Poitiers Cathedral: An Angevin Gothic Cathedral in France
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- Primary era
- Medieval
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- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Duchy of Aquitaine, English, French
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- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page22 sections
History
Poitiers Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Poitiers, France, dedicated to Saint Peter and serving as the seat of the Diocese of Poitiers, later the Archdiocese of Poitiers. Its present building is an Angevin Gothic cathedral founded shortly after the middle of the twelfth century, probably around 1155. The church belongs to a period when the diocese contained more than 1,200 parishes, and its scale reflected the needs of a large ecclesiastical community.
Earlier cathedrals and the foundation of the present church
The cathedral stands north of the earlier church associated with Hilary of Poitiers. A predecessor on the present site was rebuilt from 839 with imperial financial support. Fire destroyed it in 1018, after which William the Great, Count of Poitou and Duke of Aquitaine, restored and enlarged the building in 1024. The earlier cathedral may have been rebuilt more than once before work began on the present structure.
The initiative for the new cathedral came from the bishop of Poitiers and the cathedral chapter, the body of canons attached to the church. Its financing came from the bishop, the chapter, the wider body of the faithful, and possibly Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II of England. Eleanor was a powerful twelfth-century duchess and queen of both France and England, while Henry II was king of England and founder of the Plantagenet dynasty. Their possible involvement places the project within the political world surrounding Poitiers.
Construction proceeded through seven successive campaigns rather than according to one fixed plan. Work began with the two eastern bays and the south arm of the transept. Near the end of the twelfth century, builders added the north nave wall and the base of the north-western tower. The first choir and transept vaults, a tower over the crossing, the south side, and the western facade followed in later stages. As the work continued, changes and revisions altered the original Angevin Gothic conception, which increasingly appeared old-fashioned during the long building process.
Medieval construction and use
During the fifth campaign, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, the central nave vault was raised from 23 metres to 27.9 metres between the transept crossing and the western end. This alteration required the provisional roofs to be revised so that the three vessels could receive a uniform covering. The western facade dates mainly from the second third of the thirteenth century, while its two towers were not completed until the beginning of the sixteenth century.
Poitiers Cathedral was finally consecrated on 17 October 1379. Before the Revolution, its chapter of canons conducted daily worship and the Liturgy of the Hours, the regular cycle of prayers and readings assigned to the clergy. For a period, the chapter also elected the bishop when the see was vacant. The nave accommodated major ceremonies and two annual synodal meetings, while the size of the choir and its stalls reflected the cathedral’s extensive clerical establishment.
The cathedral suffered repeated damage during periods of conflict. In 1346, during the Hundred Years’ War, English troops commanded by the Earl of Derby plundered it. Huguenot forces plundered and damaged the building again in 1562 during the Wars of Religion, the civil conflicts between Catholics and Protestants in France. During the Protestant siege of Poitiers in 1569, cannon fire directed by Admiral Coligny struck the eastern end.
Fire, Revolution, and changing institutions
A fire at Christmas in 1681 destroyed the organ and damaged the rose window. The window was reconstructed and recomposed in 1687. A bell-bearing spire over the crossing had repeatedly been struck by lightning, and the diocese removed it from the choir in 1737. Further works between 1771 and the Revolution included repairs to the nave roof structure and the construction of an organ gallery in 1777.
From 1793 to 1795, during the revolutionary campaign that replaced Catholic worship in many churches with civic religion, the cathedral served as a Temple of Reason. The episcopal see was restored in 1801, and the building subsequently functioned as a parish church. After the Revolution, furnishings from suppressed religious houses were transferred to the cathedral, including works from the Trinité Benedictine Abbey, the Dominican convent, a Capuchin convent, and a Carmelite convent.
The history of the organ extends at least to a probable instrument in 1363. Around 1460, Pierre de Montfort, a Benedictine monk, built an organ that was proposed as a model for the cathedrals of Besançon and Chartres. The instrument was destroyed during the sack of 1562. A new organ by Crespin Carlier, received in 1613 after its construction in 1611, was lost in the fire of 1681.
The present organ gallery was built between 1770 and 1778 by the Poitevin architect Vetault. The canons commissioned the great organ in 1787, and it was installed in February 1791. It survived the Revolutionary period, although deterioration led to later restoration campaigns, including major work from 1988 to 1994. The cathedral became a French historic monument in 1875, and its organ received historic-monument protection in 1908. Poitiers was raised to archiepiscopal status in 2002, while the cathedral had become a minor basilica on 1 March 1912.
Excavation and conservation
Archaeological excavations in 1986 recovered foundations belonging to the ancient cathedral west of the Saint-Jean Baptistery, within or beside the Gallo-Roman enclosure. The work took place during construction of the Pierre Mendès-France complex and an underground connection to the Sainte-Croix Museum. Later investigations and restoration revealed medieval paintings beneath successive coatings. Restoration of the south transept from 2015 to 2017 exposed late-thirteenth-century wall paintings that had been covered with whitewash in the eighteenth century. A major campaign begun in 2015 restored paintings from the second half of the thirteenth century.
Remains
Poitiers Cathedral is a large rectangular building with a projecting transept, a three-bay choir, and a four-bay nave. Its Angevin Gothic design uses strongly convex or domed vaults over square bays within the spatial arrangement of a hall church, in which the central and side vessels are nearly equal in height. The three vessels support one another, and light enters through paired windows around the perimeter walls. The result is a unified interior extending beneath high vaults and a very large slate-covered double-pitched roof exceeding 5,500 square metres.
Plan, vaults, and exterior structure
The nave measures approximately 96.4 metres externally. Its interior width is 34.4 metres near the western facade and 30.4 metres toward the east. The central vessel is 10.5 metres wide between the piers, while each side vessel measures 9.5 metres. The transept is about 58 metres long. The transept chapels are approximately 14 metres wide from east to west and 12.7 metres deep from north to south. The eastern end measures 36 metres across externally, and the western facade, including its towers, is 46 metres wide.
The flat eastern end rises about 39 metres above Sainte-Croix Street and stands on a 2-metre plinth. The ground descends by approximately 80 centimetres from the church floor to the western forecourt, by 1.7 metres from the forecourt to Cathedral Square, and by 4.5 metres overall between the eastern base and the western side of the square. Vaults east of the transept reach 23 metres, the central nave vault west of the crossing rises to 27.9 metres, and the side-vessel vaults reach 23.5 metres. The north tower is 32 metres high above Cathedral Square; the south tower rises 34 metres without its pinnacles and roof, and 40 metres with them.
The earliest vaults, over the two easternmost bays and the south transept arm, have massive ribs without keystones. Toward the west, the ribs become finer and the windows develop from earlier Gothic forms toward Rayonnant Gothic, a later phase distinguished by elaborate tracery and large geometrically organized windows. Massive buttresses support the exterior. The north and south transept arms contain circulation passages, oculi, capitals with vegetal decoration, and eighteenth-century balustrades.
Three semicircular apses are set within the thickness of the straight eastern wall. A continuous series of arcades supports a narrow passage decorated with numerous modillions, small projecting brackets, and angled connecting passages. The building broadens and rises from east to west, strengthening the perspective through the interior. Large ceramic vessels were embedded in parts of the vaulting beneath the roof structure to improve sound reverberation.
Western facade and sculpted entrances
Western facade
The western facade is recessed between two towers and contains three gabled portals and a rose window 9 metres in diameter. Its gallery and central gable are nineteenth-century Neo-Gothic additions. The portal sculpture, executed around 1250 by one or more workshops, is arranged in high relief over three levels and reflects the influence of northern French Gothic. Its ambition is comparable to the portal ensembles of Paris, Bourges, and Reims, while the rose window recalls the design of the south transept rose window at Notre-Dame de Paris.
Central and side portals
The central portal presents the Last Judgment. Its scenes include the resurrection of the dead, Saint Michael separating the blessed from the damned, Christ as judge displaying his wounds, the Virgin and Saint John, angels carrying the instruments of the Passion, and figures from the Old and New Testaments. The left portal represents the Dormition and Coronation of the Virgin, with the Virgin surrounded by figures at her Assumption, Christ blessing her, angels crowning her, and saints, clergy, and other holy figures in the archivolts, the decorated bands following the curve of the arch.
The right portal is dedicated to Saint Thomas. Its sculpture shows his disbelief, preaching, baptism, and charitable works, as well as the miraculous celestial palace described in the Golden Legend, a widely circulated medieval collection of saints’ lives associated with Jacobus de Voragine. Angels, armed saints, and the parable of the wise and foolish virgins occupy the archivolts.
Saint Michael door
Opened in the north side of the nave around 1180, the Saint Michael door has historiated capitals forming a continuous frieze. The scenes include the Magi visiting Herod and travelling toward Bethlehem, the Massacre of the Innocents, the Flight into Egypt, the Annunciation, Joseph’s Dream, the Adoration of the Magi, and the Visitation.
Painted decoration and stained glass
Medieval and later paintings
Late-thirteenth-century painted decoration survives in the first bay and in the two western bays. Painted ribs and arches end in strongly projecting sculpted heads joined to trompe-l’oeil painted bodies, creating figures through the combination of sculpture and painting. Preliminary investigations in 2012, carried out before work to prevent water entering through the nave vaults, revealed extensive medieval paintings beneath a 1783 neoclassical coating that imitated stone. These paintings date from the second half of the thirteenth century and extend from the vaults toward the floor. By November 2015, coating had been removed from 600 of the approximately 900 square metres covered.
A nave wall painting shows Jesus at Gethsemane and dates from the late seventeenth century. The Holy Family, commissioned by a cathedral chaplain and dated 1670 to 1675, was whitewashed during the Revolution and uncovered in 1847. It depicts the Christ Child, God the Father, the Holy Spirit as a dove, Anne and Joachim, Mary and Joseph, and scenes from the life of the Virgin in medallions. The left side vessel contains a Deposition from the Cross by Jean Boucher of Bourges.
South transept paintings
The south transept chapel retains a late-thirteenth-century Rayonnant Gothic painted programme, probably produced during the episcopate of Gauthier de Bruges, bishop of Poitiers from 1280 until his death in 1307. Its four vault compartments show the offering of crowns to the north, the Coronation of the Virgin to the south, the Last Judgment to the east, and the Bosom of Abraham to the west.
Twelfth- and thirteenth-century windows
The cathedral contains a major collection of narrative stained glass from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The three upper windows in the straight eastern end are the oldest. The north windows and those in the third southern bay present subjects from the Old Testament, while the southern side windows depict the New Testament.
The central eastern Crucifixion window, above the altar, dates from the second half of the twelfth century and measures 8.35 by 3.10 metres. Its lower quatrefoil contains the crucifixion of Saint Peter. The central scene shows Christ crucified against an unusual red background, accompanied by the Virgin and Saint John. Above it, the Ascension includes the Virgin, the Apostles, and two angels. Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II, lay donors, and their four sons appear in the lower register. The window was cleaned and restored by the Barthe-Bordereau workshops and reinstalled in December 2004, with damaged metalwork and lead replaced or repaired and exterior protective glazing added. Nearby windows depict the lives of Saint Peter and Saint Lawrence.
Choir, altars, and sculpture
Choir stalls
The choir stalls were installed during the episcopate of Jean de Melun, bishop from 1235 to 1257. Originally numbering about one hundred, they now comprise 37 on each side of the choir. They are among the oldest preserved in France and represent Parisian Gothic workmanship. Their high backs contain spandrels decorated with angels holding two crowns, animals, everyday scenes, allegories of the vices, an architect with his instruments, and the Virgin and Child.
Altars and transferred furnishings
The central eastern apse contains a late-seventeenth-century black marble Baroque altar transferred from the Trinité Benedictine Abbey. The south transept holds a seventeenth-century wooden altarpiece from the Dominican convent, with a tabernacle from the 1630s and a painting commissioned in 1616. Its gilding and Solomonic columns frame a tabernacle door showing the Virgin giving a rosary to Saint Dominic, beside a dog carrying a torch. The associated painting includes Louis XIII of France and Anne of Austria. The north transept contains an eighteenth-century oak altarpiece from a Capuchin convent and a 1700 to 1701 tabernacle from a Carmelite convent.
A seventeenth-century terracotta Virgin and Child by Pierre Biardeau stands before the eastern altar. The Virgin moves the Child away from a serpent emerging beneath her seat, while the flexible terracotta and sharply folded drapery heighten the sense of sudden danger. Statues of the Apostles from the 1611 mausoleum of Bishop Geoffroy de Saint-Belin were moved to the eastern end behind the choir during restoration of the south transept.
Organ, bells, and treasury
Great organ
The present great organ is attributed to the Parisian builder François-Henri Clicquot, assisted by his son Claude-François. Installed in 1791, it has four hand-operated keyboards and a pedal keyboard played by the feet, controlling approximately 3,000 pipes. Reed stops, whose sound comes from vibrating tongues, make up nearly one-third of the instrument. Its gallery was built by Vetault between 1770 and 1778.
Bells and treasury
The six swinging bells are divided between the towers. The south tower contains the 4,500-kilogram bourdon, tuned to A-flat 2 and measuring 1.95 metres in diameter. Antoine Brocard, Claude Brocard, and Charles Febvre cast it in 1734. The north tower holds five bells cast by Bollée père et fils in 1862: Anne-Marie-Joseph, Caroline, Blanche-Marie, Mélanie, and Marie-Élisabeth. They weigh 1,642, 1,135, 768, 637, and 435 kilograms respectively. The treasury, comprising approximately sixty works dating from the twelfth to the twentieth century, is presented in the south tower.
North nave carving
A stone labyrinth less than 1 metre in diameter is carved at approximately eye level in the third bay of the north side vessel. It has the form of a tree and may reproduce a labyrinth once set into the floor, although that interpretation remains uncertain.
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