Lisieux Cathedral: A Gothic Co-Cathedral in France
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- French, Norman
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page13 sections
History
Lisieux Cathedral is a Roman Catholic church dedicated to Saint Peter in Lisieux, France. Rebuilt in the Gothic period between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it became one of the earliest Gothic buildings in Normandy. Once the cathedral of the Diocese of Lisieux, it is now a co-cathedral of Bayeux-Lisieux, a status in which it shares the seat of the reorganized diocese with another cathedral.
Origins and the eleventh-century cathedral
A cathedral at Lisieux is presumed to have existed by 538, when Theudobaudis, also known as Thibaut, is recorded as the first bishop. The character of this early church is unknown, and it may have suffered damage during Viking raids. In the eleventh century, Bishop Herbert of Lisieux, who held office from 1026 to 1049, began rebuilding the cathedral. His successor, Hugues d’Eu, continued the work from 1049 to 1077.
The enlarged building required part of the city walls to be demolished. During the rebuilding, the relics of Saints Ursin, Patrick, and Berthevin were probably discovered. They were later venerated in the choir. The church was consecrated to Saint Peter in 1055 in the presence of William the Conqueror. A fire in 1136 damaged or destroyed part of the cathedral.
The Gothic reconstruction
The present cathedral took shape through a major rebuilding initiated by Bishop Arnoul of Lisieux, whose episcopate lasted from 1141 to 1181. The date of the reconstruction has been placed around 1160 or around 1170, while work on the foundations probably began between 1170 and 1172. The church was completed around 1230, with its later phases probably undertaken during the first quarter of the thirteenth century.
Arnoul knew of the architectural innovations associated with Suger, the abbot of Saint-Denis, and attended the consecration of the new Saint-Denis basilica on 11 June 1144. His participation in Louis VII’s Second Crusade, fought from 1147 to 1149, delayed the beginning of the reconstruction. The project probably employed a master builder from the Île-de-France.
A text describing miracles associated with Saint Thomas of Canterbury names a worker called Roger, who was trapped by a landslide while working on the cathedral foundations between 1170 and 1172. He survived after promising to make a pilgrimage. Construction began with the nave, whose roof timbers were dated by dendrochronology, the study of annual growth rings in wood, to a period shortly before 1183. The transept and first two bays of the choir belong to the same phase. The eastern choir was completed later under another master builder, using a more advanced form of Norman Gothic. Work then returned to the western front, where the three portals and two towers were completed.
The cathedral survived the fire that struck Lisieux in 1223 without apparently suffering major destruction. During the Hundred Years’ War, the cathedral and episcopal residence were enclosed by fortifications and ditches, possibly incorporating remains of the Roman defensive circuit. From the first half of the fourteenth century, the canons enlarged the church with twelve chapels along the aisles. Their construction continued into the fifteenth century and introduced Flamboyant Gothic, a late Gothic style known for flowing tracery and intricate decoration.
Later alterations and damage
Bishop Pierre Cauchon, who governed Lisieux from 1432 to 1442, rebuilt the axial Chapel of the Virgin at the eastern end of the cathedral. He was buried there in 1442. In 1553, the south tower collapsed. Fundraising for its replacement lasted twenty-six years, and rebuilding began in 1579. The new tower was made less open than its predecessor, probably because of concern about another collapse. The work continued until 1600, and its spire rises to 72 metres.
In 1562, Huguenots, including Guillaume de Hautemer, sacked the church and desecrated objects that included the relics of Saint Ursin. Counter-Reformation changes in 1688 brought further alterations to the interior. A fifteenth-century rood screen, which traditionally separated the nave from the choir and supported a cross or crucifix, was removed, and the interior was coated with white lime. During the seventeenth century, Bishop Léonor II de Matignon also ordered older stained-glass windows to be replaced with white glass.
Revolution, heritage, and Saint Thérèse
The French Revolution suppressed the Diocese of Lisieux and reduced the cathedral to parish-church status. In 1855, it became a co-cathedral of Bayeux-Lisieux, meaning that it shared cathedral status after the diocesan reorganization. The municipality of Lisieux owns the building. It was classified as a French historic monument in 1840.
The cathedral has a close association with Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, who later became its third patron after Saints Peter and Paul. Thérèse regularly attended Sunday Mass there with her father, Louis Martin, her sisters, and their governess. A statue and inscription in a choir chapel identify the place where the family sat. The cathedral is also associated with the revelation of Thérèse’s vocation to save the souls of sinners. Louis Martin donated the high altar in the choir, and Thérèse appears in a stained-glass window at the rear of the choir.
The cathedral was unusually spared during the bombardments of 1944, making it one of the rare major historic monuments of Lisieux to survive them.
Remains
Lisieux Cathedral is approximately 110 metres long. Its Gothic plan probably follows that of the preceding Romanesque cathedral and comprises a narthex, or entrance vestibule, an eight-bay nave with aisles, a transept with an aisle along its eastern side, and a four-bay choir ending in a rounded east wall. An ambulatory, a passage around the choir, leads to three radiating chapels. The eastern transept aisle is an unusually rare arrangement in Normandy, and the overall plan has been compared with that of Rouen Cathedral.
Exterior and principal structure
The cathedral has three principal towers, a central lantern tower and two towers on the western front. A lantern tower rises above the crossing and admits light into the central interior. The slender north tower dates from the thirteenth century. The south tower, rebuilt after the collapse of 1553, is crowned by the 72-metre spire. Its semicircular arches, relatively small openings, and strong horizontal emphasis combine Flamboyant Gothic and Renaissance features. Architect Georges Duval described the result as a Romanesque pastiche.
The exterior is comparatively austere. The portal façades have no sculpted statues, and their decoration is concentrated in geometric motifs, foliage, colonnettes, arcades, and a few small carved faces. Inside, the vaults reach about 20 metres, while the space beneath the central lantern tower rises to approximately 30 metres.
Elevation and Gothic design
The interior elevation is arranged in three levels: large arcades, an intermediate level, and a high-window level. In the nave and the first two bays of the choir, the intermediate level consists of false tribunes, upper passages that open onto the roof spaces above the aisles rather than onto a separate gallery floor. In the eastern choir, a triforium, a gallery-like passage or arcaded middle level, takes their place.
The intermediate level is further articulated by bays opening onto a passageway or wall-walk, an arrangement characteristic of Norman and Romanesque architecture. The oldest parts of the building draw on early Gothic churches in the Île-de-France, especially Laon and Paris, with possible influence from Sens. The nave columns also show possible connections with eastern Normandy, particularly Évreux.
The eastern choir has a more developed Norman Gothic character. Its paired arcade columns, circular or polygonal abaci, pierced trilobes, narrower arcades, slenderer supports, and more elaborate mouldings create a more vertical and open treatment. Its design relates to regional precedents such as the abbey church of Saint-Étienne at Caen and Bayeux Cathedral.
Chapels along the aisles
The aisles are lined with chapels built from the fourteenth century onward in Flamboyant Gothic style. The northern sequence begins at the third bay, while the second northern bay contains a seated statue of Saint Peter on a throne.
Northern chapels
The Chapel of the Annunciation contains an eighteenth-century confessional where Saint Thérèse received the sacrament of penance. The Chapel of Saint Germaine has a nineteenth-century statue of the saint and an eighteenth-century oil painting of the Annunciation.
The Chapel of Our Lady of Lourdes contains the funerary slab of Jean le Neveu, a thirteenth-century dean of the cathedral chapter, together with an eighteenth-century painting of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. The Chapel of the Sacred Heart contains Guérin’s nineteenth-century painting of the Apparition of the Sacred Heart to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.
The Chapel of Saint Expeditus has a fresco of the saint and seventeenth- and eighteenth-century paintings of the Nativity and the Pietà. The Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary retains Pré d’Auge paving and eighteenth-century paintings of the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple and Saint Peter Healing the Sick through His Shadow, painted in 1770 by Jean-Baptiste Robin.
Southern chapels
The area of the Baptismal Fonts contains marble baptismal fonts, a nineteenth-century Christ on the Cross, and Larrieu’s 1770 painting of the Preaching of Saint Peter. The Chapel of Saint Paul has Jean-Jacques Lagrenée’s 1770 painting of Saint Paul before the Areopagus.
The Chapel of Saint Joseph contains an 1884 statue, a painting of the Ecstasy of Saint Jerome donated in 1749 by a Lisieux canon, and a nineteenth-century painting of the Death of Saint Joseph. The Chapel of Remembrance has a print of the True Effigy of the Holy Face donated by M. Guérin, Saint Thérèse’s uncle, as well as Descours fils’s 1785 painting of the Last Supper and Philippe Guérin’s 1804 painting of Saint Cecilia.
The Chapel of Saint Anne contains a nineteenth-century statue of Saint Anne and the Virgin Mary. Its paintings include the Deliverance of Saint Peter, made in 1770 by Jean-Joseph Taillasson, and the eighteenth-century Education of the Virgin. The Chapel of Our Lady of Perpetual Help has Anicet Lemonnier’s 1770 painting of the Resurrection of Tabitha and an eighteenth-century Apotheosis of Saint Francis de Sales.
The Chapel of Saint Benedict has an altar supported by carved colonnettes taken from the cathedral pulpit of the late sixteenth century. It also contains Édouard Krug’s 1875 painting The Guardian Angel. The Chapel of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, formerly the chapter house, contains an eighteenth-century painting of the Apotheosis of Saint Charles Borromeo.
Monuments, sculpture, and glazing
At the north end of the transept, two wall recesses contain the burials of Bishop Guillaume de Rupierre, who died in 1201, his father, and two brothers. The bishop’s recess includes a representation of the Last Judgment ending with the apotheosis of the chosen and blessed soul. Nearby is the recumbent effigy, a sculpted figure of a deceased person lying on a tomb, of Bishop Jean, who died in 1141.
The south transept façade has a portal. In the adjacent aisle, a recess for Bishop Jean de Samois, who died in 1302, contains the decapitated recumbent effigy of Bishop Pierre Cauchon. Other surviving interior carving includes foliage-covered capitals, carved heads of a king and queen near the entrance, and the face of a bearded man. Traces of paint on the walls indicate that the interior was once more colourful.
The Chapel of the Virgin has especially elaborate Flamboyant Gothic decoration. Its spandrels contain a fantastic bestiary of a monkey, an owl, and a bat-like creature. The finely carved foliage allows individual trees and plants to be identified.
Few medieval stained-glass windows survive. The south transept contains Albert Gsell’s 1894 archaeological window of Saint Ursin, which depicts the saint’s discovery and a fever sufferer’s miraculous healing through his intercession. A south choir-aisle window made by Gsell-Laurent in 1887 shows the assassination of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170.
Other windows in the northern aisle chapels, made by Gsell-Laurent, depict the Annunciation, Visitation, the Apparition of the Sacred Heart to Blessed Margaret Mary, and the Nativity. Windows from the Gaudin workshop show the Pietà and Saint Peter healing the sick. Modern statues include Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and Saint Joan of Arc.
Organs
The west gallery organ was built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll in 1871 and donated by Jean-Lambert Fournet, a wealthy industrialist and former mayor of Lisieux. Bishop Hugonin of Bayeux and Lisieux blessed it in 1874, and Alexandre Guilmant inaugurated it. Charles Mutin modified the instrument in 1898, Joseph Beuchet altered it in 1932, and Edmond Alexandre Roethinger overhauled it in 1963. Its composition was returned to the Mutin arrangement in 1988.
The instrumental section was classified as a historic monument in 1972. The organ has 48 stops, three manual keyboards, and a pedalboard. It combines mechanical action with a Barker machine for the Grand Orgue and Positif, while Roethinger added pneumatic action for the Soubasse. A second organ stands in the choir.
