ambulatory chapels and the rectangular chapels are a blind triforium and a clerestory of
the 13th century. This clerestory is surmounted by a series of windows ornamented with
full and quarter-trefoils and a rose window in foliated tracery.
At the west end, adjoining the transept, is the nave of an earlier cathedral, known as
Notre-Dame de la BasseŒuvre. The oldest religious edifice in Beauvais, this church was
established 987–88 by Hervé, bishop of Beauvais. The materials for its construction were
probably taken from Roman ramparts.
Also at Beauvais is the church of Saint-Étienne, Beauvais’s first Christian edifice. It
was destroyed by the Normans in 859 and after reconstruction was damaged twice by
fire. In 997, Bishop Hervé undertook its restoration. It offers an early example of cross-
ribbed vaulting. Its nave and transept with a central bell tower are from the 12th century.
E.Kay Harris
[See also: CHAMBIGES, MARTIN; GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE]
Ajalbert, Jean. Beauvais. Paris: Morancé, 1927.
Leblond, Victor. La cathédrale de Beauvais. Paris: Laurens, 1926.
Marsaux, M.le chanoine. “Beauvais.” Congrès archéologique (Beauvais) 72(1905):1–31.
Mesqui, Jean. Île-de-France gothique. 2 vols. Paris: Picard, 1988, Vol. 1, pp. 70–104.
BEDFORD, JOHN OF LANCASTER,
DUKE OF
(1389–1435). The third son of Henry IV of England, John spent his youth serving with
distinction on campaigns in Scotland, Wales, and France. He became regent in France in
1422 and proved himself an excellent general and administrator, though he failed to
secure the conquests of Henry V. Maintaining an English alliance with Burgundy was the
keystone of his policy. To that end, he signed an alliance with Brittany and Burgundy at
Amiens in 1423 and married Anne de Bourgogne in June 1424. Paris, which had accepted
Henry V out of Burgundian fidelity, he left essentially self-governing and concentrated
on Normandy. Seeking loyalty there, he governed generously through an unusually
disciplined administration. He continued to exert military pressure against the Valois, but
even his greatest victory, at Verneuil in 1424, proved indecisive. After his defeat at
Orléans in 1429 and the death of his wife in 1432, he faced the prospect of a
rapprochement between Charles VII and the duke of Burgundy. Bedford’s failure to
prevent this confirmed his incapacity as a diplomat, though he succeeded in holding
Normandy. His death, on the eve of the Treaty of Arras, symbolized the doomed hopes of
the Anglo-French kingdom.
Paul D.Solon
[See also: CHARLES VII; HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR; ORLÉANS CAMPAIGN;
PHILIP THE GOOD]
Allmand, C.T. Lancastrian Normandy, 1415–1450. Oxford: Clarendon, 1983.
Newhall, R.A. Muster and Review: A Problem of English Military Administration, 1420–1440.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1940.
Williams, Ethel Carleton. My Lord of Bedford, 1389–1435. London: Longman, 1963.
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