, and
Josse; a treatise on the Psalms; a celebration of Christ the Physician; and a poem on the
Three Marys.
Claude J.Fouillade
[See also: BESTIARY; GUILLAUME LE CLERC; PHILIPPE DE THAÜN]
Bianciotto, Gabriel, trans. Pierre de Beauvais, Guillaume le Clerc, Richard de Fournival, Brunetto
Latini, Corbechon: bestiaires du moyen âge. Paris: Stock, 1980.
Langlois, Charles-Victor. La vie en France au moyen âge, du XIIe au milieu du XIVe siècle. 4 vols.
Paris: Hachette, 1926–28, Vol. 3: La connaissance de la nature et du monde, pp. 122–34.
[Summary of Mappemonde.]
PIERRE DE CHELLES
(fl. late 13th-early 14th c.). In royal accounts for 1307, Pierre de Chelles was paid for six
months of work on the tomb of Philip III and its delivery to the abbey of Saint-Denis.
However, Pierre’s contribution is uncertain: did he continue sculptural work of Jean
d’Arras (d. 1298/99) on the effigy of the late king, or did he make its black-marble base
and the canopy framing the recumbent figure? Whatever the ambiguities of his activity as
a sculptor, Pierre de Chelles indisputably pursued a career as a master mason. The 1316
report at Chartres cathedral qualifies him as master of the fabric at Notre-Dame, Paris,
while other texts name him as “master of the work of Paris” and “master of the city and
suburbs of Paris.” During his tenure at Notre-Dame, ca. 1296 to ca. 1318, Pierre
supervised construction of the fifteen chapels that ring the eastern extremity of the chevet
and the north wall of the sculpted choir enclosure. He may also have been responsible for
the design of the Virgin Chapel at Saint-Mathurin, Larchant. Pierre based his chapels,
with their huge windows and delicate gables, on the work of his predecessors, Jean de
Chelles and Pierre de Montreuil. At the same time, his emphasis on the contrast of a
robust armature of piers and arches with flat surfaces of tracery as well as his syncopated
formal rhythms anticipate directions explored by later generations of Gothic builders.
Michael T.Davis
Aubert, Marcel. “Les architectes de Notre-Dame de Paris.” Bulletin monumental 72 (1908):427–41.
——. Notre-Dame de Paris: sa place dans l’histoire de l’architecture du XIIe au XIVe siècle.
Paris: Laurens, 1929.
Erlande-Brandenburg, Alain. Le roi est mort: étude sur les funerailles, les sépultures, et les
tombeaux des rois de France jusqu’à la fin du XIIIe siècle. Geneva: Droz, 1975.
Gillerman, Dorothy. The Clôture of Notre-Dame and Its Role in the Fourteenth Century Choir
Program. New York: Garland, 1977.
Henriet, Jacques. “La chapelle de la Vierge de Saint-Mathurin de Larchant: une œuvre de Pierre de
Chelles?” Bulletin monumental 136 (1978):35–47.
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1390