Langres Cathedral: A Romanesque-Gothic Cathedral in France
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- French
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page20 sections
History
Langres Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Langres, France, and the seat of the Bishop of Langres. Dedicated to Saint Mammès, a third-century Christian martyr associated with Cappadocia and Caesarea, it was built principally between 1150 and 1196 in a form that combines Burgundian Romanesque architecture with emerging Gothic practices. The cathedral served a diocese that once included Dijon, which became a separate diocese only in 1731.
Foundation and medieval construction
Around 1140, Bishop Geoffroy de La Roche-Vanneau, who held the see from 1139 to 1162 and was a close associate of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, decided to rebuild the cathedral. Saint Bernard was a Cistercian abbot and influential church reformer of the twelfth century. Work began with the choir and ambulatory, the passage curving around the choir, and then proceeded to the nave and transept within the cathedral’s canonical quarter.
The design drew consciously on Cluny III, the third and largest church built at Cluny Abbey in Burgundy between 1088 and 1130. Its monumental three-level elevation and antique-inspired decoration influenced Langres, although the Romanesque plan here was smaller. A papal bull issued by Alexander III shows that construction was already well advanced in 1170. At that point, only the westernmost nave bays and the west front remained unfinished. After land west of the cathedral was acquired in 1190, a final building campaign followed. The cathedral was dedicated in 1196, although the nave vaults may still have been incomplete.
In 1209, a relic identified as the head of Saint Mammès was brought to the cathedral, increasing its importance as a destination for pilgrims. During the thirteenth century, the cloister and the Chapel of the Virgin on the axis of the apse were added. The chapel, promoted by the canon of Vergy, dates from 1282. A fire destroyed the nave roof in 1314, while the radiating chapels were built between 1324 and 1366.
Renaissance and early modern alterations
Jean d’Amoncourt, a canon and vicar-general of Bishop Claude de Longwy de Givry, commissioned the Chapel of the Holy Cross on the left side of the nave between 1547 and 1551. In 1555, Cardinal Claude de Longwy de Givry added an ornate choir screen, a partition separating the clergy’s choir from the nave. The screen remained until the French Revolution, when it was demolished. Lightning caused another major fire in 1562.
Classical rebuilding and revolutionary disruption
By 1746, the western front was considered structurally unsafe and was demolished. During the later eighteenth century, it was replaced by a Classical front based on Claude-Louis d’Aviler’s 1758 project, with the work directed by Jean-Antoine Caristie. The Romanesque towers of the earlier west front were also threatened with collapse, and the bell tower above the transept was removed in 1782.
The cathedral closed during the French Revolution and was temporarily converted into a Temple of Reason before becoming a grain storehouse. It reopened in 1791 for Hubert-Antoine Wandelaincourt, a constitutional bishop appointed under the revolutionary Civil Constitution of the Clergy. In 1792, he ordered the destruction of the choir screen.
Restoration and continuing protection
Beginning in 1852, architect Alphonse Durand undertook extensive restoration and rebuilding of the upper parts. The nave was systematically rebuilt in 1853 and 1854, the roof was replaced in 1855, and restoration of the choir and apse began in 1856. The sacristy was entirely rebuilt between 1857 and 1862, while work on the transept and west front began in 1860.
The cathedral’s polychrome tile roof was renewed from 1999, with the tiles arranged in the geometric design used for Durand’s nineteenth-century roof. Another restoration campaign began in November 2020. Langres Cathedral has been protected as a French historic monument since its inclusion on the 1862 designation list.
Remains
Langres Cathedral presents a medieval body shaped by Burgundian Romanesque volumes and sculpture, Gothic rib vaulting and structural support, and a later Classical west facade. The plan has a semicircular choir enclosed by an ambulatory, a single projecting transept, and a nave formed by a central vessel with two aisles. The building is approximately 94.3 metres long internally. The nave and choir rise 23 metres beneath their vaults, while the central nave is 11.36 metres wide between the column axes and the nave with its aisles measures 24.4 metres across. The transept is 13 metres wide and 41.6 metres long internally. The towers reach about 45 metres, and the southern tower contains 227 steps.
Medieval structure and decoration
Nave elevation and supports
The interior elevation is arranged in three levels. Large pointed arcades rest on massive piers, above them runs a narrow, dark triforium, or passage beneath the roofs, and single pointed high windows rise above. A substantial cornice separates the levels. The supports follow the model of Cluny III: a pilaster on a deep rear support is flanked by two small columns. The pilasters carry pseudo-Corinthian capitals where the vaults begin, while fluted pilasters with similar capitals support the cornice beneath the roofs.
Vaults and external support
Gothic rib vaults were installed during the thirteenth century, with intersecting structural ribs carrying the vaulted surfaces. The aisles have groined vaults, formed by the intersection of two barrel vaults, and the ambulatory vaults rest on Corinthian columns. Flying buttresses, exterior arches that transfer the thrust of a vault to supports outside the main wall, are concealed beneath the choir roofs but visible along the nave. Particularly prominent buttresses surround the semicircular eastern end, while some nave buttresses are partly concealed by the adjoining cloister and chapel.
Choir and apse
The choir and first nave bay retain a sculpted frieze beneath the cornice, while vegetal sculpture decorates the bands of the triforium. The aisle capitals carry an iconographic sculptural program. At the rounded eastern choir, eight Corinthian columns form broken arches and are enriched with mouldings. The apse contains five small chapels. The axial chapel belongs to the earliest Romanesque cathedral, and the other four date from the fourteenth century.
Later architectural features
Classical west facade
The later west facade forms a pronounced contrast with the medieval cathedral behind it. Its columns use different orders at successive levels, progressing from Doric to Ionic and then Corinthian. The facade belongs to the Classical rebuilding carried out after the earlier western front was demolished.
Chapel of the Holy Cross
The Chapel of the Holy Cross, built on the left side of the nave between 1547 and 1551, is a particularly accomplished Renaissance work. Its 1549 barrel vault has recessed coffers alternating between rectangular and oval forms. Ionic and Corinthian columns support the vault. The chapel contains a retable, an ornamental structure behind an altar, with composite elements, as well as a polychrome faience-tile floor made in 1551 and restored during the nineteenth century.
Cloister and library
Two Gothic galleries from the thirteenth-century cloister survive. The former cloister now houses the municipal library, while the galleries preserve part of the cathedral’s medieval architectural setting.
Organ and bells
Great organ
The great organ was originally built in the early eighteenth century for Morimond Abbey. Jean-François Béchamp made its case from 1714, and organ builder Jean Treuillot worked on the instrument between 1714 and 1718. The case has separated towers and flat sections decorated in the Rocaille manner, an elaborate style using shell, rock, and foliage forms associated with the French Rococo period. Cherub heads, musician angels, and foliage garlands enrich its decoration. After Morimond Abbey’s property was sold during the Revolution, the Bishop of Langres acquired the organ for the cathedral.
The instrument was enlarged shortly before the Revolution and modified in 1837, 1875, and 1931. The 1931 work replaced its bellows and added stops, or groups of pipes controlled to produce particular tones. An explosion damaged the organ in 1943. Its case has been protected since 1949 and the organ since 1970. Haerpfer-Ermann restored it in 1972, and Gaston Litaize inaugurated it in 1975. It now has 4,071 pipes, 53 stops, four manuals, and a German-style pedalboard, and it continues to accompany the liturgy.
Choir organ and bells
A smaller choir organ has one manual, a pedalboard operated by the organist’s feet, and stops including Salicional 8-foot, Flute 8-foot, Prestant 4-foot, Doublette 2-foot, Bourdon 16-foot, Bourdon 8-foot, Trumpet 8-foot, and Clarion 4-foot.
Five swinging bells form the cathedral’s bell set. Jean, the 2,830-kilogram bourdon, was cast in 1868 by Petitfour and Richebourg at Arbot. An unnamed bell weighing 1,900 kilograms was cast in 1835 by Goussel and the Barret founders at Breuvannes. Martin weighs 1,320 kilograms and was cast in 1810 by Mutel, Varinot, Joseph, and Nicolas Goussel. Amatre weighs 1,050 kilograms and was cast in 1808 by Goussel and the Barret founders. Didier weighs 874 kilograms and was cast in 1868 by Petitfour, then recast later that year because the first casting was unsatisfactory.
Treasury and furnishings
Relics and sacred objects
The treasury contains a reliquary bust holding the skull of Saint Mammès, said to have been received from Constantinople. It also contains a reliquary from Clairvaux Abbey with a fragment believed to come from the True Cross. A fifteenth-century ivory statue of Saint Mammès depicts the saint holding his entrails.
Tapestries and interior furnishings
Two tapestries depicting the legend of Saint Mammès remain in the cathedral. They belonged to a group of eight donated in the sixteenth century by Cardinal Claude de Longwy de Givry and attributed to the Senonais artist Jean Cousin the Elder. Other documented furnishings include a sculpture of the Resurrection of Lazarus, the pulpit, woodwork behind the orant figure of Bishop Guerrin, and paintings of the Evangelists. A substantial portion of the decorative woodwork and the organ was acquired in the early nineteenth century after Morimond Abbey was destroyed during the French Revolution.
