Gothic Architecture: France

Chartres Cathedral, France. Built in the 12th and 13th centuries, the cathedral is often regarded as the epitome of the Gothic style among France's cathedrals. Its original stained-glass windows are almost perfectly preserved.

Rubble around the cathedral of Reims, northeast France, after World War I. Reims was in the zone of battle for four years and around three-quarters of the town was destroyed during this period.

The 12th century saw the building of the important abbey of St Denis near Paris 1132-44, which heralded the Gothic style, and of Sens (about 1140), Noyon (around 1150), Laon (1160), and Notre Dame, Paris (1163). The 12th century also saw the erection of many stone-built fortresses. The other principal Gothic churches in France are the cathedrals of Amiens, Bayeux, Bourges, Chartres, Coutances, Laon, Reims, and Rouen, and the Sainte-Chapelle at Paris (1244-47). Compared with English examples, they are shorter, wider and loftier. They have a chevet (ring of chapels) round an apsidal east end, whereas in England the typical Gothic east end is square. They usually have west towers, and seldom a central tower.

When tracery came to be introduced into windows, it was composed of geometrical forms until the ‘flamboyant’ type (possibly derived from English ‘flowing decorated’ tracery during the English occupation in the 14th century) became popular: there are examples at St Wulfram, Abbeville, and at St Ouen, Rouen. The English Perpendicular style had no counterpart in France. Examples of late-Gothic houses are those of Jacques Coeur at Bourges (1443), the Hôtel de Bourgtherolde at Rouen (1475), and the Hôtel de Cluny at Paris (1485, now a museum). The Château of Pierrefonds (1396) is a magnificent castle, in excellent preservation; as is the Palace of the Popes at Avignon (1316-70). Fortress towns include Aigues Mortes, Avignon, Carcassonne, and Mont St Michel.

For French architecture of later periods, see French architecture.