Building History | Jumieges, Abbey Church of Notre-Dame | Briefing | Professor Lynn Courtenay

Early Roofing Systems in Northern Europe

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France, Jumièges, Abbey Church of Notre-Dame | Building History
Professor Lynn Courtenay

Notre-Dame de Jumièges, the largest medieval ruin in France, was a Benedictine monastery allegedly founded in the 7th c, following the wave of monastic zeal inspired by St. Colombanus of Ireland. According to the Carolingian, Vita S. Filiberti written by an anonymous monk, the saintly Philibert constructed a magnificent abbey complex in A.D. 654. Jumièges thus belongs to a prestigious group of Merovingian abbeys in Normandy that later became ducal monasteries; these included: Fécamp, Fontenelle, St. Ouen in Rouen, Montivilliers, Mont Saint Michel, Saint Taurin, and Cerisy la Foret.

In addition to its status, antiquity, and connection to a saintly founder, Jumièges is also among the ducal monasteries revived by the Christianised descendents of the Viking (Danish) conqueror, Rollo, founder of the Norman state. By the 9th century, the abbatial complex comprised three separate churches dedicated to Notre-Dame, St. Pierre, and to St. Denis and St. Germain respectively. In AD 841, however, the abbey and the town of Rouen was allegedly burned by the Vikings, who followed this pillaging with later attacks in 851 and 855.

Whatever the actual situation was in the 9th and early 10th centuries, it is clear that religious life was disrupted and that much of the Carolingian abbey was in ruins until a century later (AD 942) when Duke William I of Normandy recruited 12 monks from Poitiers to revive the religious community and to begin the task of rebuilding. The church of St. Pierre (also a ruin, located to the southeast of Notre Dame) is assigned to a construction phase of the last quarter of the 10th century and is notable architecturally for its incorporation of a wall passage at gallery level (see plan).

The major impetus for the Romanesque church of Notre Dame begins with the vigorous patronage of the Dukes of Normandy combined with the monastic reforms of the early 11th century. In 1001, Richard II, Duke of Normandy, called the celebrated Abbot of St. Bénigne (Dijon), William of Volpiano (d. 1030), to reform the abbeys of his duchy beginning with Fécamp, the leading abbey and site of the ducal palace. Within a few years, William of Dijon, who had initially refused the Duke's invitation, came with a group of monks and established reformed Benedictine communities at Jumièges, Bernay, Fécamp, Mont-Saint-Michael; William also personally reformed St. Ouen (1006–1011) in Rouen.

William's Italian disciple, Thierry (d. 1027), abbot of Jumièges during the first quarter of the 11th century (also in charge of Bernay and later abbot of Mont-Saint-Michael), is traditionally credited with the plan and early stages of construction, but building the abbey took place over the next two generations of abbots, and Notre Dame was finally consecrated in 1067 by Maurille, Archbishop of Rouen in the presence of Duke William of Normandy (now king of England) and members of his court—a fact that testifies to the continued high status of this abbey.

Jumièges' ducal patronage and affiliation with Fécamp places the abbey within a wider socio-religious context of similar churches associated with imperial and noble patrons such as the powerful counts of Flanders and Dukes of Normandy. It is interesting to recall here, for example, that William the Conqueror's wife, Mathilde (m. 1053), was the sister of Boudouin VI, Count of Flanders & Hainaut, and that William (though a bastard) was himself a cousin of Boudouin and his wife Richilde, former countess of Hainaut. As has been noted, there are Norman influences in late 11th century churches in Flanders as well as vice versa. Hence, one may ask to what extent the geography of patronage influenced the distribution of certain architectural ideas?

Specific characteristics that link the Romanesque abbey of Jumièges to a wider context as well as to the political, religious, and aesthetic values that might have been ascribed to particular architectural features are: the twin-towered facade or multi-storied westwerk; the salient transept; the large square lantern tower; vaulted aisles and tribune galleries; the abbey's impressive scale; and, in my view, the covering of the nave interior with painted wooden ceiling.

France, Jumièges, Abbey Church of Notre-Dame,
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