Beauvais Cathedral: A Monumental Gothic Cathedral in France
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Carolingian, French
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page23 sections
History
Beauvais Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Beauvais, France, dedicated to Saint Peter and serving as the seat of the Diocese of Beauvais, Noyon and Senlis. Its Gothic rebuilding began in 1225 after a major fire destroyed the eastern part of the earlier cathedral, and the project produced a choir whose vaults rise to approximately 48.5 metres, the highest Gothic cathedral vaults ever constructed. The building became one of the most ambitious and technically demanding cathedral projects of the Middle Ages, but repeated structural failures and financial pressures left it permanently incomplete.
Early Christian and Carolingian Foundations
Christian tradition attributes the foundation of Beauvais’s Christian community to Saint Lucien, a Roman missionary who supposedly reached Gaul in the late third century and became the city’s first bishop. A chapel was reportedly built near the place of his martyrdom at Montmille in the early fourth century. The cathedral’s medieval predecessor was the Basse-Œuvre, meaning “Lower Work,” a late Carolingian church probably erected during the second half of the tenth century under Lothair and Louis V. An earlier church may have stood on the same site or may have been incorporated into the Carolingian building.
Two fires in the middle of the eleventh century led to the construction of a new western facade. Excavations beneath the Gothic cathedral later revealed a large Carolingian transept and subsidiary apses. The precise relationship between these elements and the original Carolingian plan remains uncertain, but they demonstrate the complexity of the cathedral’s earlier architectural history.
The Gothic Rebuilding
After the fire of 1225, Bishop-Count Milon de Nanteuil initiated a new cathedral slightly farther east. The eastern parts of the Basse-Œuvre were gradually demolished as the Gothic building advanced, while the surviving western portion remained in the area intended for the nave. Milon’s combined episcopal and comital authority made the project part of a wider political relationship between the bishop, the city and the French monarchy.
The new cathedral was intended to surpass the great churches of Amiens, Bourges, Chartres, Metz and Reims in size and height. Its exceptional scale may also have expressed Milon’s independence during his conflicts with the French crown and Beauvais’s bourgeois population. Royal intervention in 1232 deprived the bishop of his income and temporarily stopped construction. Work resumed more substantially in 1247 after financial arrangements had been secured, continuing under Bishop Guillaume de Grez.
Foundations were driven more than 10 metres down to stable rock in some places. The choir was completed during the thirteenth century, and services were being celebrated there by 1260. Vespers were sung in the new choir on 3 October 1272, marking the practical use of a building whose extraordinary height would soon expose it to severe structural pressures.
Collapse, Rebuilding, and Interrupted Expansion
In November 1284, probably during an exceptional storm, part of the choir vaults collapsed. A flying buttress, an external arched support that transfers the outward pressure of a vault to a detached buttress, had failed, while a structural weakness affected the second pier separating the aisles. Later analysis connected the collapse with wind-induced vibrations, although the exact cause remains uncertain. The apse suffered comparatively little damage.
The choir was rebuilt with thicker walls and additional intermediate piers. Its original three southern bays were divided into six, and repairs were completed around 1347. The Black Death, the fourteenth-century plague pandemic, and the Hundred Years’ War, the prolonged conflict between the English and French crowns, then interrupted further construction.
Beauvais was besieged in 1472 by the forces of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. The townspeople defended the city under the leadership traditionally associated with Jeanne Hachette, whose memory was later commemorated in imagery within the cathedral’s Sainte-Angadrême Chapel. Construction of the transept resumed around 1499 under Bishop-Count Louis de Villiers de L’Isle-Adam. The master mason Martin Chambiges directed the work with the assistance of Jean Vast. After Chambiges died on 29 August 1532, his son Pierre completed the transept in 1548.
The Crossing Tower and Permanent Incompletion
In 1550, the cathedral chapter decided to build a crossing tower instead of the planned nave. Jean Vast directed the work from 1563, and the stone tower, spire and summit cross were completed in 1569. Rising to approximately 153 metres, the tower was briefly the highest structure in the Christian world and remained one of the world’s highest constructions from 1569 to 1573.
The tower rested on four relatively light crossing piers and lacked the western counterbuttressing that a completed nave would have supplied. The iron cross was removed in 1572 because of its weight. On 30 April 1573, shortly after the Ascension service and procession had left the cathedral, the spire and the three upper stages of the tower collapsed. The disaster seriously damaged both the choir and the transept.
The crossing was re-vaulted and the damaged areas were cleared over the following five years, but the tower was never rebuilt. Repair costs consumed resources that might otherwise have supported the nave. Work ended permanently after the vaulting of the first nave bay and the construction of a western closing wall in 1604. Beauvais Cathedral therefore consists of the choir, the transept and only one nave bay. The Basse-Œuvre occupies the space intended for the rest of the nave and remains connected to the Gothic cathedral.
Revolution, Heritage Protection, and Modern Conservation
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, resources were directed mainly toward interior furnishings and decoration. The former medieval treasury had contained more than a thousand objects, but part of it was sold to help finance construction, ransom demands connected with King Francis I, and repairs after the 1573 collapse. The treasury was dispersed during the French Revolution, and parts were reassembled in the nineteenth century by Abbé Tesson.
In October 1793, revolutionary authorities destroyed statues on the south portal tympanum, removed part of the furnishings and melted down silverwork. The cathedral temporarily became a Temple of Reason, an institution established during the Revolution to replace Christian worship with a civic rationalist cult. From 1794 until 1822 it functioned only as a parish church. Its cathedral status was restored in 1822, and it was placed on France’s first list of historic monuments in 1840.
A proposal by Daniel Ramée in 1842 to add two western bays and a southern Neo-Gothic tower was abandoned after his dismissal. The failure of this scheme helped preserve part of the tenth-century Basse-Œuvre, which would otherwise have been demolished. Nineteenth-century restoration continued under Aymar Verdier, particularly on the interior, exterior and flying buttresses, and Joseph-Auguste-Émile Vaudremer succeeded him in 1873. Verdier’s work included wrought-iron screens in several ambulatory chapels, made by the metalworker Pierre Boulanger.
During the Second World War, figurative stained-glass windows were removed in 1939 and sheltered at the Château de Carrouges. On 6 June 1940, six bombs fell on the cathedral without exploding. The sacristy was destroyed, the remaining windows were shattered, and the astronomical clock stopped functioning.
Structural difficulties continued after the war. Iron tie-rods, metal bars that link structural elements and limit their outward movement, were removed during the 1960s because they were considered visually objectionable and unnecessary. Wind-induced oscillations then increased, fissures developed, and the choir and transept began to separate partially. Steel ties were later installed, although their greater rigidity may have created additional structural problems. Large timber and steel supports were placed in the transept during the 1990s, together with major internal bracing near the entrance to the northern ambulatory. Sensors installed in 2014 began a stability-monitoring system intended to support the eventual removal of temporary supports.
Emergency stone-clearance work followed the detachment of stones in 2006. In March 2016, scaffolding more than 50 metres high was erected at the east end to restore a pinnacle whose summit had fallen. Restoration of approximately 120 tonnes of lead roofing plates began in 2010. Differences in composition and fixing methods reveal several phases of manufacture, reuse and repair, and some northern plates may have been reused on the south slope after the 1573 collapse. A major campaign begun in 2022 for the cathedral’s eight-hundredth anniversary includes roof restoration, removal of internal supports and improvements to fire safety. The building remains closely monitored because of its height, exposure to wind and lack of a western nave.
Remains
Plan, Materials, and Gothic Elevation
Beauvais Cathedral follows a truncated Latin-cross plan oriented from west to east. Its surviving Gothic structure includes a choir with an ambulatory, eleven chapels opening from the ambulatory, a transept with two side aisles and the first bay of the nave. The building measures approximately 72.5 metres from the choir to the western facade. The choir is 47 metres long, the interior width of the transept is about 58.6 metres, the exterior height reaches 67.2 metres and the south facade is 64.4 metres high.
The cathedral is built chiefly from dressed white chalk of the Upper Cretaceous Coniacian stage, formed approximately 88 million years ago. Most of the stone came from quarries south of Beauvais near Saint-Martin-le-Nœud. Selected chalk beds supplied sufficiently consolidated blocks, although the stone remains porous and vulnerable to erosion and frost. The central vessel is 16 metres wide, while its vaults rise about 48.5 metres above the floor, or approximately 144 royal feet.
Choir and Ambulatory
Choir Structure
The choir has three straight bays and a seven-bay hemicycle, a curved sanctuary end. Its ambulatory opens onto four rectangular chapels and seven radiating chapels. The first three vaults became sexpartite vaults after the 1284 collapse, each divided into six compartments by an additional transverse rib. The rebuilt choir contains nineteen arcades instead of the original thirteen, with three additional piers on each side. Twelve piers support the main vault, while six semicircular piers support the apse vault.
Pointed arcades separate the choir from the ambulatory, and an open gallery rises above them. The choir’s three vertical levels are the great arcades, about 21.2 metres high, the triforium, a narrow middle passage between the main arcade and upper windows, about 4 metres high, and the clerestory, the upper windowed level that lights the central vessel, about 17 metres high. Nineteen upper windows rise to approximately 18 metres and contain tracery and rose forms.
Chevet and Chapels
The chevet, or eastern end of the cathedral, is arranged in three levels. Closely spaced buttresses and flying buttresses contain the outward pressure of the high vaults, while eight main buttresses encircle the radiating chapels. At the upper level, windows about 25 metres high are reinforced by intermediate buttresses projecting from the supporting piers.
The seven radiating chapels are dedicated to Saint Vincent, Saint Anthony, Saint Joseph, the Virgin Mary, Saint Anne, Saint Lucien and Saint Joan of Arc. Other chapels include the Chapel of the Dead in the south transept, the Sacred Heart Chapel in the north transept, the baptismal-fonts chapel, Sainte-Angadrême Chapel on the south side of the choir and a chapel associated with Saint Thérèse on the north side.
Ambulatory Art and Furnishings
Sainte-Cécile Chapel, which also houses the baptismal fonts, contains fourteenth-century wall paintings showing the arrival of a papal legate at Beauvais. Figures in the upper section may date from the fifteenth century. Its Fountain of Life window was made by Claude Courageux in 1981. Sainte-Angadrême Chapel contains a statue of the saint, a painting of the 1472 siege, an eighteenth-century painting of Jesus with Martha and Mary and nineteenth-century furnishings.
Saint Vincent Chapel preserves thirteenth- and fourteenth-century stained glass, including two lateral windows donated by Raoul de Senlis in the 1290s. Its Passion altarpiece is attributed to Nicolas Le Prince and Nicolas Nitart. Other ambulatory chapels contain stained glass and furnishings by modern and contemporary artists including Barillet, Le Chevallier and Claude Courageux. Sainte-Madeleine Chapel has an eighteenth-century carved wooden altarpiece and a marble monument, while the Saint-Lucien Chapel contains a statue of the saint.
Transept and Portals
Crossing and Rose Windows
The transept has a square central crossing and north and south arms covered by rib vaults. Dates including 1537, 1550 and 1578 are inscribed on the vaults. Each transept facade contains a Flamboyant Gothic rose window approximately 11 metres in diameter above a glazed arcade. Flamboyant Gothic, a later phase of medieval Gothic design, is characterized by elaborate flame-like tracery and ornament.
South Facade and Portal
The south transept facade is decorated with Flamboyant Gothic sculpture and flanked by octagonal turrets. Rounded at their bases, the turrets contain internal stairways. Their cornices carry fantastic animals, grotesques and angels, together with the crowned initial F of King Francis I.
The wooden south portal leaves, attributed to Jean Le Pot, show Saint Peter healing a disabled man at the Temple of Jerusalem on the left and Saint Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus on the right. The upper section depicts Paul being lowered in a basket from the walls of Damascus. Revolutionary mutilation damaged some figures, and fleurs-de-lis on the inner faces were cut away.
North Facade and Portal
Francis I partly financed the north facade. Its doors bear his crowned salamander emblem, while fleurs-de-lis formerly carved on the north and south doors were destroyed during the Revolution. Produced from about 1530 and attributed to Jean Le Pot, the north portal leaves depict the four Evangelists, the four Doctors of the Church and groups of Sibyls.
The north portal tympanum contains a carved genealogical tree that does not appear to be a Tree of Jesse. Its archivolts include figures, animals, dragons, a lion, a tarasque, a man with a wheelbarrow, a ram, a chimera, a griffin and a wolf devouring a lamb, along with vine leaves, grapes and other foliage.
Stained Glass
Beauvais Cathedral preserves stained glass from the thirteenth, fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, supplemented by twentieth-century windows. The oldest window, in the axial Notre-Dame Chapel, dates from 1240 and depicts a Tree of Jesse and the legend of Theophilus. Thirteenth-century choir windows use blue- and red-dominant full-colour glazing.
Fourteenth-century windows demonstrate the use of silver compounds to illuminate hair, haloes and ornaments. The central upper window shows Christ on the Cross with the Virgin, while adjoining windows depict Saints Peter, Andrew, John and Paul. Sixteenth-century glazing includes work by the Beauvaisian Le Prince family. Engrand Le Prince produced a major window, and members of three generations of the family worked on the cathedral between 1491 and 1561.
The transept roses and other windows combine geometric designs with scenes from Christian history, including the Nativity, Flight into Egypt, Adoration of the Magi, Presentation in the Temple, Massacre of the Innocents, Christ walking on water and the Crucifixion. Later additions include Jacques Le Chevallier’s 1954 Sainte-Anne cycle, Max Ingrand’s 1958 north-transept rose of the Last Judgment, Michel Durand’s 1972 window, Anne Le Chevallier’s 1976 Sainte-Angadrême cycle, Jeanette Weiss-Gruber’s 1986 work incorporating two fourteenth-century donor fragments and Sylvie Gaudin’s windows of 1986 to 1990 in the triforium and north aisle. Contemporary ambulatory and triforium windows were restored in 2016, and openings that allowed rain into the upper windows were sealed.
Clocks and Organs
Medieval Chiming Clock
Near the sacristy and treasury in Sainte-Thérèse Chapel stands the oldest functioning medieval chiming clock of its type. Completed in 1305, it was financed by Canon Étienne Musique, who died in 1323 or 1324, and repaired in 1387. Its twelve-key keyboard operates hammers and can play different melodies for liturgical feasts. The clock has a fifteenth-century housing, an eighteenth-century renewed dial, a Gothic lantern and three weights reached by a side stair.
Astronomical Clock
The astronomical clock was designed by the nineteenth-century clockmaker Auguste-Lucien Vérité between 1865 and 1868 and installed in 1876 in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in the north transept. It contains approximately 90,000 steel and brass mechanical parts, 53 enamel dials, including 52 on the facade, 63 automata and chimes, and 68 upper automata forming a Last Judgment scene. The mechanism stands in a Romanesque-Byzantine style case about 12 metres high, 5.12 metres wide and 2.82 metres deep, operated by a main motor and subsidiary motors.
Organs
The large organ in the west gallery incorporates parts of a sixteenth-century instrument by Des Oliviers. Cosyn rebuilt it in 1827, and Danion-Gonzalez reconstructed it in 1979. It has four manuals, pedal, 77 stops and approximately 5,000 pipes. The choir organ was built by Ducroquet in 1850 and modified by Gutschenritter in 1943. Its Neo-Gothic case measures approximately 4.15 metres wide, 7.20 metres high and 2.25 metres deep, and the instrument has two manuals, pedal and 21 stops.
Furnishings, Paintings, and Sculpture
Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century carved choir stalls were transferred from the former Saint-Paul Abbey. Their decoration includes carved misericords, grotesques, angels, mouldings and relief figures. The marble, lead and gilded-wood high altar dates from 1758 and replaced an altar donated by Louis XI. Other furnishings include a seventeenth-century gilded episcopal throne with eighteenth-century Beauvais tapestry, a late seventeenth-century carved pulpit from the former Saint-Lucien Abbey, eighteenth-century marble baptismal fonts and a 1739 wrought-iron sanctuary enclosure made by Antoine Pichet, Benoît and Gabriel Parent to designs by Jérôme Beausire.
Near the sacristy in the north aisle stands a funerary monument to Cardinal Toussaint de Forbin-Janson, bishop of Beauvais. Made by Nicolas Coustou in 1736, it depicts the cardinal kneeling and holding his biretta against his chest. Paintings from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries include works attributed to Charles de La Fosse, Jean Jouvenet, José de Ribera, François Maurepin and Quentin Varin. Their subjects include the Crucifixion, Resurrection, Christ healing the sick, Saint Jerome, Saint Denis receiving Communion, the Disciples at Emmaus, the Baptism of Clovis, the Siege of Beauvais and Christ dead.
Notable sculptures include a fifteenth-century Christ on the Cross, a fifteenth-century polychrome wooden Ecce Homo beneath a Flamboyant Gothic canopy, a sixteenth-century statue of Saint Angadrême, a seventeenth-century plaster group by Nicolas Sébastien Adam showing the Virgin helping the Christ Child to walk and a seated Saint Peter at the south entrance. A marble monument to Joan of Arc, made in 1930 by Charles Desvergnes, Marc Jacquin and Gabriel Chauvin, shows Bishop Eugène-Stanislas Le Senne kneeling before Joan and asking forgiveness for the role played by Bishop Pierre Cauchon of Beauvais in her 1431 trial. A relief panel stands behind the statue.
Six of the original eleven fifteenth-century tapestries depicting the Life of Saint Peter survive in the cathedral. Bishop Guillaume de Hellande donated them in 1461. A Flemish Passion tapestry made around 1500 was acquired by the cathedral in 1837 and is deposited at the Departmental Museum of the Oise.
Cloister and Chapter Buildings
The cloister was probably built in the fourteenth century under Bishop Pierre de Savoisy. Two of its original four sides survive. Its four-bay arcades are trilobed and supported by three buttresses, while a flat ceiling rests on decorated wooden corbels. A timber-framed and brick building above the cloister formerly housed the chapter library.
A sixteenth-century stone building adjoining the cloister contains the chapter room and an archive room. The chapter room is lit by mullioned windows with wooden shutters decorated in a folded-towel pattern. The central garden is raised about 60 centimetres above the cloister floor and contains an iron cross mounted on a sixteenth-century stone column.
Nearby sites
