COUTANCES
. The city of Coutances (Manche) existed from Roman times (when it was called
Constantia) and became a bishopric in the early Middle Ages. In the 9th century,
Coutances fell to Norman invaders. By the 11th century, the city regained its position as a
religious center; a Norman Romanesque cathedral replaced the edifice that the Vikings
had razed ca. 900.
A fire in 1218 severely damaged the Romanesque church, but the new Gothic
cathedral constructed during the 13th century encases part of the Romanesque structure
and essentially follows its plan and dimensions. The Gothic cathedral consists of a nave
of seven bays with side aisles, to which chapels were added between the buttresses in the
Coutances (Manche), Notre-Dame,
chevet. Photograph: Clarence Ward
Collection. Courtesy of Oberlin
College.
late 13th and early 14th centuries; a short transept with crossing tower and added
porches; and a three-bay choir surrounded by an ambulatory merging with radiating
chapels, to which a projecting central chapel was added in the 14th century. The elevation
is three-story in the nave and two-story in the choir.
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