Conclusions: Why Beauvais? | Saint-Pierre de Beauvais | Briefing | Professor Murray

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Saint-Pierre de Beauvais | Conclusions : Why Beauvais?
Professor Murray

The extraordinary forms of the Beauvais choir resulted from the attempt to combine opposites.¹ Thus, the initial vision involved a five-aisled pyramidal structure intersected by a great transept. The tall inner aisles of the choir, continuing directly into the eastern aisles of the transept arms, form L-shaped corridors like the galleries of Notre-Dame of Paris. In the western bays of the choir the peripheral spaces are expansive; in the east the periphery has, in a sense, been pulled inwards, giving the superstructure its characteristic vertical lift-off.

The shifting intentions associated with the work of the 1240s–1260s thinned out the mass disposed at the base of the infrastructure (Phase II) and then planted a mighty superstructure on top (Phase III). It is precisely this combination of opposites that makes the experience of Beauvais unforgettable. We encounter a tightly controlled bay system with squares (terminal bays of the transept) and double squares (western bay of the choir), yet from west to east the spans of each of the three bays increase, opening up wide views into the inner aisle culminating in the rapid rhythm of the supports ringing the hemicycle that enshrined the principal altar.


France, Beauvais, Cathedral, Interior view of choir and south transept from the crossing		France, Beauvais, Cathedral, Diagram of the spatial system

This is a crescendo more intense than at Chârtres, Reims, or Amiens. Then we note that the slender supports in the original choir at Beauvais, unusually widely spaced at the east end, are also unusually tall, opening generously into the peripheral spaces. The shallow bays of the tall inner aisle with their band triforium and clerestory windows form a horizontal swathe wrapping the periphery at its base. It is intriguing to consider that the original intention may have been to render all of the aisle clerestory windows as little roses, as in the transept terminals. The rear wall of the aisle triforium in the hemicycle had glazed lancets—the openings have subsequently been blocked. The horizontal vision of the lower choir forms a series of diaphragms expanding outwards and downwards, from main arcade to inner aisle windows to outer aisle arcade and windows.

On top of this composition is placed a second order that is a denial of the first. The five-aisled envelope of Bourges Cathedral, like that of Beauvais, offers a kind of church within a church. At Bourges the inner envelope mimics the outer: the main triforium in the central vessel strongly resembles the triforium of the inner aisle.


France, Bourges, Cathedral, Nave and side aisles		France, Beauvais, Cathedral, Lower clerestory and triforium in the ambulatory		France, Beauvais, Cathedral, Upper clerestory and triforium

At Beauvais the outer envelope is denied by the inner: one is strongly horizontal; the other sharply vertical; the lower clerestory and triforium are composed of lancets surmounting an arched band; the upper clerestory and triforium, both entirely glazed, are linked in a continuous grid-like cage.

Before the piers added after 1284 obstructed the wide openings of the arcade, the Beauvais choir would have shared some of the spatial characteristics of Bourges where the various levels of the elevation may be seen as three or five, depending on whether one concentrates upon the main vessel or considers the total spatial economy. The Beauvais elevation would have offered no less than five ranks of windows.

Most spectacular in the original choir would have been the three enormous vault canopies hovering one hundred and forty four feet (royal units) above the pavement surmounting enormous six-lancet windows crowned by great traceried oculi. Seen from the exterior this composition translates as a tiered edifice where the tall inner aisle resembles the gallery of Notre-Dame of Paris but where the verticality of the culées cuts across the triangular section, with the brutal modernism of Gothic. The great height of the cathedral allows it to heave itself out of the basin in which the city is located and to become visible from afar.

This powerful envelope served to honor Saint Peter and the local saints, particularly Saint Lucien, thought to have been depicted in the statues that surrounded the hemicycle, looking far over the Picard countryside. It served as a shelter for the bishop and canons in the celebration of the Divine Office and the sacraments. The body of the choir housed the stalls for the forty or so canons, the bishop's throne, altar and relic altar as well as tombs and shrines, while around the periphery were chapels and altars for the saints. The cathedral offered shelter for the liturgical celebrations of the clergy while its forms provided a powerful language that speaks to the sublime and transformative essence of the Mass; to the conflicting visions of the anonymous master masons and their clerical colleagues and to the peculiar and sometimes violent circumstances that accompanied its construction.


1.		For the dialectical process of looking at a building as the combination of opposites, see the description of H. Sophia by, Procopius, most easily available in C. Mango, Byzantine Art, Sources and Documents, Prentice Hall, 1986

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