Phase III, 1250s-1260's | Saint-Pierre de Beauvais | Briefing | Professor Murray

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Saint-Pierre de Beauvais | Phase III, 1250s–1260s
Professor Stephen Murray

The upper choir was built between the 1250s and 1260s under Bishop Guillaume de Grez (1249–1267), a doctor of the University of Paris who was also responsible for the reconstruction of his episcopal palatine chapel which was said to have resembled the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. The forms of the Beauvais upper choir, with delicate five-cusped oculi in the glazed triforium and the use of cages of detached shafts around the culées and upper piers, refers to Parisian work—particularly the Sainte-Chapelle and the grande chapelle de la Vierge at Saint-Germain des Prés, constructed by the celebrated master mason, Pierre de Montreuil. The rounded of the upper hemicycle in the Beauvais choir refers directly to the same chapel at Saint-Germain des Prés and to Notre-Dame of Paris. In every sense Beauvais was drawing closer to the capital city.


France, Beauvais, Cathedral, South side of choir		France, Paris, Sainte Chapelle, Interior, View of nave		France, Beauvais, Cathedral, Choir triforium

The upper choir was built from west to east with the north side ahead of the south. A unique buttress in the angle between the north transept and choir carries not two, but three flyers. The presence of the lower flyer suggests that lower vaults had been first anticipated--the great height of the choir was thus probably the result of a change of plan in the 1250s. The additional height allowed the main vessel of the choir to have a width-to-height (to the keystone) ratio of 1:3 while the overall section is close to a square—the edifice is thus as tall as it is wide, just like the image of Heaven described in Revelation 21. In royal feet of thirty-two and a half centimeters the keystones of the vaults are about 144 feet above the pavement—Heaven, as measured by Saint John, is 144 cubits.

Beauvais, Cathedral, Vaults of the choir seen from below

The choir also transcended its ancient and most recent rivals, the Roman Pantheon and nearby Amiens Cathedral, where the nave had been completed and the choir vaults were under construction at approximately the same time as the vaults of the Beauvais choir. The massive superstructure may be understood as a physical expression of the power of the established Church at the time that power was increasingly challenged by the mendicants.

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