Carcassonne Cathedral
Excerpts from 'The Cathedrals of Southern France' by T Francis Bumpus, 1895
The church of Saints Nazaire et Celse is situated near the south-western extremity of the old cité. Indeed, until Saint Louis extended the line of defence, the church stood on the line of the fortification; consequently the western façade is nothing but a very thick wall without openings, built at the end of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century, and constructed for defence, as it commands the neighbouring walls. The nave, almost unique in its Late Romanesque character, is divided from its aisles by pointed arches springing alternately from a pier and a tall cylindrical columns. It has neither triforium nor clerestory and, as well as the aisles, is covered by a tunnel vault. The choir and transepts with their magnificent windows are a chef d'oeuvre of the latter part of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century, and in point of size may be classed with such gems of the Complete Gothic as Saint Urbain at Troyes and Sainte Marie de l'Epine near Chalons-sur-Marne.
The massiveness of the nave is in pointed contrast with the wall of stained glass, most of it coeval with the building, which encircles the choir and transepts, and it is worthy of remark that the architect of this mingling of late thirteenth with early fourteenth century work adjusted his exquisite creation to the existing nave with far more concern for the building of his predecessor than was common in medieval times.
Whether the ground covered by these new works at Saint Nazaire, Carcassonne corresponds with that occupied by the Romanesque transepts and choir I am not in a position to say, but at any rate it does not seem to have been sufficiently extensive to admit of the procession path [ambulatory] and its corona of chapels. But the architect has given us the most beautiful substitute for this arrangement it is possible to conceive by building a short sanctuary terminating in an aisleless pentagonal apse, and transferring his chapels to the eastern side of either transept, from which they open by pointed arches on tall cylindrical columns, featuring those of the nave in shape and corresponding with them in dimensions.
It is not improbable that the idea for these six square-ended chapels was derived from some of those vast T-shaped churches we encounter so frequently, built by the Preaching and Mendicant orders in Central Italy. But the architect of these new portions of Saints Nazaire et Celse in the old cité of Carcassonne has produced something far more graceful than can be seen in any of those great churches, by piercing the walls separating the chapels from each other, and also those between the chapels and the sanctuary, with windows, of course unglazed, but corresponding in height and appearance with the very elegant ones which light the ends of the chapels and the apse.
The effect of such an arrangement is engaging beyond description, the succession of unglazed screens permitting views across these chapels in every direction; indeed it is surprising that it should have had no imitators, being, as far as I am aware, unique, in Middle Pointed days at least, in France.
Photops by Karoly Lorentey and Craig Wyzik on Flickr
