Gardners Art through the Ages A Global History

One of the most interesting objects of this type is a woman’s
jewelry box adorned with ivory relief panels. The theme of the panel
illustrated here (FIG. 18-38) is related to the allegorical poem Ro-
mance of the Rose by Guillaume de Lorris, written about 1225–1235
and completed by Jean de Meung between 1275 and 1280. At the left
the sculptor carved the allegory of the siege of the Castle of Love.
Gothic knights attempt to capture love’s fortress by shooting flowers
from their bows and hurling baskets of roses over the walls from
catapults. Among the castle’s defenders is Cupid, who aims his ar-
row at one of the knights while a comrade scales the walls on a lad-
der. In the lid’s two central sections, two knights joust on horseback.
Several maidens survey the contest from a balcony and cheer the
knights on, as trumpets blare. A youth in the crowd holds a hunting
falcon. The sport was a favorite pastime of the leisure class in the
late Middle Ages. At the right, the victorious knight receives his
prize (a bouquet of roses) from a chastely dressed maiden on horse-
back. The scenes on the sides of the box include the famous me-
dieval allegory of female virtue, the legend of the unicorn, a white
horse with a single ivory horn. Only a virgin could attract the rare
animal, and any woman who could do so thereby also demonstrated
her moral purity. Religious themes may have monopolized artistic
production for churches in the Gothic age, but secular themes fig-
ured prominently in private contexts. Unfortunately, very few ex-
amples of the latter survive.

Gothic outside of France

In 1269 the prior (deputy abbot) of the church of Saint Peter at
Wimpfen-im-Tal in the German Rhineland hired “a very experi-
enced architect who had recently come from the city of Paris” to

rebuild his monastery church.^4 The architect reconstructed the

church opere francigeno (“in the French manner”)—that is, in the

Gothic style, the opus modernumof the Île-de-France. The Parisian

Gothic style had begun to spread even earlier, but in the second half

of the 13th century, the new style became dominant throughout

western Europe. European architecture did not turn Gothic all at

once or even uniformly. Almost everywhere, patrons and builders

modified the Rayonnant court style of the Île-de-France according

to local preferences. Because the old Romanesque traditions lingered

on in many places, each area, marrying its local Romanesque design

to the new style, developed its own brand of Gothic architecture.

England

Beginning with the Norman conquest in 1066 (see Chapter 17),

French architectural styles quickly made an impact in England, but

in the Gothic period, as in the Romanesque, no one could have mis-

taken an English church for a French one.

SALISBURY CATHEDRAL Salisbury Cathedral (FIGS. 18-39

to 18-41) embodies the essential characteristics of the English

Gothic style. Begun in 1220, the same year work started on Amiens

Cathedral (FIGS. 18-19to 18-21), construction of Salisbury Cathe-

dral required about 40 years. The two cathedrals are therefore almost

exactly contemporaneous, and the differences between them are

very instructive. Although Salisbury’s facade has lancet windows and

blind arcades with pointed arches, as well as statuary, it presents a

striking contrast to French High Gothic designs (FIGS. 18-21and

18-23). The English facade is a squat screen in front of the nave,

wider than the building behind it. The soaring height of the French

facades is absent. The Salisbury facade also does not correspond to

486 Chapter 18 GOTHIC EUROPE

18-38The Castle of Love and knights jousting, lid of a jewelry casket, from Paris, France, ca. 1330–1350. Ivory and iron, 4–^12  93 – 4 .

Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

French Gothic artists also produced luxurious objects for secular use. This jewelry casket features ivory reliefs inspired by the romantic

literature of the day in which knights joust and storm the Castle of Love.

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