Rodez Cathedral: A 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
- French
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page19 sections
History
Rodez Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Rodez, France, dedicated to the Virgin Mary and serving as the seat of the Diocese of Rodez and Vabres. The present large Gothic building was constructed mainly between 1277 and 1542, with Rayonnant and Flamboyant Gothic features and later Renaissance additions. Standing at the western edge of the former walled town, it developed from an early Christian episcopal complex associated with the Christianization of the Ruteni territory.
Early Christian and medieval cathedral
Christian tradition connects the conversion of Rodez and the surrounding Ruteni, an ancient people of the region, with Saint Martial in the late third century and Saint Amans in the mid-fifth century. Saint Amans is regarded here as the first bishop of Rodez. The episcopal complex is first mentioned in 485, when Sidonius Apollinaris, bishop of Clermont and a fifth-century writer, referred to a newly consecrated baptistery and a new church. This was probably Rodez’s first cathedral.
The early cathedral stood near the present site but outside the late Roman walls. During the reconstruction of the city’s fortifications in the twelfth century, it was brought within the defended area. The Merovingian cathedral, belonging to the period of the early medieval Frankish kingdom, was altered and embellished under Bishop Saint Dalmatius, who died in 581 before the work was finished. Saracens pillaged the church in 725.
The building was substantially reconstructed in the late ninth or early tenth century and was then explicitly dedicated to Notre-Dame, the French title of the Virgin Mary. Romanesque alterations, belonging to the medieval style that preceded Gothic architecture, are represented by capitals found in the cathedral foundations in 1884 and later placed in the Fenaille Museum.
The rebuilding of 1277
The bell tower of the earlier Romanesque cathedral collapsed during the night of 16 to 17 February 1276. The disaster led to the complete rebuilding of the church. Bishop Raymond de Calmont laid the first stone of the present cathedral on 25 May 1277. Construction moved from east to west, while the old building was demolished section by section as the new one advanced.
Raymond de Calmont assembled financial support from episcopal revenues, income from the priory of Saint-Georges de Camboulas, papal indulgences, vacant church benefices, and a testamentary gift of 10,000 Ruthenian sous. The bequest was intended to provide a large bell and two chapels. The earliest surviving building accounts, for 1287 to 1288 and 1293 to 1294, name Master Étienne and his companion Ponset. Master Étienne had already worked at the site for three years and was probably the first architect of the present cathedral.
Work began with the radiating chapels of the choir. Individual chapels were founded or completed between 1291 and 1317. The five chapels around the apse were complete by 1320, and the eleven polygonal choir chapels were built around 1330. Bishops and canons established chaplaincies and burial places in several of them. Bishop Pierre de Castelnau appealed to the faithful for support in 1325, warning that the old cathedral was dangerous and that the ambitious new plan exceeded the treasury’s resources.
War, disease, and fifteenth-century progress
The high choir and its first two bays were built before the middle of the fourteenth century. Progress was then interrupted for long periods by the Hundred Years’ War, the Black Death of 1348 and later epidemics, and disputes within the diocese. A separate tower at the cathedral’s northeast corner was built between 1366 and 1386. Its wooden spire, covered with lead, burned on 28 April 1510, although its first two levels survive within the present tower.
Construction of the transept, the cross-arm intersecting the nave, began around the middle of the fourteenth century. Its elaborate portals and rose windows were completed mainly in the fifteenth century. Jacques Morel worked on the transept portals in 1444 and 1448, while Thibaut Sonier, assisted by Pierre Viguier and Guillaume Desfosses, continued the south portal. Much of this sculpture was destroyed in 1794, but more than 1,500 fragments were recovered in 1986 and 2006.
Bishop Guillaume de La Tour demolished his palace, which stood between the developing transept and the city walls, so that the nave could be built. In 1474 the city consuls authorized the cathedral’s extension beyond the old fortifications on condition that the western facade be massive and have few openings. The choir was completed around 1470, and the nave advanced during the later fifteenth century. Its western foundations crossed former walls, fosses, and the site of the episcopal palace, requiring extensive earthworks. Guillaume Salvanh was recorded as master of the works by 1494.
Sixteenth-century completion
Bishops François d’Estaing and Georges d’Armagnac renewed the impetus for construction during the sixteenth century. Antoine Salvanh rebuilt the upper part of the tower between 1513 and 1526 and revised the nave elevations. His work introduced stronger Flamboyant Gothic characteristics while retaining the established plan. The first four large nave vaults were complete by 1542, a date placed on the underside of the fourth vault with Georges d’Armagnac’s arms. The main campaign had therefore lasted 265 years, although work on the western facade continued later in the century, including campaigns between 1562 and 1580.
Around 1554, Guillaume Philandrier designed the small Renaissance facade above the western front, and Jean Salvanh executed it. Philandrier was a sixteenth-century architect, architectural theorist, and canon associated with Renaissance design. Jean Salvanh later built the pinnacles framing the facade under Bishop Jacques de Corneillan between 1562 and 1580, while the top of the south tower remained unfinished.
Revolution, restoration, and conservation
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the cathedral treasury paid for maintenance, especially repairs to water infiltration affecting the flat roofs of the chapels. The roofs and timber structures of the choir and nave were renewed between 1608 and 1611, the transept arms in 1626 and 1628, and the old paving in 1687.
The French Revolution brought vandalism and the removal or destruction of furnishings. Brass furnishings were taken away in September 1793, Raymond de Calmont’s tomb was damaged, and sculptures on the portals and altarpieces were hammered. The treasury was sent to the Paris Mint on 2 February 1795. The cathedral became a Temple of Reason and was also used by the Charente volunteer battalion as a military facility. Between 1792 and 1798, Pierre Méchain and Jean-Baptiste Delambre used it as a surveying point during their measurement of the Paris meridian, work that contributed to defining the metre. Catholic constitutional worship resumed on 12 June 1795, and the Concordat of 1801 returned the building to Catholic worship.
Rodez regained an episcopal see in 1823. Restoration and reorganization followed under diocesan architects, especially Étienne-Joseph Boissonnade, who worked on the roofs, exterior masonry, tower, sculptures, floors, and surroundings of the apse. The choir enclosures were moved or replaced by grilles. The historic master altar was replaced in 1836 by a Louis-Philippe-style altar, and a marble-and-plaster allegory of Faith Crushing Heresy was installed beneath the pulpit. The rood screen was dismantled in 1872 and moved to the south transept.
Rodez Cathedral was classified as a French historic monument in 1862. Later campaigns treated the upper campanile in the 1950s, the ambulatory and chapel terraces and their water management in the 1960s, and the western rose, Renaissance facade, pinnacles, ambulatory, and tower between 1978 and 1982. Deteriorated stonework and high choir glazing were addressed between 1988 and 1994. A seven-window choir program selected in 2003 and completed in 2006 was designed by Stéphane Belzère and made by the Duchemin workshops. A further window devoted to Saint Vincent de Paul was made by Sébastien Lefèvre in 2016.
Remains
Plan, setting, and construction
Rodez and its cathedral occupy a hill more than 100 metres above the Aveyron River, which curves around three sides of the hill. The cathedral stands at the western edge of the former walled town. Its unified plan and elevation bring together work carried out from the thirteenth through the sixteenth centuries. The building measures approximately 101.57 metres internally and 36.89 metres across the transept. The nave rises 30 metres, while the principal bell tower reaches 87 metres.
The choir, transept, and nave carry steep slate roofs on tall timber frames. The aisles and side chapels have low-pitched paved sandstone terraces known locally as planètes. The choir has three levels: a ground-floor arcade, a narrow unlit triforium, and a high clerestory, the upper windowed level. Its quadripartite rib vault, divided by ribs into four principal sections, rises to 30 metres. The ambulatory curves around the apse and provides access to the radiating chapels. Two marble sarcophagi from the cemetery of Saint-Amans stand in the first bays of the ambulatory.
Western facade and tower
Fortified western front
The western facade has no traditional large portal. Its lower portion is built of reddish or pink-red sandstone and has massive walls, narrow slit-like openings, octagonal stair towers, and two larger recessed windows. Its fortress-like design reflects the facade’s incorporation into, or position immediately beyond, the city fortifications. Above it are a Flamboyant rose window divided by six radial spokes, balconies resembling former defensive walks, blind arcading, pinnacles, and the Renaissance miniature church facade added in the mid-sixteenth century. The western rose belongs to the early sixteenth century.
North tower
The north tower rises where the choir meets the transept. Its lower two levels belong to the fourteenth-century tower, while Antoine Salvanh rebuilt its upper sections between 1513 and 1526 after the fire of 1510. The tower changes from a square to an octagonal form and includes corner turrets, blind tracery, heraldic shields, inserted figures, keeled arches, and increasingly three-dimensional decoration toward the top. An open lantern crowns it, carrying a statue of the Virgin Mary surrounded by four angels. It is described as the highest flat-topped bell tower in France.
Choir and chapels
Choir chapels and monuments
The earliest chapels are polygonal and radiate from the apse, while those beside the first two choir bays were later made rectangular. The choir contains medieval funerary monuments, including epitaph tombs associated with Brenguier d’Arpajon, Jean de La Baccalerie, Guiral de Montal, and Hector de Tourène. Chest tombs are associated with Bishops Gilbert de Cantobre and Raymond d’Aigrefeuilhe and with canons Jean de Via and Galhard de Cardaillac.
Wall paintings and glazing
Fourteenth-century wall paintings survive or have been uncovered in the axial Cantorbe chapel, the Chapel of All Saints, and the Chapel of Saint Agnes. Bishop Gilbert de Cantorbe commissioned the paintings on the Cantorbe chapel vault, while those in the Chapel of All Saints relate to a foundation established by canon Izarn de Cuzel in 1341. A tempera cycle depicting the Life of Saint Eligius was discovered in 1978 on the choir enclosure wall facing the ambulatory. Its date is limited by the Armagnac heraldic lion and by the construction date of the choir bay where it appears.
The cathedral’s glazing combines early glass, nineteenth-century windows, and modern windows, with some early glass incorporated into later settings. The choir program made between 2003 and 2006 addresses the elements and religious themes through Earth and the Tree of Jesse, Air and All Saints, Fire and the Fall of the Angels, and Water and Genesis. Other windows represent Saint Agnes, Saint Blaise, Saint Amans, Saint Martial, Isaiah, Jeremiah, the Resurrection, the Transfiguration, and the sacraments.
Nave, transepts, and furnishings
Nave chapels and Renaissance work
The nave has a three-level elevation. Round pillars without capitals are surrounded by four smaller shafts, and the profiled vault ribs appear to rise from the masonry above moulded imposts. Traditional rib vaults predominate except in the apses, and the vaults continue through the crossing without strongly emphasizing it. The Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, the third southern chapel, contains a sculpted Entombment commissioned by canon Galhard Roux in 1523. The chapel in the fourth southern nave bay has a Flamboyant niche and an altarpiece showing Christ in the Garden of Olives.
A sculpted Annunciation group commissioned for a chapel founded by the merchant Georges Vigouroux is associated with Pierre Viguier. The original has been reputed to be at the fortified church of Inières since the nineteenth century, while a copy stands in the chapel east of the south transept portal. Its polychrome stone retable shows Mary and the archangel Gabriel, although only the upper elements representing God the Father are authentic. The first two nave bays served parish worship. When that space became too small in the mid-sixteenth century, a large gallery was built beneath the western rose, occupying the first bay of the north aisle and the adjacent chapel.
Transept portals and rood screen
The north and south transept arms contain the principal elaborate entrances. Their portals have archivolts, canopies, gables, pinnacles, and rose windows with Flamboyant tracery. The north portal’s tympanum sculpture was destroyed or severely damaged. The south portal originally had a program of 108 images, much of which was destroyed during the Revolution. The fifteenth-century rood screen, or jubé, once separated the choir from the nave. Probably made around 1490, perhaps to a design by Guillaume Salvanh, it was moved in 1872 and 1873 to the south transept and reassembled against the rear of the facade.
Chapter-sacristy portico and choir stalls
The choir retains a Renaissance portico leading to the chapter sacristy, with an upper warming room. One of two monumental Renaissance doors made for the sanctuary survives largely intact, although it was transferred in 1825 to the entrance of the Chapel of Reconciliation, also called Saint Raphael. The carved choir stalls were commissioned from André Sulpice in 1478. Their decorated misericords, folding supports used by clergy during long services, include biblical figures and scenes. The stalls and rood screen remain notable late Gothic furnishings.
Organ and bells
The Renaissance organ case occupies the arch of the north transept. Raymond Gusmond of Périgueux built the present polished-walnut case between 1628 and 1631 for an organ made by Antoine Vernholles of Poitiers, reusing parts of an older Gothic case. It is approximately 63 feet high and 32 feet wide. Repairs or rebuilding followed under André Eustache in 1657, Jean de Joyeuse in 1676, François Lépine in 1728 and 1749, Joseph Isnard in 1775 and 1776, the Clavel workshop in the nineteenth century, Th. Puget in 1872, Charles Anneessens in the early twentieth century, and Jean-Georges and Yves Koenig in 1986. The 1986 restoration sought a sound concept suited to the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French repertoire. The instrument has four keyboards, a pedalboard, and approximately 3,300 pipes.
Twelve bells belong to the cathedral. Nine swinging bells, cast by Morel in 1851 and installed in 1853 in a wooden belfry, form a C-major scale. They are named Saint Peter, Saint Mary, Saint Amans, Saint Artémon, Saint John, Saint Dalmas, Saint Procule, Saint Faith, and Saint Tarcisse, weighing from 5,229 kilograms to 196 kilograms. The pre-Revolutionary clock bell was cast in 1523 and stands beneath the pedestal of the Virgin statue at the top of the tower, where it no longer sounds. The small Mandarelle bell is positioned above the roof near the transept, and another bell commissioned in 1847 is installed in the southwest tower.
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