Ecclesiastical and Monastic Associations 43some time between 1093 and 1104, presents it in a form that reveals a
mastery of the procedure, implying earlier experiments.
Among the most ancient attempts of currently existing paired
vaults, especially praiseworthy are the capitulary of Jumieges (1101)
and the venerable apse of the church of Morienval (Oise), which dates
from around 1125 and which is the rudimentary prototype of the
Gothic style. As for monuments of the transition, we can cite the
ancient Saint Benoit Chapel in the Lerin Abbey and the choir of Saint
Martin des Champs in Paris, which was a priory of the Cluny Order.
The oldest of the Gothic monuments marking the end of the tran-
sition is the choir of the Benedictine church of Saint Denis, begun in
1129 under the impetus of Abbot Suger. Consecrated in 1144,
... it was the first building in which the new system appeared in
all the potentiality of its consequences, in the juvenile vigor of its
methods, in the conviction of its ambition. Its inauguration—cele-
brated in the presence of a throng of bishops and high dignitaries
from the four corners of France, a large number of foreign prelates,
and the king himself—was the ostensible and echoing sign of a
major architectural event, the departure point for an enthusiasm
that would prove irresistible.^7Among the monks who were the first Gothic architects, we can cite
Hilduar and Giraud, first mentioned around 1160, the former for the
choir he designed at Saint Peters in Chartres, the latter for his nave at
Saint-Benoit sur Loire. The Cistercians, too, played an important role.
They were the first to spread the knowledge of Gothic art throughout
Italy, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries. And we cannot over-
look the Templars, students of the Benedictines, among the architects of
the Romanesque-to-Gothic transition. Their church on Fleet Street in
London (1165), more or less influenced by the Templar Church in Paris,
is in fact one of the more unusual buildings from this transitional period.
We can see, then, that there was no gap existing between
Romanesque (or Old Gothic) art and the New Gothic. One flowed out
of the other and the secret of the ribbed vault was perhaps invented by
the same masters who had spread the Romanesque vault, just as the