Soissons Cathedral: A Gothic Cathedral in France
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History
Soissons Cathedral is a Catholic cathedral in Soissons, France, dedicated to Saints Gervais and Protais and built principally in the Gothic period from 1176 onward. It is the seat of the Diocese of Soissons, Laon and Saint-Quentin, forms part of the Saint-Sixte parish, and became a minor basilica on 10 March 1857. The cathedral is the third known cathedral of Soissons and developed over several centuries of construction, damage, rebuilding, and restoration.
Early cathedrals and the medieval rebuilding
The Diocese of Soissons emerged during the evangelization of the Soissonnais in the third or fourth century. Its beginnings are associated with Saints Sixtus and Sinicius, regarded as the first bishops of the diocese. The position of their first cathedral remains uncertain. Two proposed locations are the former Saint-Crépin-le-Grand Abbey and the site occupied by the present cathedral.
A second cathedral was consecrated by Bishop Rothade in 815, during the Carolingian period. It appears to have stood on the site of the present building. In 948, troops of Hugh the Great burned its cloister during his conflict with Bishop Gui of Soissons. The extent of the damage is uncertain, but the cathedral apparently remained usable and did not require complete rebuilding.
Minor work on the third cathedral may have begun in the late eleventh century. The major project developed under Bishops Josselin of Vierzy, Anscoul of Pierrefonds, and Nivelon of Quierzy. Construction formally began in 1176 under Nivelon, who granted the cathedral chapter land for the south transept. The Saint-Jacques Chapel was founded in 1190, by which time construction had probably reached the lower levels of the south transept and had moved toward the crossing, the eastern end of the nave, and the choir.
By 1193, Dean Guillaume had donated five marks of silver toward the construction of the corona. This term may have referred either to the ambulatory apse around the choir or to a circular lamp above the altar. After the Fourth Crusade, whose forces captured Constantinople in 1204, Nivelon of Quierzy brought prestigious relics to Soissons from the city’s imperial treasures. The many worshippers who came to venerate them generated income that helped the chapter finance the choir, constructed between 1197 and 1212.
Completion and unfinished elements
By 1212, the choir, crossing, arcades, and triforium of the easternmost nave bay had been completed, together with both arms of the transept. A temporary wall separated the crossing from the unfinished nave. The north and south aisles were constructed between 1212 and 1230, and the west facade belongs to the middle of the thirteenth century.
The original north transept was rebuilt during the final quarter of the thirteenth century and completed around the beginning of the fourteenth century. Work on the south tower of the west facade advanced slowly and stopped around the middle of the fourteenth century during the Hundred Years’ War, the prolonged series of conflicts between the English and French crowns. The tower therefore remained without its intended spire, while the planned north tower was permanently abandoned for lack of funds.
During the Burgundian siege of Soissons in 1414, inhabitants were permitted to take stones from the unfinished works to repair damaged houses. Bishop Jean Milet dedicated the cathedral on 25 April 1479, although parts of the building were still incomplete. This dedication is treated as the close of the cathedral’s principal construction period.
Religious conflict and early modern changes
Huguenot forces occupied Soissons in 1567 and 1568 during the French Wars of Religion, the civil and religious conflicts between Catholics and Protestants. They vandalized the cathedral, burning its furnishings, breaking accessible windows, looting the treasury, pulling down the small tower over the crossing, and seriously damaging the sculpture of the portal. Repairs were financed in part by three years of episcopal revenues surrendered by Bishop Charles de Roucy, with assistance from the clergy of Laon and Reims.
New choir stalls were commissioned in 1569, and the great organ was delivered in 1628. Paul Le Grand, Liénard, and Henri Gentillâtre of Reims built a new rood screen on the foundations of the earlier screen between the eastern crossing piers. During the eighteenth century, the cathedral gained a Sacred Heart Chapel on the south side of the nave and chapels dedicated to Saint Paul and Saint Augustine on the north side. Antoine Fourest directed the renewal of the choir furnishings and decoration between 1767 and 1775, following designs by the sculptor Michel-Ange Slodtz.
Revolution, restoration, and modern damage
The French Revolution brought further damage. The cathedral closed in 1793 and again in 1796. In 1798, the Theophilanthropists, a deistic movement that briefly used former churches during the revolutionary period, destroyed surviving decorative elements, especially around the portals. The building was then used as an army clothing store before reopening for worship in 1799. Leblanc de Beaulieu, the first bishop appointed after the Concordat, began early restoration work, although details of these interventions are poorly documented.
An explosion at a nearby powder magazine on 13 October 1815 seriously damaged the windows on the south side of the nave and those of the west facade. The choir glazing was relatively protected, while the north-transept windows suffered mainly smaller perforations. Emergency repairs secured and preserved the surviving elements. The cathedral was classified as a French historic monument in 1840, after which restoration campaigns were more fully documented. These included structural work on the south transept, the roof passage around the choir, masonry joints, and stained glass.
During the First World War, the cathedral was used as an artillery target. The upper part of the facade tower and the first three bays of the nave were almost destroyed. Chief architect Émile Brunet directed a lengthy restoration that was completed in 1937. On the night of 12 to 13 January 2017, Storm Egon caused the west rose window to collapse under wind pressure. Falling stone and glass damaged the organ behind it, partly destroying the instrument and making it unusable.
Remains
Soissons Cathedral is a large Gothic building made principally from Lutetian limestone, a roughly 45-million-year-old stone quarried in the Soissonnais. It measures 116 metres externally. The nave is 26 metres wide externally, excluding the lateral chapels at the fifth and sixth bays, while its central vessel is 11.5 metres wide inside and the total interior width is 21.5 metres. The transept is 46 metres long and 10 metres wide without its aisles. The principal surviving spaces combine early Gothic structural ideas with the later Classical and Rayonnant developments expressed in the choir, nave, and rebuilt north transept.
West facade and tower
Facade
The west facade has three levels and is markedly asymmetrical because its planned north tower was never built. Four large buttresses divide it vertically and were designed to stabilize both the facade and the intended twin towers. The facade is 38 metres wide including the lateral buttresses and 32 metres without them. Three portals occupy the ground level. Their original porches carried large gables and numerous statues, while Huguenot vandalism, eighteenth-century restoration work, and revolutionary destruction removed the gables, sculpture, and much of the ornament.
A central rose window lies above the portals beneath a large pointed arch. Two large paired openings flank it, each topped by a six-lobed circular opening. A central gallery of paired arcades crowns the facade and was intended to connect the two towers. The surviving arrangement preserves the scale of the original design while displaying the effects of the unfinished medieval project and later damage.
South tower and bells
The single facade tower stands on the south side. It has a square plan and one principal level, with two long openings fitted with louvers on each face. A terrace with a balustrade forms its summit. A small turret at the southeast corner contains the upper section of a spiral staircase, while an octagonal stair turret with a conical roof and narrow slit openings is attached to the south side. A similar turret borders the north side of the facade massif. The tower rises to 66 metres.
Eight swinging bells hang in the tower and form a G-major scale. Julia-Paula was cast in 1881 by Cavillier père et fils at Carrépuis, and Protaise was cast there in 1810 by Nicolas Cavillier. The other six were made in 1924 by the Bollée foundry at Saint-Jean-de-Braye. They are Marie-Henriette-Amérique-France-Victoire, the 5,500-kilogram bourdon; Renée-Andrée-Marie-Crépine, weighing 2,700 kilograms; Jeanne-Louise-Madeleine-Eugénie-Gervaise, 2,140 kilograms; Juliette-Marie-Louise-Josèphe-Anna-Crépinienne, 1,050 kilograms; Henriette-Ernestine-Augustine-Pauline-Marie-Eugénie-Geneviève-Sixtine, 770 kilograms; and Jeanne-Marcelle-Victorine-Octavie-Juliette, 600 kilograms.
Julia-Paula was named Simone in 1645 and was originally cast for Saint-Jean-des-Vignes Abbey. It was transferred to the cathedral in 1792 and recast under its present name in 1881.
Transepts and crossing
South transept
The south transept is the oldest surviving part of the cathedral and dates from the late twelfth century. This early Gothic section has four levels, large arcades, tribunes, a triforium, and high windows, rather than the three levels used in the nave and choir. It ends in a rounded apse and forms a hemicycle surrounded by a narrow ambulatory. The transept is narrower but slightly deeper than the north arm. Its large arcades use a repeated sequence of one composed pier followed by two lighter attached shafts. The tribunes contain three arcades and the triforium six.
Round chapel
A large, two-level round chapel opens from the southeast side of the south-transept ambulatory. Its lower level has a vault formed by ten ribs that converge on a keystone depicting a lamb. The upper chapel opens onto the transept tribunes. The nearby ambulatory and chapel retain polychrome tile roofs, contrasting with the chiefly slate-covered main roof.
North transept
Rebuilt during the final quarter of the thirteenth century, the north transept introduces Rayonnant Gothic, a later Gothic development emphasizing elaborate tracery and expansive window design, while retaining the height established by the earlier choir. It has three levels like the nave and is supported by four flying buttresses, two on the east and two on the west. Its portal is placed on the east side rather than at the end. The terminal wall contains a rose window set in a pointed arch, four lancets in the lower spandrels, and a gable with a blind circular opening. The lower facade has four grated rectangular openings and adjoins a large ruined wall.
The great glazing of the north transept consists of a rose window, a four-bay clerestory topped by gables, and four lancets between them. The rose dates from around the beginning of the fourteenth century. The present lancet glazing was made by the Mazetier workshop during the 1920s, while the Daumont-Tournel workshop restored the rose and completed replacement lancets in 1926. The ensemble depicts episodes from the life of the Virgin. The transept also contains Peter Paul Rubens’s Adoration of the Shepherds and Philippe de Champaigne’s Giving the Keys to Saint Peter, dated 1624.
Crossing
The crossing is defined by four unusually massive piers originally intended to carry a central lantern tower. Although that tower was never built, the monumental proportions of the piers influenced the design of the choir and the eastern end of the nave. A long balustraded gallery follows the base of the roof around the eastern end of the cathedral and continues westward to the tower. The main roof is chiefly covered with slate, while the north transept, the round chapel beside the southeast side of the south transept, and that transept’s ambulatory have polychrome tile roofs.
Nave and choir
Nave
The nave has seven bays preceded by a one-bay narthex, an entrance space before the main church. Its three-part elevation consists of large arcades, a triforium, an arcaded passage above the main arcade, and high windows. The quadripartite rib vaults, divided into four sections by intersecting ribs, use elongated rectangular bays whose longer dimension runs across the nave. Each triforium bay has four arcades, and paired high windows are topped by multilobed circular openings.
The nave’s large arcade columns have a single attached shaft and octagonal capitals. Each column supports a group of five shafts rising toward the vaults. This form is known as the Soissons pier or Soissons column, a slender Gothic support developed at Soissons that influenced later Rayonnant Gothic in France and Europe. The design allowed the large arcades and high windows to rise considerably, creating a lighter interior and becoming an early model for later work at Chartres and Reims.
At the level of the third bay, an entrance north of the nave leads to a large hall divided into three vessels of three bays. Chapels open from the south aisle at the fifth and sixth bays. Most nave windows now contain transparent glass, installed after the 1815 explosion. The vault of the north transept and the choir also reaches 31 metres, while the south-transept vault rises to 23 metres.
Choir and chevet
The choir is an important early example of Classical, or lancet, Gothic, a phase characterized by tall narrow pointed windows and ordered structural elevations. It has three levels like the nave, four rectangular bays, Soissons piers, and a rounded apse. A broad ambulatory, between 5 and 6.5 metres wide, circles the choir. Five shallow radiating chapels are placed between doubled piers and the exterior buttresses.
In the rectangular bays, the triforium has four-arched openings beneath paired high windows containing two lancets. In the apse, the triforium has three arcades and the high windows have one fewer lancet. The radiating chapels share vaulting with the adjoining ambulatory. At their junctions, the keystones receive eight ribs, four from the chapels, two from the ambulatory, and two intermediate ribs.
The choir’s high windows and radiating chapels are separated by strongly projecting buttresses supporting substantial two-level flying buttresses. These exterior arches transfer the outward pressure of the vaults to external supports at different heights. The final stone of each arch remains free to slide if settlement affects the vertical supports. The upper buttress coping does not yet serve as a water channel, and the outer supports have no gargoyles at their tops.
The choir contains a fifteenth-century tapestry showing the lives of the cathedral’s martyred patrons, Gervais and Protais. Its furnishings chiefly date from 1767 to 1775. A gilded wrought-iron screen separates the choir from the ambulatory. The high altar stands at the rear of the apse, flanked by two white-marble Annunciation statues by Michel-Ange Slodtz. The bishop’s throne belongs to the same period.
Glazing and chapels
Medieval choir windows
The cathedral retains medieval glazing chiefly in the chevet and the north-transept rose, alongside later windows added over several centuries. Most medieval choir glass dates from the first quarter of the thirteenth century. The axial window was partly financed by King Philip Augustus, Eleanor of Vermandois, Bishop Aymard of Provins, and Canon Hubert of Cuignère. Philip Augustus contributed thirty Parisian livres.
Five medieval high windows in the choir apse date from around the turn of the thirteenth century. Their subjects are the ancestors of Christ with the Zodiac, the liberal arts and the labors of the months, the Last Judgment, the Tree of Jesse, the Fall, and the death and glorification of the Virgin. Smaller choir roses contain medieval figures of kings, crowned personifications of virtues, and bishops. Several high lancets contain abstract glass by the Jacques Le Chevallier workshop.
West rose window
The original medieval west rose was heavily damaged by the 1815 explosion and destroyed during the First World War. The Gaudin workshop made a replacement in 1931 in an Art Deco style. It depicted Christ in Glory surrounded by prophets and apostles. Storm Egon caused this window to collapse in January 2017, and falling stone and glass damaged the organ installed behind it.
Radiating chapels
Each radiating chapel in the chevet has three lancets. Saint-Valère Chapel contains glazing devoted to the life of Saint Giles. Only its central window retains thirteenth-century elements, while the other windows were made in the nineteenth century by Félix Gaudin. Saint Paul Chapel has mainly nineteenth-century Félix Gaudin glazing dedicated to Saints Crispin and Crispinian.
The Virgin Chapel contains two thirteenth-century windows with scenes from the life of Moses and episodes from the life of Judith. Saint Peter Chapel has three abstract windows made by the Le Chevallier workshop in 1970, representing the Old Testament, the contemporary Church, and the life of Christ. Saint Rufin Chapel contains nineteenth- and twentieth-century glazing by Félix Gaudin and Le Chevallier depicting Saints Lawrence, Gervais, Protais, Sixtus, and Sinicius.
Sacred Heart Chapel
The original glazing of the Sacred Heart Chapel is unknown. Bishop Odon Thibaudier and Archpriest Jean-Baptiste Guyenne commissioned a replacement from Édouard Didron, installed in 1879. First World War damage destroyed that glazing. In 1931, the Gaudin workshop supplied new windows with diamond-shaped panes, the episcopal arms of Bishops Jean-Joseph Languet de Gergy and Ernest Mennechet, and a medallion of the Sacred Heart.
Grand organ
The grand organ was commissioned from Victor Gonzalez in 1949 and inaugurated in 1956. It was Gonzalez’s final work. Installed 23 metres above the floor, it has been described as the highest-positioned organ in France. Its composition was prepared by Norbert Dufourcq, probably at the request of Canon Henri Doyen.
The instrument has three 61-note manuals, a 32-note pedalboard, 67 stops, and approximately 5,000 pipes. Its manuals use mechanical action assisted by Barker machines, while the pedal, stops, and swell box use electric action. It also has adjustable combinations, couplers between the manuals, manual-to-pedal couplers, mixture and reed controls, and a crescendo system. Around 1985, fatigue in the electric stop action led to cleaning and repairs, although the organ was not completely restored. Damage from the collapse of the west rose window in 2017 affected its mechanism and rendered the instrument unusable.
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