Phase II, 1240s-1250s | Saint-Pierre de Beauvais | Briefing | Professor Murray

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Saint-Pierre de Beauvais | Phase II, 1240s–1250s
Professor Stephen Murray

The language of forms in the eastern end of the lower choir (ambulatory and radiating chapels) announces a radically new agenda.


France, Beauvais, Plan		France, Beauvais, Cathedral, East end of the choir		France, Beauvais, Cathedral, Ambulatory


France, Beauvais, Cathedral, Ambulatory		France, Beauvais, Cathedral, South elevation of choir		France, Beauvais, Cathedral, Pilier cantonné on the aisle side of the choir

Here walls are very thin; slender supports employ detached shafts, and the arches have a sharpened triangular profile. Whereas the capitals in the west end of the choir are square-set, here they are beaked and the sculpture is more delicate. These are forms characteristic of the 1240s. The absence of a dado arcade in the radiating chapels (unlike Amiens) and the heavy, old-fashioned tracery forms of the windows of the radiating chapels may reflect economic exigency. The piers of the main arcade of the choir have a unique form: the design begins with a pilier cantonné like the units in the transept, but the colonnette toward the main vessel is pushed inwards into the body of the pier while on the aisle side of the unit three slender colonnettes receive the transverse arches and ribs.

The thick walls, round-topped arches and rose windows of the transept bays are replaced by thin walls pierced by pointed lancets in the ambulatory and in the inner aisle bays. The intermediary piers in the north and south choir aisles (both piers have been rebuilt) are significantly thinner than the piliers cantonnés in the transept. The two different formal languages, the heavy forms of the transept and the more attenuated of the ambulatory, meet at the base of the hemicycle and in the choir aisle walls at a level just below the capitals. The main arcade of the choir, which probably belongs to this period, is unusually thick (exceeding Chartres and Reims). This thickness is fixed by the form of the compound piers of the crossing which mimic the corresponding tower supports in the transept terminals. The combination of a thick arcade wall and slender supports with reduced colonnettes on their inner surfaces leaves very little room for the bundles of three shafts that articulate the bay system of the upper choir. These shafts are thus flattened (in the extreme north-western pier of the choir arcade, the first to be built) or they sit on corbels or brackets.


France, Beauvais, Cathedral, North side of the choir		France, Royaumont, Abbey Church, Groundplan

The ambulatory and radiating chapels and the main arcade of the choir were built under Robert de Cressonsac (1249–1267) who, as we have seen, capitulated to the king and regained the episcopal revenue that was vital to the funding. This conclusion is reinforced through the study of the design of the east end of the choir which makes specific references to the favorite royal abbey, the Cistercian church at Royaumont in the diocese of Beauvais.

Thus, both churches have a sharp spatial contraction in the east end with a double choir aisle reduced to a single ambulatory ringed by seven shallow chapels of equal depth. It is intriguing to find a cathedral begun as a testimony to episcopal wealth and independence continued with forms that visibly expressed dependence upon a Cistercian monastery constructed under royal patronage. The design ultimately harks back to Suger's Saint-Denis.

The sequence of the construction continued the rhythm initiated in the early work: north flank before south; west to east. Thus, the first radiating chapel to be constructed was the chapel of the Madeleine at the north base of the ambulatory and the last chapel was the axial chapel of the Virgin Mary. The exterior aspect of these chapels, each formed of three facets with angle buttresses having their moldings aligned with the moldings of the main culées provides one of the great compositions of Gothic. It speaks to a vision dominated by the horizontal—yet from this base was projected an extraordinarily vertical upper choir. This latter construction was undertaken in the third phase.

Scan in plan showing names and dates of chapels (xerox of plan from Stephen's book)

Beauvais, Cathedral, Exterior view of choir showing the axial chapel of the Virgin Mary

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