Metz Cathedral: A French Gothic Cathedral in Metz
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.8
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- High
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Classical, Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- French, German, Holy Roman Empire, Roman
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page27 sections
History
Metz Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Metz, France, dedicated to Saint Stephen. Metz became an episcopal seat in the third century, and a sanctuary dedicated to Saint Stephen stood here by the fifth century. The present building is chiefly French Gothic, with construction probably beginning around 1235–40 and continuing through successive campaigns for approximately three centuries.
From the Saint Stephen sanctuary to the Ottonian cathedral
Gregory of Tours wrote that the Saint Stephen sanctuary was the only structure spared when the Huns sacked Metz on 7 April 451. Its survival was regarded as miraculous, and the sanctuary became the seat of the bishop and the first cathedral of Metz. Tradition attributes a chapel dedicated to Saint Mary to Dagobert, ruler of Austrasia. Around 784, Paul the Deacon recorded that Pepin the Short financially assisted Bishop Chrodegang with work on the sanctuary, including a ciborium, chancel, presbytery, and ambulatory, a passage around the choir or apse.
The cathedral also hosted important Carolingian and imperial events. The decisions of the Council of Thionville were read there in 835 in the presence of Emperor Louis the Pious. On 9 September 869, Charles II the Bald was crowned king of Lotharingia in the cathedral. In 1356, Emperor Charles IV was received there while promulgating the Golden Bull, the constitutional instrument that regulated the election of Holy Roman Emperors. Emperor Frederick III and his son Maximilian attended a service in 1473.
Bishop Thierry I began a replacement cathedral between 965 and 984 with financial assistance from Emperors Otto I and Otto II. His successor, Thierry II, completed the church, which was consecrated on 27 June 1040, or in 1039–40. This Ottonian basilica, a church form associated with the German emperors of the Ottonian period, replaced the earlier Saint Stephen sanctuary.
The joining of two medieval churches
A collegiate church dedicated to Notre-Dame-la-Ronde was built against the Ottonian cathedral around 1186. It was later rebuilt in Gothic form and eventually incorporated into the present building. The cathedral therefore preserves the history of two churches within a single structure.
The beginning of the Gothic rebuilding remains uncertain in the surviving chronology. Bishop Conrad of Scharfenberg may have initiated the project around 1220, but construction of the present Gothic structure probably began around 1235–40. The earlier date may refer to preliminary decisions or other cathedral documentation rather than the start of construction.
The two churches were rebuilt alongside one another. Their chapters agreed that they should share forms and dimensions and stand beneath one roof. In 1380, the separating wall was removed and replaced by a grille, while the floor of Notre-Dame-la-Ronde was lowered to the level of Saint Stephen’s Cathedral. The first three bays of the present nave thus belong structurally and historically to Notre-Dame-la-Ronde, while the remaining five bays belong to the cathedral proper.
Gothic rebuilding and completion
Under Bishop Jacques of Lorraine, the first Gothic campaigns built the lower nave walls and arcades. The work began in an Early Gothic manner and later adopted the taller Rayonnant Gothic design, a style emphasizing high walls, tracery, and extensive stained glass. The nave was completed in the fourteenth century, while the transept and choir were rebuilt during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.
Construction proceeded intermittently because it depended on donations, indulgences, vacant prebends of the cathedral chapter, and episcopal contributions. A confraternity of Saint Mary and Saint Stephen was founded around 1330 to raise money for the building works. Pierre Perrat directed the construction of the high vaults in the second half of the fourteenth century. The nave was vaulted approximately between 1360 and 1380, and Hermann of Münster’s great western rose was commissioned in 1381 and completed in 1384.
The later Gothic campaign began in 1486–87 with the demolition and rebuilding of the northern transept. The remaining Ottonian choir, its Romanesque towers, and the southern transept were subsequently replaced. The choir was completed by 1521, the final windows by Valentin Bousch were installed in 1539, and the cathedral was consecrated on 11 April 1552. Consecrations in 1540 and 1552 reflect the continuing completion and alteration of the building. Major Renaissance stained glass was produced by Théobald de Lixheim in 1504 and by Valentin Bousch between 1521 and 1539.
Several chapels were added or rebuilt during these centuries. Bishop Adhémar de Monteil built a chapel in the fifth bay of the southern aisle. Bishop Conrad Bayer of Boppard had it rebuilt by Jean de Commercy between 1440 and 1443, after which it became known as the Bishops’ Chapel. The Chapel of the Holy Sacrament was begun around 1350 and completed by Jean de Commercy in 1443. It served as a burial chapel for the bishops of Metz.
Early modern changes
In 1642, Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet became a cathedral canon at the age of thirteen. He preached his first sermon there on 21 July 1652, became dean of the cathedral chapter in 1664, and left the post in 1669 to become bishop of Condom. In 1671, Elisabeth Charlotte of Bavaria abjured Protestantism, received baptism, and married Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, by proxy in the cathedral.
During the eighteenth century, city authorities cleared medieval buildings around the cathedral to create the Place d’Armes, Place de Chambre, and Place du Marché. The cloister, chapter buildings, and several churches and chapels were demolished despite clerical opposition, substantially changing the cathedral’s urban setting.
Jacques-François Blondel designed a Neoclassical portico, built in 1764–66 under the direction of Louis Gardeur-Lebrun. Louis XV partly financed it in fulfilment of a vow made after recovering from a serious illness at Metz in 1744. The portico concealed and damaged parts of the medieval south-west entrance and its stained glass.
Revolution, repair, and German restoration
The French Revolution brought extensive destruction. The cathedral chapter was abolished in 1790, and the building became a parish and episcopal church. It was designated a Temple of Reason in 1793–94 and lost many altars, tombs, and furnishings. Catholic worship was restored in 1802 after the Concordat of 1801.
The medieval building was in poor condition in the early nineteenth century. Structural problems affected the vaults, arches, towers, foundations, and wooden belfry. Government-financed repairs and reconstruction followed, including work on the Mutte tower completed in 1843.
After the Franco-Prussian War, the Treaty of Frankfurt of 14 May 1871 placed Metz and the Moselle under the German Empire until 1918. German authorities then undertook an idealized Gothic restoration under Paul Tornow, who directed the cathedral works from 1874. Fireworks held for the visit of Emperor William I caused a major roof fire on 7 May 1877. The roof was destroyed, but the masonry vaults survived and protected the interior.
Between 1880 and 1882, the wooden roof was replaced with metal Polonceau trusses and copper covering, raised approximately 4.5 metres. New Gothic gables were added between 1883 and 1886. Tornow restored the vaults, flying buttresses, towers, chapels, crypt, and portals. The Blondel portico was removed in 1898, and a new Neo-Gothic western portal, designed by Tornow and executed with Auguste Dujardin, was completed and inaugurated by Emperor William II on 14 May 1903.
Wilhelm Schmitz restored and refurnished the interior between 1908 and 1919. New choir furnishings, screens, and other fittings were introduced, while choir stalls made in Colmar were installed in 1922–23 after the First World War delayed their placement. Metz returned to France in 1918. The cathedral escaped war damage during the First World War, and the statue of the prophet Daniel on the western portal was retained despite its resemblance to William II.
War damage and continuing conservation
In 1938, historic stained glass was removed and stored in the crypt before being evacuated near Poitiers. During the occupation it was taken to Germany and was reportedly recovered by American forces in the Altaussee salt mine at the end of the Second World War. A hailstorm in 1942 destroyed much of the remaining upper stained glass, especially nineteenth-century grisaille, a pale type of glazing used to admit light and contrast with coloured glass.
Fighting during the liberation of Metz in November 1944 damaged masonry, roof coverings, tracery, and nineteenth-century windows in the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament. Demolitions of bridges also shook the structure. Postwar restoration first concentrated on emergency repairs to roofs, façades, windows, buttresses, and the Mutte tower. The French state created the corps of architects of the buildings of France in 1945 and established a regional conservation service in 1965 to organize and supervise the work.
Campaigns from the 1950s onward repaired or replaced roofs and damaged glazing and restored the south and north façades. Steel ties stabilized the western rose between 1995 and 2000, while damage caused when a pinnacle fell through the sacristy roof during the 1999 storm was repaired. The Mutte tower was restored between 2009 and 2015, and its bell, silent since 1919, sounded again in 2015. The cathedral has been protected as a French Monument historique since 16 February 1930. It is state property, while the clergy remains responsible for worship and conservation authorities supervise maintenance and restoration.
Postwar glazing included replacement windows by Jean Gaudin and the Simon workshop, designs by Jacques Villon for the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament, abstract windows by Roger Bissière for the Mutte and Chapter towers, and windows by Marc Chagall produced between 1958 and 1970. Kimsooja created windows for sixteen south-transept bays between 2020 and 2022. The choir was modernized in 2004–07 with liturgical furnishings designed by Mattia Bonetti in collaboration with Christophe Bottineau. The Renaissance organ was fully restored in 1981 and received further restoration in 2022.
Remains
Plan, materials, and elevation
Metz Cathedral is built chiefly from local yellow Jaumont limestone, a warm-coloured stone quarried in the Metz region. Its main architectural language is French Gothic, especially Rayonnant Gothic in the nave, with Flamboyant Gothic, a later phase known for elaborate flame-like tracery and ornament, in the transept and choir. Nineteenth-century restoration added Gothic Revival elements.
The cathedral has an unusual orientation, approximately 50 degrees counterclockwise from the conventional east-west axis. Its axis follows the ancient street grid of the Roman city and points approximately north-northeast, reflecting the site’s position near the Moselle. The building measures about 136 metres externally and 123.2 metres internally, covers approximately 3,500 square metres, and has a western façade about 33 metres wide.
The central nave, the main longitudinal space for the congregation, is about 41.41 metres high and 15.60 metres wide. Its side aisles rise approximately 14.3 metres, creating a strong contrast with the nave. The transept, which crosses the nave, is approximately 46.80 metres long and 16.34 metres wide. The nave’s three-level elevation consists of pointed arcades, a triforium, or narrow gallery above the main arcade, and high windows.
Bundled piers and slender colonnettes support the vaults, and the piers retain carved foliage, grapevines, and drapery dating from about 1245. The nave’s four-part rib vaults rise approximately 41.2–42.6 metres. Its flying buttresses, exterior stone supports that carry the outward thrust of high vaults away from the walls, were heightened and strengthened when the planned elevation of the nave increased.
Two churches and the principal portals
Notre-Dame-la-Ronde and the western limit
The first three bays of the nave belong to Notre-Dame-la-Ronde, whose axis is perpendicular to that of Saint Stephen’s Cathedral. Its former choir is now the Chapel of Notre-Dame-du-Carmel. Because Notre-Dame-la-Ronde occupied the western bays, the cathedral lacks the usual three-portal western façade. The Mutte and Chapter towers stand at the third bay and mark the former western limit of the cathedral.
Virgin Portal
The principal medieval access was the oblique south-western Virgin Portal, reconstructed for Notre-Dame-la-Ronde around 1260. It opens toward the Place d’Armes. Its tympanum shows the Dormition and Coronation of the Virgin with apostles and angels. Most of the remaining sculpture was recreated or restored under Auguste Dujardin in the nineteenth century, while traces of orange, red, and green pigment indicate that the medieval sculpture was originally painted.
Notre-Dame Portal
The Notre-Dame Portal opens on the north side at the second bay, opposite the former apse of Notre-Dame-la-Ronde. Its principal decoration dates from the late thirteenth century. An open rose appears in the tympanum, surrounded by drapery and fantastical beasts, while narrative panels show episodes associated with David, Empress Helena, Saint Margaret, and Saint Stephen.
Western portal
The western portal is a Neo-Gothic single portal inaugurated in 1903. Paul Tornow designed it, and Auguste Dujardin supervised its sculpture. The tympanum depicts the Last Judgment, with Christ between personifications of the Church and Synagogue. Four large statues represent Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. Daniel was given the facial features of William II, and his moustache was removed during the German occupation in 1940.
The western gable was rebuilt with a nine-part gallery and pinnacles in 1897. The portal’s sculpture includes more than 500 figures and follows forms intended to evoke medieval Gothic sculpture.
Bell towers and western structures
Mutte tower
The south Mutte tower originated as the municipal bell tower. Its stone upper structure was rebuilt after the fire of 1468, and Hannes de Ranconval completed its Flamboyant spire around 1481. The tower contains watch platforms and the 11-ton Mutte bell, which measures 2.32 metres in diameter and was last recast in 1605.
The tower also contains the 70-kilogram Turmel bell, cast in 1875. It is associated with a local legend about an unjustly executed servant whose innocence was later revealed.
Chapter tower
The Chapter Tower stands opposite the Mutte on the north side, directly above the Saint Stephen Portal. Its lower section is thirteenth-century, while its upper part was rebuilt between 1839 and 1844. The tower has no spire, and a 5.20-metre crucifix by Auguste Dujardin was installed on it in 1894. Six bells hang within it, including the seventeenth-century Marie, the Renaissance Catherine, later recast in 1890, and Paul, installed in 2020.
Horloge Tower
An octagonal Horloge Tower supports the north side of the western front. Its lower portion may preserve elements of the former collegiate church, while its upper belfry and open pyramid were added in 1896. The exterior includes an angel with a sundial, the arms of Metz, and the date 1504.
Transept, choir, and crypt
Transept
The transept and choir were rebuilt mainly between 1486 and 1520 in Flamboyant Gothic forms while retaining the elevation scheme established in the nave. Narrow internal and external passageways run through the transept walls. At the crossing, lierne and tierceron ribs form a star around a keystone approximately 1.7 metres high and 3.7 metres wide.
The north and south transept gables were reconstructed in Neo-Gothic form in the 1880s. The south gable is crowned by statues of Saint Nicholas and Saint Goëry, with Saint Stephen above the great window. The north gable is crowned by a statue of the Virgin.
Chevet and crypt
The chevet, the eastern termination of the church, was rebuilt between 1503 and 1508 above the earlier Romanesque crypt. It contains an apse, an ambulatory, and three radiating chapels dedicated to the Virgin, the Sacred Heart, and Notre-Dame of Mount Carmel. Two slender octagonal towers flank it, the northern Tower of the Golden Apple and the southern Tower of Charlemagne. They provide additional support and recall the Romanesque and Rhineland traditions of the earlier cathedral.
The crypt beneath the choir incorporates remains of the eleventh-century Romanesque crypt and was enlarged in the sixteenth century to support the new chevet. It was restored between 1889 and 1900 and contains models, drawings, photographs, sculpture, and objects illustrating the development of the cathedral. The Graoully, a dragon figure formerly carried in processions, is also kept there. Its head is medieval, while its body was replaced in 1864 as a nineteenth-century canvas-covered framework.
Chapel of the Holy Sacrament
The Chapel of the Holy Sacrament contains fragments of tomb monuments damaged during the Revolution. An ornate wrought-iron grille closes the chapel and is associated with the workshop of Jean Lamour. Its medieval wall paintings were restored in 1909.
The chapel’s nineteenth-century windows were damaged during the Second World War and replaced in 1957 with windows designed by Jacques Villon and executed by Simon-Marq. Their subjects include the Crucifixion, the Passover, Moses bringing water from the rock at Horeb, the Wedding at Cana, and the Last Supper.
Choir, chapels, and organs
The choir is raised approximately twelve steps above the transept. Its present liturgical furniture is made from bronze, marble, and oak and includes an altar, ambo, cathedra, cross, credence table, celebrants’ seats, and candlesticks designed by Mattia Bonetti. A cathedra is the bishop’s chair, from which a cathedral takes its name.
The choir contains the so-called ancient throne of Saint Clement, made from a Roman cipollino-marble column and traditionally regarded as an episcopal seat since the Merovingian period. Its stalls were made in Colmar by Théophile Klem in 1913–14 and installed in 1922–23. The choir screen dates from 1912, while the choir-ambulatory balustrades and grilles were made by Tornow in 1882.
The ambulatory contains chapels dedicated to Saint Joseph, the Virgin, and Saint Livier, as well as episcopal epitaphs and tomb monuments. The chapel windows include sixteenth-century glass, nineteenth-century replacements, and reused windows from the former Church of Saint Barbara.
Four organs are preserved in the cathedral, including the suspended Renaissance organ, choir organ, transept organ, and crypt organ. The larger modern organ in the south transept was installed in 1970 by Haerpfer-Erman and has 27 stops. The Renaissance organ was built by Jehan de Trèves in 1537 and hangs in a swallow’s-nest gallery about 14 metres above the floor. Its case preserves historic elements, while the instrument was reconstructed in 1981 and restored in 2022. It now has ten stops on two manuals and pedal.
The choir organ was built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll in 1862, repeatedly modified and relocated, and reconstructed with surviving historic components. The present instrument has 30 stops and stands behind the high altar. Charles Mutin installed a small four-stop organ in the crypt in 1905.
Stained glass and movable heritage
Windows from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries
Stained glass in the cathedral ranges from the thirteenth century to the twenty-first. Early windows use small pieces of strongly coloured glass held by lead. Later windows employ larger panes, iron supports, stone tracery, silver stain, enamel, and grisaille.
The oldest surviving glass includes thirteenth-century blue panels in the southern transept showing six scenes from the life of Saint Paul. Other early panels from Notre-Dame-la-Ronde depict the genealogy of Christ and the Virgin, prophets, apostles, and the Coronation of the Virgin.
Hermann of Münster created the great western rose and associated glazing in 1384. The rose, approximately 11 metres in diameter, presents correspondences between the Apostles’ Creed and its Old Testament prefigurations. Hermann’s epitaph survives near the first bay of the northern aisle.
Théobald de Lixheim’s northern-transept window dates from 1504 and includes apostles, saints, evangelists, the Coronation of the Virgin, coats of arms, and a Latin inscription identifying the artist and date. It was restored in 1907–10. Valentin Bousch created the major southern-transept glazing between 1521 and 1527, as well as other choir and apse windows. His work combines late Gothic and Renaissance features, including perspective and shading.
Modern glazing
The cathedral’s glazed surfaces cover approximately 6,496 square metres, and the west window alone covers about 350 square metres. Jacques Villon designed five eucharistic windows for the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament in 1956–57. Roger Bissière designed abstract windows for the north and south tower portals in 1960. Marc Chagall created windows depicting Genesis, the Old Testament, and compositions of flowers and birds between 1958 and 1970.
Kimsooja’s windows for sixteen south-transept bays were created between 2020 and 2022. They combine traditional blown glass with industrial dichroic glass and draw on the five traditional Korean colours.
Treasury and funerary monuments
The treasury is kept in the sacristy and crypt. It includes episcopal ivory croziers from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, goldsmiths’ work from the twelfth to nineteenth centuries, sacred vessels, episcopal staffs, crucifixes, and the episcopal ring traditionally associated with Saint Arnoul.
Among its objects is the Mantle of Charlemagne, a purple silk ceremonial garment made in Constantinople in the twelfth century and decorated with gold-embroidered eagles and dragons. A hood and Passion imagery were added later, and the mantle is displayed only on special occasions because of its sensitivity to light. The treasury also preserves the wooden Gueulard, a head from the former medieval organ whose mouth, tongue, and eyes could move when the organist used the Vox humana stop.
The original late ninth-century equestrian statuette traditionally called the Statuette of Charlemagne came from the cathedral treasury and is now in the Louvre. A bronze copy made in 1882 is displayed in the crypt. The former treasury included a Roman porphyry basin reused as a baptismal font, with a sixteenth-century statue of Our Lady of Mercy nearby.
The cathedral contains funerary monuments and praying effigies of Anne de Pérusse des Cars, Cardinal de Givry, and Bishop Paul Dupont des Loges. De Givry died in 1612, and his original tomb was destroyed during the Revolution before being restored in 1854 and 1911. The monument to Dupont des Loges was made by Emmanuel Hannaux.
