Beauvais Cathedral
Type:
Churches
Date:
1225–72,
1284–1340s
Location or Findspot (Modern-Day Country):
France
Description:
The cathedral of Beauvais, dedicated to St. Peter, was rebuilt in the Gothic style beginning in 1225. The church was intended to have a pyramidlike form, with an exceptionally tall nave flanked by lower inner aisles and shorter outer aisles. The massive choir was completed in the 1250s and '60s, following Parisian models; it visibly demonstrated the power of the Church, then under threat from the new mendicant orders. The choir was in use by clergy in 1272, but only twelve years later, in 1284, the vaults partly collapsed. The choir was rebuilt in the following decades (until the 1340s) with sexpartite instead of quadripartite vaulting, but the transepts and the beginning of a nave were constructed only in the sixteenth century. The cathedral stands today as a truncated rump, only 72 meters long, braced and trussed to avoid future collapse. One of the world's oldest working clocks (early fourteenth century) still chimes the hours on the choir's north wall.
Relevant Textbook Chapter(s):
8,
9,
10,
11
Repository and Online Resources:
• Read more about Beauvais Cathedral on the Gothic Architecture in France website.
Image Credits:
Linda Safran
