Funding the Early Gothic Churches of the Paris Basin

Funding the Early Gothic Churches • of the Paris Basin* John James The Gothic style was created in northern France between 1130 and 1240 in the region bounded by Laon and Reims to the northeast and Chartres to the southwest—an area of less than 200 by 140 ktiometres with Paris lying in the western haU.1 Ninety percent of these churches Ue within the geological formation k n o w n as the Paris Basin, consisting of a limestone caUed calcaire.3 There is excetient butiding stone beyond the Basin, mainly in hard chalk and sandstone, but few butidings with Gothic motifs were butit from other than calcaire until the 1220s.4 1 John James, 'An Investigation into the Uneven Distribution of Churches in the Paris Basin, 1140-1240', Art Bulletin, 66 (1984), 13-46. M y analysis foUows the direction set out in John James, The Pioneers of the Gothic Movement: Interim Report (Wyong, Australia: Mandorla, 1980), pp. 3-10. The figures in tables and charts include only those churches that have been drawn on to Fig. 1. 2 The Paris Basin is the area of limestone formed by the Luteuen seas: A. Blondeau, 'Le Lutetien des bassins de Paris: eTude sedimentologique et paleontologique' (unpublished thesis, University of Paris IV, 1965), p. 398. 3 The only exception to this is the chalk region along the Challonais section of the Mame: James, 'An Investigation', pp. 26-28. P A R E R G O N ns 15.1 (July 1997) 42 John James France was a conservative society that was able to transform the classically-based Romanesque into a totaUy new style of architecture. After thousands of years in which buildings depended on thick walls for stabitity, masons explored structural possibilities beyond anything that had been conceived before. Though some buildings coUapsed, the masons continued to experiment until they discovered h o w to erect huge areas of glass supported by a thin skeleton of ribs and columns. Without large and thick walls to absorb the lateral thrusts, these loads were shifted outwards onto flying buttresses so that the inner supports could be m a d e thinner until they seemed to disappear. The concept was audacious. Starting in 1980, I made a survey of all the churches in the Paris Basin to locate those with some work from these years. I did not include other buildings from the period, such as castles and cellars, as churches comprise a relatively weU-preserved population and I felt that the evolution of ideas could be best observed by concentrating on one formal type. The outer boundaries of the searched area were defined when I could travel for a day and find virtuaUy nothing from this period. Though there are churches beyond this perimeter, they are scattered and at times great distances from the heartland of the Basin. These are mapped in Fig. 1. The results of the survey were published in 1984.5 It has produced the first complete coUection of information related to one class of objects for these times—what statisticians would caU an homogeneous population of quantifiable data. There is, of course, the Domesday book from the century before, and the royal census from the next century, but nothing from the vital years that produced the Gothic revolution. This economic analysis is based on 669 churches which I consider to be the most sigrtificant. There is a similar number that I classify as less interesting because they were more roughly butit, with minimal decoration, vaults or profties. M y method has been to date every 4 Some of the biggest Gothic churches such as Amiens and Beauvais were built from local chalk. 5 James, 'An Investigation'. Funding the Early Gothic Churches ofthe Paris Basin 43 o Q / • . *> o • o [ • oo o • -t ( * r— VN vi ON 00 fS — fS m ON 5 r - r i — — O N — — r~~ rn «n V ^ - rs O •— fS V N . — r * » * o v t c o o o \ N O c i N O V J v ^ f s ^ r ^ O N O N i f l O N O O - O O J j N O rK v-)soraa v-( ON O...