Sens Cathedral: A Gothic Cathedral in France
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- Medieval
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- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
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- French
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- Religious
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- Cathedral
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History
Sens Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral dedicated to Saint Stephen in Sens, France, and the seat of the Archbishop of Sens. Built by medieval French churchmen in the early Gothic period, its construction began around 1130–1135 and its sanctuary was consecrated in 1164. Standing in the historic center overlooking the Yonne River, it became one of the earliest major applications of Gothic architecture and influenced churches beyond Sens.
Early ecclesiastical center
Sens had been an important late Roman and Carolingian ecclesiastical center before the present cathedral was built. An earlier cathedral, probably on the same site, consisted of a baptistery and two churches. Medieval records place these buildings between the sixth and ninth centuries. Chronicles state that fire destroyed them between 958 and 967, after which they were replaced by a single structure. In 982, Archbishop Seguin consecrated another early cathedral formed from three adjoining churches.
The authority of the archbishops also gave Sens a prominent place in the medieval church. In 876, Pope John VIII granted the Archbishop of Sens the honorific title “Primate of the Gauls and Germans.” The title expressed ecclesiastical precedence, although effective religious jurisdiction passed to the Archbishop of Lyon in the eleventh century. Sens retained the honorific designation while continuing as an important religious center.
Construction of the Gothic cathedral
Archbishop Henri Sanglier, appointed in 1122, decided to replace the earlier cathedral with a larger building. He was supported by Étienne de Garlande, and construction began during a period of economic and demographic growth in Sens. Sanglier died in 1142, but work continued under Archbishops Hugues de Toucy and Guillaume de Champagne. The western facade was completed during the later twelfth century, with some work continuing until about 1176.
Sens was among the earliest cathedrals to employ Gothic architecture, a medieval tradition distinguished by pointed arches, rib vaults, large windows, and external flying buttresses. It was also the first cathedral to use square sexpartite rib vaults throughout the building. A sexpartite vault is divided into six sections, with its weight carried by alternating stronger and weaker supports. The design influenced other churches, including the choir of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and the choir of Canterbury Cathedral.
Popes, exiles, and the French monarchy
The cathedral and its surrounding buildings became associated with important political and religious events. Pope Alexander III arrived at Sens with his court in September 1163 during his conflict with Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. He remained in the city for three years. In 1166, Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, came to Sens as an English exile after opposing King Henry II over the rights and jurisdiction of the Church. Becket lived in a house near the cathedral from 1166 to 1170 and stayed in France until December 1170. He later returned to England and was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral.
On 27 May 1234, Louis IX of France married Marguerite of Provence in the cathedral under Archbishop Gauthier Cornut. The ceremony included an outdoor exchange of consent and rings, a mass, and the blessing of the nuptial chamber. Marguerite was crowned queen the following day, and the marriage strengthened the alliance between France and Provence. The cathedral also briefly held the Crown of Thorns acquired by Louis IX from the Emperor of Constantinople before the relic was carried by boat to Paris and installed in the Sainte-Chapelle.
Medieval enlargement and damage
Gauthier Cornut raised the upper walls of the choir and introduced larger windows to increase the light within the building. His successors continued the work, which was completed in 1309. Cornut also began the adjoining archiepiscopal palace, remodeled the Chapel of Saint Severin, and installed an ornate rood screen. A rood screen, also called a jubé, separates the choir from the nave.
A major disaster occurred on 5 April 1268, when the south tower collapsed. Several people died, the adjoining archiepiscopal palace was damaged, and much of the western facade was destroyed. The tower and facade were rebuilt over a prolonged period, with reconstruction of the tower eventually supported by a bequest from Archbishop Étienne Bécard de Penoul. The collapse also prompted changes inside the cathedral, including the enlargement of clerestory windows and the construction of chapels along the nave. A clerestory is the upper wall level containing windows.
Under Étienne Bécard de Penoul, the Chapel of Saint Savinien was remodeled. Further small chapels for private ceremonies were added along the aisles during the fourteenth century. The early Gothic Chapel of the Virgin, built around 1150, was later reconstructed with larger windows in the Rayonnant style, a phase of Gothic architecture known for expansive, radiating window designs.
The Renaissance transept
Archbishop Tristan de Salazar commissioned a large transept between 1490 and 1517. Martin Chambiges directed the principal work in the Flamboyant Gothic style, the late Gothic phase characterized by intricate tracery and elaborate decoration. Hugues Cuvelier supervised the beginning of the north transept while Chambiges was working at Beauvais. Relics, special sermons, and contributions from the Crown helped finance the project.
The south transept received the Portal of Moses between 1491 and 1496. The Tree of Jesse window and a new rose window followed around 1502–1503, while the great south rose window was installed between 1515 and 1517. The south tower and its campanile were completed in the 1530s, and additional bells were installed in 1560. A campanile is a bell-bearing tower or upper structure.
Religious conflict and early modern change
The Wars of Religion, a series of conflicts between Catholics and Protestants in France during the sixteenth century, delayed work at Sens. The city opposed the Protestant King Henry IV and resisted an unsuccessful siege by a Protestant army. In 1621, Paris replaced Sens as the principal archdiocese of France. The authority of the Archbishop of Sens was then reduced to the neighboring dioceses of Auxerre, Nevers, and Troyes. Sens nevertheless remained a religious center that attracted Jesuit, Carmelite, Benedictine, and Ursuline communities.
Cannon fire celebrating the birth of the future Louis XIV broke the stained glass above the western portal in 1638, and the windows were replaced with plain glass. A storm damaged a north-transept window in 1644, and Antoine Soulignac designed its replacement in 1646.
Eighteenth-century alterations changed both the furnishings and the medieval appearance of the cathedral. The golden altar table was removed in 1760 to help replenish the royal treasury. New altars and a choir enclosure were installed, the stone floor was replaced between 1767 and 1769, and the medieval labyrinth and many medieval tomb slabs were removed. A classical western portico designed by François Soufflot was rejected in 1785. A Gothic reconstruction fund granted by Louis XVI in 1786 was overtaken by the Revolution.
Revolution, war, and restoration
During the French Revolution of 1789–1799, church property was nationalized in 1790. The cathedral hosted political assemblies and revolutionary ceremonies, including the Festival of Reason in February 1794, and was renamed the Temple of the Supreme Being on 8 June 1794. In November 1793, revolutionary troops destroyed much of the portal sculpture and removed eight bells for melting. The two largest bourdon bells, large deep-toned church bells, survived.
After the Revolution, the building was temporarily shared with the Theophilanthropic cult. It returned fully to Catholic control in October 1801, but Napoleon I did not restore Sens’s former ecclesiastical precedence. The cathedral consequently became an ordinary parish church. Russian artillery damaged stained glass during the bombardment of Sens in February 1814, and Prussian soldiers used the building as a barracks during the same month. Traces of their cooking fires remain on the stone floor.
A major repair campaign took place from 1834 to 1848 under Charles Robelin. Eugène Viollet-le-Duc criticized the work in 1847, after which Adolphe Lance directed a new restoration program. The program removed later additions, recreated demolished chapels, restored the building toward a thirteenth-century plan, and reinforced weak structural points with iron. Charles Laisné completed the work in 1898. Sens Cathedral had been listed as a French historic monument in 1840, and later conservation included work on the stained glass between 1881 and 1884 and a major organ restoration from 1983 to 1991.
Following the separation of church and state, the cathedral became state property. In 1907, the Archbishop left the adjoining archiepiscopal palace after it also became state-owned; the former residence now houses the Museum of Sens. During the Second World War, German forces captured Sens on 15 June 1940. The cathedral’s stained glass was removed and replaced with boards, five German shells struck the building with minor damage, and French prisoners of war, including André Malraux, were temporarily held inside. The cathedral marked the 850th anniversary of its consecration in 2014.
Remains
Sens Cathedral is a large Gothic building approximately 113.5 meters long internally and 122 meters externally. Its facade is about 48.5 meters wide. The nave rises 24.4 meters, its central vessel is 15.25 meters wide, and the nave with its two aisles measures 27.5 meters across. The original plan consisted of a long nave and choir without a transept. A single ambulatory, or passage around the choir and apse, surrounded the eastern end, with chapels on either side of the choir. Twentieth-century excavations revealed an earlier rectangular chapel at the eastern end of the apse.
Nave and exterior structure
The nave has three levels: large arcades, a blind triforium, and clerestory windows. A triforium is a narrow gallery or arcaded passage above the main arcade. The first bay is rectangular, followed by four square bays covered with sexpartite vaults. Each aisle contains seven square bays. Alternating strong and weak piers support the vaults. Paired cylindrical columns form the weaker supports, while the stronger piers receive the diagonal ribs and additional arches.
The first weak pier on the south side was replaced by an additional strong pier after the south tower collapsed. The sharper pointed arches in this area distinguish the original construction from the later repairs. Outside, the nave retains early, simple, single-level flying buttresses. Their backs originally lacked rainwater channels and gargoyles, reflecting an early stage in the development of Gothic drainage systems.
Transepts and portals
The transept has two levels rather than the nave’s three, with large arcades below tall windows. Its triforium was omitted to enlarge the clerestory windows. The vault rises about 27 meters in the south arm and 27.5 meters in the north arm. The transept measures approximately 48 meters internally, and its rose windows are about 11 meters in diameter.
South transept
The south transept facade contains the Flamboyant Gothic Portal of Moses, built between 1491 and 1496. A statue of Moses holding the tablets of the Ten Commandments stands above a curving pointed arch, beneath narrow lancet windows and the south rose window. Stair towers flank the facade. Their decoration includes the fleur-de-lis associated with Louis X and ermine associated with Anne of Brittany. The portal’s sculpture niches were emptied during the Revolution.
North transept
The north transept Portal of Abraham was built around 1503–1507. Its elaborate Flamboyant facade and rose window retain the form of the Renaissance-era enlargement, while its statuary was destroyed during the Revolution. The south portal was reserved for the Archbishop, and the north portal was reserved for the clergy of the chapter.
Western facade
The western facade has three portals dedicated from north to south to John the Baptist, Saint Stephen, and the Virgin Mary. Their twelfth-century voussoirs, the wedge-shaped stones forming the arches, contain animated figures and drapery, while the tympana were added later.
The northern portal, dedicated to John the Baptist, is the oldest and best preserved, dating from about 1190–1200. Its tympanum depicts the Baptism of Christ, the feast of Herod, and the beheading of John the Baptist. Other sculpture represents episodes from his life. Traces of red pigment and gold show that the sculpture was originally brightly painted.
The central portal is aligned with the altar and dedicated to Saint Stephen, traditionally regarded in Christianity as the first martyr. Its decoration joins a terrestrial zone of animals, the liberal arts, and the activities of the twelve months with a celestial zone of martyrs, saints, angels, and stars. The jambs contain the wise and foolish virgins, while the tympanum depicts Saint Stephen’s preaching and martyrdom by stoning. The portal also includes representations of the Ten Virgins, medieval arts and sciences, agricultural work, wine production, and a range of real and legendary animals. Most apostle statues and other sculpture were destroyed during the Revolution. The statue of Saint Stephen on the central pillar survived because it was given a revolutionary cap. The original is now in the Museum of Sens, while a copy occupies the portal.
The southern western portal is dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Its sculpture depicts the Dormition and Assumption on the lintel and the Coronation of the Virgin on the tympanum. It replaced an earlier portal destroyed when the south tower collapsed in 1268.
Towers and bells
The northern tower was known as the Lead Tower because its former wooden spire was covered with lead. The spire was removed during the nineteenth-century reconstruction. The south tower, also called the Stone Tower, is Gothic in its main structure and reaches approximately 78 meters, or 78.25 meters in some measurements. Its Renaissance campanile was added in the 1530s.
Five statues occupy the third level of the south tower as part of a gallery of ten sculptures representing archbishops of Sens. The two large bourdon bells, Savinienne and Potentienne, were cast in 1560 and named for the city’s first bishops, Saint Savinien and Saint Potentien. Other bells include the nineteenth-century bell of the dead, the medieval Angelus bell, and the campanile clock bells.
Choir, chapels, and furnishings
The choir retains a three-level elevation comparable to that of the nave. Its ambulatory has five straight bays with sexpartite vaults on each side, joined by a five-sided rounded end. Romanesque blind arcades with finely carved twelfth-century capitals survive along the north side of the ambulatory, and a statue of Thomas Becket stands beneath one of them.
The first chapel on the north side is a baptistery dedicated to John the Baptist and retains a Romanesque choir. The first chapel on the south side contains a fourteenth-century statue of the Virgin and Child and is dedicated to her cult. The luminous axial chapel dates from the thirteenth century and is associated with Saint Savinien. Its stained-glass narrative of the saint’s life is partly concealed by an eighteenth-century sculpture depicting his beheading. The chapel is flanked by chapels of the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, including the oval Chapel of Sainte-Colombe, which contains the tomb of the Dauphin Louis and Marie-Josèphe of Saxony.
The high altar was made by Jean-Nicolas Servandoni in 1742. Its baldachin, a canopy over an altar, rests on four red-marble columns originally intended for the monument to Louis XIV at the Place des Victoires in Paris. Gilded bronze Corinthian capitals, a gilded canopy, a sunburst bearing the tetragrammaton, and a crown inspired by Bernini’s baldachin at Saint Peter’s Basilica complete the design. A two-meter-high bronze angel holding a crucifix stands above a chain attached to a silver pavilion containing a chalice. The altar’s original marble, consecrated in 1332, was reused in the eighteenth-century structure.
The choir enclosure and gateway were made in the eighteenth century by the Parisian ironworker Guillaume Doré. Their gilded decoration includes twisting forms resembling grapevines and the arms of Cardinal de Luynes. The earlier, simpler grille was moved to the Chapel of Saint Savinien.
The monumental tomb of the Dauphin Louis, son of Louis XV, and his wife Marie-Josèphe of Saxony was designed by Cochin and made by Guillaume Coustou the Younger with Julien and Beauvais. Completed in 1776, it includes allegorical groups representing Immortality, Religion, Time, and Conjugal Love. Dismantled during the Revolution, it was restored and returned under Louis XVIII before being moved in 1852 from the choir to the Chapel of Sainte-Colombe.
Stained glass, sculpture, and organ
Stained glass from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries is concentrated in the choir ambulatory and transept arms. Thirteenth-century windows include cycles of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son, as well as a window portraying the life and martyrdom of Thomas Becket through circular and triangular medallions. Other choir windows associate Saint Stephen with scenes from the Nativity and Passion of Christ. Rearranged windows in the axial chapel preserve a relatively complete but disordered series of scenes from the life of Saint Paul.
The south transept includes an eighteen-meter-high window devoted in its lower section to the life and martyrdom of Saint Stephen. Its six-branched rose represents the Last Judgment and the resurrection of the dead. Other windows depict the discovery and translation of Saint Stephen’s relics, the Tree of Jesse, the Virgin, and the life of Saint Nicholas. Troyes glass painters Liévin Vavin, Jehan Verrat, and Balthazar Gondon received the commission for the south-transept glazing in 1500.
The north transept contains the five-branched “Celestial Concert” rose, where 62 angels play 32 different instruments. Five lancet windows below depict appearances of the Archangel Gabriel. Other panels represent Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, sixteen canonized archbishops of Sens, and six patron saints of the city. Most of this glazing dates from the early sixteenth century, although Antoine Soulignac made one window in 1646.
A fourteenth-century Virgin and Child, given by Canon Manuel de Jaulnes in 1334, retains its finely detailed drapery and serene expression. Its crown decoration was broken during the Revolution and later restored. The eighteenth-century Martyrdom of Saint Severin by Joseph Hermand is set against pale yellow stucco shaped like drapery. Sculptures and reliefs of Cardinal Antoine Duprat, Chancellor of France and Archbishop of Sens from 1525 to 1535, survive from a mausoleum destroyed during the Revolution.
The cathedral has possessed an organ since at least 1440. Earlier instruments were rebuilt or enlarged in 1560 and 1609. A new organ was installed near the western facade in 1734 after work began in 1722, and it was restored or modified in 1774, 1804, 1890, 1937, and 1978. The present instrument incorporates eighteenth- and nineteenth-century pipes and has 2,906 pipes. A smaller choir organ was installed in 1841.
Adjoining ecclesiastical buildings
The sixteenth-century archiepiscopal palace adjoins the cathedral south of the choir. A stairway connects it to the sacristy and leads to the former apartments and gallery of the Archbishop. The building now houses the Museum of Sens and the cathedral treasury. The treasury contains liturgical vestments and objects used in the cathedral, including altar coverings depicting the Coronation of the Virgin and the Adoration of the Magi, a royal fleur-de-lis and ermine mantle made for funeral offices for the Dauphin and Dauphine, and ecclesiastical garments associated with Thomas Becket. Crosses, reliquaries, chalices, rings, and a reliquary associated with a purported fragment of the True Cross are also preserved there.
The thirteenth-century Synodal Palace stands at an angle on the cathedral’s south side. Its ground floor housed the ecclesiastical court, while the upper floor contained a large six-vaulted hall for synods. The collapse of the south tower destroyed its vaults, and the interior was later subdivided. Viollet-le-Duc restored the building toward its original form. Its patterned tile roof, crenellations, four low corner towers, and animal-shaped gargoyles survive, together with a parvis facade bearing six paired windows and statues of Saint Stephen, Saint Potentien, Saint Savinien, Archbishop Gauthier Cornu, and Saint Louis.
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