171. Ribbed Half-Dome of Vauxrezis. (Redrawn from Lefèvre-Pontalis)

78

172. Lobed Half-Dome of St. Martin-des-Champs, Paris

78

173. St. Germer. Interior

80

174. Plan of Auvers. (From Arch. de la Com. des Mon. Hist.)

81

184. Flying Buttresses at Domont. (From Arch. de la Com. des Mon. Hist.)

92

205. Arched Corbel-Tables of Dravegny and St. Étienne of Longmont

120

212. Capital of Triforium String-Course, North Transept of Soissons

128

213. St. Étienne of Beauvais. North Transept End

130

214. Stained Glass Window of Bourges. (From Martin et Cahier)

132

215. West Portal of Chartres

134

216. Villard de Honnecourt's Design for the Cathedral of Cambrai. (From Lassus)

140

227. Diagram. Piers of Laon, Paris (6th and 7th bays, Beauvais)

270

264. Stained Glass Windows of the Ste. Chapelle of Bourges, now in the Crypt of the

288. Stained Glass of the late XVI century, Bourges Cathedral. (From Méloizes) 289. Choir Screen of Amiens

388

388

H

MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE

CHAPTER VII

ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE OF THE ILE DE FRANCE

ISTORICAL conditions of the Ile de France in the XI cen

tury were in sharp contrast to those of Normandy, where the concentrated monarchy and the reformed church proved so favorable to the development of architecture at the same period. In the royal domain, the XI century was the age of feudalism, a time when the powerlessness of the Capetian monarch reduced the land to practical anarchy. It was above all the age of the degradation of the Church. Yet the historian, who possesses the great advantage of knowing what was to come after, can easily see that this age was all the while paving the way for the great economic advances of the XII century, and amid the darkness, he is consequently able to trace occasional flashes of the coming light. Architecture, however, reflected only the darkness; light was still in the future tense, and the material development of art is always influenced by the present or even by the past, rather than by the future.

The XI century was, then, in general, an age of lawless feudalism. The Capetian king, sitting on his hollow throne, offered a strange spectacle of mingled misery and grandeur. The impotent monarch, notwithstanding the pomp of his title and the prestige of his office, was totally unable to cope with the lawless feudal lords who ran riot in the land. Fearless of the king's authority these barons pillaged and burnt at will, and racked the land with all the horrors of petty warfare. The very excess of this feudal tyranny and oppression, however, at last roused the indignation of the people, and thus was kindled that spark of popular loyalty and democracy, which in the XII