Coutances Cathedral: A Norman Gothic Cathedral in France
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- French, Norman
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page22 sections
History
Coutances Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Coutances, France, dedicated to the Virgin Mary and serving as the seat of the Diocese of Coutances and Avranches. Built through successive medieval phases, it is a major example of Norman Gothic architecture, a regional form that combines Gothic height, pointed arches, and large windows with Romanesque proportions and local building traditions. The cathedral stands at about 90 metres above sea level and is traditionally known locally as the “Cathedral of Pride.”
From the early basilica to the Romanesque cathedral
Around 430, Saint Éreptiole, regarded in cathedral tradition as the first bishop of Coutances, is said to have built a Christian basilica on the site of a Gallo-Roman temple. Toustain de Billy related that invading Normans destroyed the basilica around 866. The bishop then fled to Rouen, and Coutances remained without a cathedral for a long period.
Bishop Robert, who served from about 1026 to 1048, began rebuilding the cathedral. His successor, Geoffrey of Montbray, completed the work, and the Romanesque church was dedicated to Notre-Dame in 1056 in the presence of William, Duke of Normandy, later William I of England. A canon of the cathedral chapter composed the institution’s “Black Book” in the twelfth century. Around 1180, alterations beneath the western towers included the installation of a large organ between the tower piers.
The Gothic rebuilding
Gothic reconstruction began after Hugues de Morville became bishop in 1208. The nave was rebuilt during the first decade of the thirteenth century by reusing and adapting the Romanesque structure. The transept, the cross-arm of the church, probably also began around 1208 rather than after the fire of 1218, and seems to have been nearing completion by about 1225.
Philip Augustus, king of France from 1180 to 1223, probably granted four prebends around 1209 to support the construction of six chapels. In 1223, Hugues de Morville founded two more, dedicated to Saint George and Saint Thomas Becket. The choir was probably complete by about 1238, when the bishop was buried there. Its precise construction sequence remains uncertain. The outer ambulatory, a passage around the choir, and the wall of the inner ambulatory may date from about 1220 to 1235, while the upper structure and vaults of the inner passage may have followed around 1240.
The south and north-west porches were built after 1228, apparently by masons who had also worked on the cloister of Mont-Saint-Michel. Chapels were inserted between the nave buttresses from about 1270. This work was completed under Bishop Jean d’Essay, while the southern chapels are attributed to Bishop Robert d’Harcourt. The Gothic cathedral was substantially complete by the later thirteenth century. Its double ambulatory and numerous chapels reflect repeated enlargement to accommodate pilgrimage, frequent masses, and other devotional practices.
Damage, repair, and religious conflict
Geoffroy d’Harcourt’s siege of Coutances in October 1356 damaged the cathedral. Bishop Sylvestre de La Cervelle repaired the destroyed walls and columns, added six chapels along the nave, embellished the triforium galleries with quatrefoils, crowned the western façade with a rosework diadem, and completed a large chapel at the eastern end. The axial chapel was rebuilt or substantially enlarged during the fourteenth century. Further damage followed the English king Henry V’s landing at Touques in 1417.
Religious conflict caused severe losses in the sixteenth century. In August 1561, Protestants forced the cathedral doors to preach inside. During the Wars of Religion, Huguenots pillaged the building in May 1562. On 10 August, troops led by François de Bricqueville, lord of Colombières, attacked Coutances and the cathedral. Hosts, relics, and images were burned, while many statues, especially those in the Saint Francis Chapel, were mutilated. Bishop Arthur de Cossé-Brissac was publicly humiliated during the violence.
Later structural accidents added to the damage. A small spire on the south-west tower collapsed onto the south portal in 1647. During a hurricane on 31 December 1705, a turret fell onto Saint Anne’s Chapel, and a storm weakened the chapter tower on 18 July 1730.
Revolution, war, and restoration
In March 1789, Thomas Louis Antoine Desmarestz, lord of Montchaton, presided in the nave over the general assembly of the three orders of the Cotentin bailliage. The meeting selected deputies for the Estates-General, the representative body summoned before the French Revolution. During the Revolution, statues were removed from exterior niches and others were damaged. The cathedral was later used as a theatre and grain store, but the building survived despite substantial losses.
Coutances Cathedral was classified as a French historic monument in 1862. Twentieth-century repairs included the restoration of the well surround and ironwork in 1915, the great east window in 1916, and the thirteenth-century north-transept windows in 1919. Bombardment in June 1944 set fire to the roof of the lantern tower, but the fire stopped at the bell chamber. The south porch suffered the most severe damage. The great east window had been removed in 1942 and therefore escaped the bombing. A Virgin and Child statue returned to the cathedral in 1946, while the statue known as Notre-Dame de Coutances was rescued by seminarians in 1944 and later returned.
The cathedral has had an organ since 1468. The present instrument was made in 1728 for Savigny Abbey and installed at Coutances in 1812, replacing an organ in poor condition. Its oak case was produced by the Caen sculptors Louis Le Guillard and Jacques Picard. The cathedral’s bells also underwent repeated changes. The western towers once held five bells each and the lantern tower held seven. By 1711, only eight remained, and only two survived the Revolution. One large bell, repaired in 1711 and 1734, weighs nearly 7,000 pounds and sounds the note A. Its metal partly came from material associated with Hugues de Morville’s tomb. The second surviving bell broke in 1924, and its bronze was recast into four bells installed in the north tower and blessed on 14 March 1924.
Remains
Coutances Cathedral has a cruciform plan, two western spires, and a central lantern tower. The exterior measures approximately 95.17 metres in length, while the interior is about 87 metres long and the total width is approximately 33.70 metres. The nave is about 38.70 metres long, the transept about 31 metres long, and the lantern tower reaches roughly 57.45 metres externally. The façade spires rise approximately 75 and 77 metres, with the highest point reaching about 77 metres including the cross. Romanesque masonry from the eleventh-century cathedral survives beneath the Gothic facing, especially in the nave, side aisles, western façade, and octagonal upper sections of the western towers.
Western façade and towers
Portals and rosework
The western façade is framed by two towers that terminate the nave aisles. Its portals occupy the lowest level. The central doorway has a central mullion, a deeply recessed opening, and an arch made from clustered colonnettes. Its tympanum, dedicated to the Virgin, was destroyed during the Revolution. Two further portals flank the central entrance, including one dedicated to Saint Lô. An engraving made in 1747 allows the former arrangement of statues in the empty niches, including figures of the Virgin, to be reconstructed.
Above the central portal, a terrace supports the great nave window. Its six-lobed rose is surmounted by a gallery and two small turrets. The fourteenth-century “gallery of roses,” attributed to Bishop Sylvestre de La Cervelle, consists of six paired arcades supporting a stone diadem, together with a third gallery against which the tower buttresses terminate.
Western towers
The western towers are square at their bases and become octagonal above. Each face of the octagonal upper storey contains a paired opening. Open turrets occupy three corners, while a stair turret occupies the outer fourth corner and is flanked by three smaller turrets. Each spire is surrounded by fifteen pointed projections. Its eight-sided pyramid is covered with ogival scales and ends in a stone finial and iron cross. Within the Romanesque lower towers, upper rooms have barrel-vaulted ceilings and round-headed windows.
South and north porches
The broad, deep south porch near the western façade has two bays. Its doorway is topped by a gallery and flanked by two empty niches. The tympanum contains a mutilated relief of the Virgin surrounded by the attributes of the four Evangelists. The smaller north porch has a tympanum showing the seated Virgin between two angels, whose heads, like the Virgin’s, are missing.
Nave and chapels
Nave structure
The nave has six identical bays and a blind bay within the western towers. Large arcades rest on heavy piers covered with slender columns. Above them is a blind triforium, an upper gallery or passage, concealed by a quatrefoil parapet. The highest level has twelve lancets with largely monochrome grisaille glazing and a pointed balustrade. Barrel vaults are divided by transverse arches, and each window is framed by a transverse arch and a wall arch. The two lower nave bays collapsed in 1800 and were rebuilt by Doublet.
The nave alone retains the Romanesque dimensions and foundations. Its Romanesque galleries remain concealed beneath the Gothic treatment, although the earlier fabric can be seen in the upper parts of the building. Between the western entrance and the south porch, the Founders’ Window depicts Saint Éreptiole, Geoffrey de Montbray, and Hugues de Morville. A south pier supports an eighteenth-century crucifix that formerly belonged to the rood beam, the former support for a large Crucifixion group above the entrance to the choir.
Side chapels
Chapels were inserted between the nave buttresses from about 1270 on the north side and around 1291 to 1315 on the south. Their perforated partition walls admit additional light. The second south chapel, Saint Agatha’s, was founded in 1378 by Pierre Le Sage. Two frescoes above the altar depict Saint Agatha and a bishop, while Robert Le Sage, son of Raoul, was buried there in 1438. Opposite the chapel, a capital shows a hunting scene with a monk between two crowned heads, possibly Saint Jouvin with Gunnor and Duke Richard.
The third chapel conceals the funerary inscription of Canon Jacques Martin behind its confessional. The sixth south chapel, dedicated to Saint Francis, contains mutilated reliefs showing the arrest of Jesus at Gethsemane, the Massacre of the Innocents, the Flight into Egypt, scenes from the Nativity, the Crucifixion with Saint Francis and Bishop Eustace, the Assumption, and the Coronation of the Virgin. A wooden relief from the second half of the sixteenth century, placed on the piscina, depicts the betrayal of Judas. Several chapels along the north aisle retain medieval faience tiles bearing the arms of Castile combined with fleurs-de-lis. These tiles appear to have come from pottery workshops at Pré-d’Auge.
Transept and central lantern
Transept chapels and windows
The side windows of the transept and choir are paired. Each end of the transept has three very large windows, while its gable is decorated with seven Gothic lancets and flanked by two turrets covered with columns. A ground-level projection on the south transept contains Saint John’s Chapel. The two-storey projection on the north transept houses the sacristy at ground level and the chapter room above.
The south transept, also called the Well Chapel, has two bays and extends into Saint John’s Chapel. It contains a Virgin and Child statue, a well, and a reliquary vault. The well existed by the eleventh century. Its stone surround was restored and its ironwork made in 1915. Behind a mullioned openwork screen, an oak cabinet houses relics of numerous saints. The chapel leads to an oratory reserved for daily Mass and private prayer, with an altar dedicated to the Sacred Heart restored by Bishop Guérard and the tombs of Bishops Guérard, Louvard, Wicquart, and Fihey.
Lantern tower
The central lantern tower, known as the Dome or Lead, rises partly over four pendentives, curved or triangular supports that carry a polygonal tower above a square crossing. It has eight sides, each opened by a paired window, and four stair turrets. The tower may originally have carried a spire taller than the western spires. Inside, the crossing changes from a square to an octagon through triangular pendentives. The two forms were understood symbolically as the earth and the Resurrection.
The lantern has two levels marked by a gallery and balustrade, sixteen lancets, and a vault divided into sixteen ribs around the bell opening. A closed third level formerly housed the bells. The organ stands above the central western portal and partly conceals the western window. It has four manuals, fifty-one stops, a pedalboard, about 3,500 pipes, mechanical action, and couplers and pedal divisions. The manuals have 56 notes, except for the 39-note echo, while the pedalboard has 30 notes.
Choir and eastern chapels
Choir and ambulatory
The choir is slightly wider than the nave. It has three bays ending in a hemicycle of seven intercolumnations. Twelve paired columns form a double belt and carry stalked capitals. The arrangement of the apse was inspired by the doubled high columns of Hambye Abbey. Around the choir runs a double ambulatory, with two galleries of unequal height separated by twelve columns and opening onto a series of chapels. The double passage was created by removing the walls that had separated the radiating chapels.
The main altar is a large Louis XV work in pink marble, decorated with gilded garlands held by cherubs. Antoine Duparc and his son Raphaël, sculptors from Marseille, made it between 1755 and 1757. It was reportedly brought from Spain during the First Empire. Six pairs of pillars behind the altar support the vault and are interpreted as representing the twelve Apostles. Thirteenth-century windows in the choir depict scenes from the life of Jesus, while a south-transept window may date from the sixteenth century.
Eastern chapels
The axial chapel, known as the Circata, has six Gothic windows and lacks the pinnacles originally intended for its buttresses. Sylvestre de La Cervelle greatly enlarged it in the fourteenth century, and its interior was polychromed in the nineteenth. The windows depict the life of the Virgin, while a marble Virgin stands on a silver-covered altar. The chapel contains the tombs of Sylvestre de La Cervelle, Louis Robiou de La Tréhonnais, Jacques-Louis Daniel, Jean-Pierre Bravard, and Abel-Anastase Germain.
The altar opposite the Circata is surmounted by a window depicting Saint Marcoul. The scene shows the saint leaving for Jersey in a boat without sail or mast and meeting Saint Helier on the island. The Saint Joseph, or Chiffrevast, Chapel was founded in 1381 by Jean de Chiffrevast, governor of Valognes. Painted decoration on its south wall was rediscovered beneath limewash in the mid-nineteenth century. It shows the Trinity, the Annunciation, Saint Michael defeating the dragon, and saints presenting Jean de Chiffrevast and his wife to the Virgin and Jesus.
The neighbouring Saint Martha’s Chapel retains a very old altar formed by a stone slab carried on three pilasters. It was already present in 1251. The Saint Michael altar imitates older cathedral altars and is surmounted by a thirteenth-century window depicting scenes from the life of Saint Lô. The window originally stood at the rear of the former Circata.
Windows, furnishings, and surviving objects
Stained glass and sculpture
Fifteen of the cathedral’s oldest stained-glass windows date from the thirteenth century. They include windows in the ambulatory, the choir and apse clerestory, and the north transept. The north transept’s great window has three shortened lancets, reduced when the chapter room was built. It depicts episodes from the lives of Saints Thomas Becket, George, and Blaise, and was restored in 1919. Another thirteenth-century window dedicated to Saint Lô is among the cathedral’s oldest surviving windows.
The great east window is generally dated to the fourteenth century. Geoffroy-Herbert donated it, and the Paris glassmaker Tournel restored it in 1916. It retains thirteenth-century iron fittings and presents the Last Judgment, with Christ enthroned above angels, the twelve Apostles, Saint Michael weighing souls, the Virgin, Saint John the Baptist, Saint Paul, groups of saints, Hell, Purgatory, and the Resurrection. Grotesque faces, hanged figures, and a cauldron of Hell may have been inspired by Guillaume de Digulleville’s Pilgrimage of Human Life.
A wooden Virgin statue that formerly stood on the main altar and was later given to Montebourg Abbey is now kept in the sacristy. A fourteenth-century marble Virgin and Child, installed after the Revolution in Saint Nicholas’s Church, returned to the cathedral in 1946. A marble column brought from Rome by Bishop Bravard supports a statue of Saint Michael installed after 1870. Bravard offered the silver-clad wooden statue in thanks for the archangel’s protection of the diocese during the Franco-Prussian War.
Sacristy, chapter room, and bells
The sacristy is a vaulted room formerly divided by a central pillar. Parts of its walls and vault retain painted decoration. Above it, the former chapter room has a vault and narrow windows. Its pavement preserves glazed bricks, and a stairway leads to the former archive room.
The bells are distributed between the western towers and the lantern tower. The four replacement bells installed in the north tower in 1924 were cast by the Cornille-Havard foundry at Villedieu-les-Poêles. Their installation forms part of the cathedral’s continuing material record alongside the surviving organ, medieval windows, chapels, furnishings, and reused Romanesque fabric.
