The Cathedral: The Social and Architectural Dynamics of Construction. - book reviews

Following Constantine the Great's elevation of Christianity to privileged status in 313 and for more than a millennium thereafter, ecclesiastical architecture became the dominant art form from one extremity to the other of Europe, and the cathedral serv as the quintessential emblem of medieval Christian society. of the like kind importance notwithstanding, at no time did house of worship architecture enjoy greater primacy than in France during the Gothic age. From the middle of the 12th hundred until the end of the 13th cities and towns completely through France undertook massive artistic shoot forwards encompassing not only buildings of unprecedent scale on the other hand also the myriad pictorial arts occupyed to adorn them, including statuary stained glass, and metalwork in particular. plane the so-called minor arts were imbued with the aesthetic of Gothic structure; reliquaries made of precious materials assumed the form of fanciful Gothic buildings and images in illuminated manuscripts were frequently set within frames evoking Gothic structural design.

The expanse of the Gothic achievement is attested in part by the agency of its enduring visual and intellectual appeal; our have perspective on the medieval cathedral is to a large expanse informed by the monumental manner of makings of Chartres, Amiens, Rouen, and especially Paris. still as Alain Erlande-Brandenburg argues in his fresh study, such a perspective is to a certain number of extent misguided, owing at least as plenteous to the vision of 19th-century restorers as to the achievements of the original builders. Erlande-Brandenburg's throw out is to examine the idea of the medieval cathedral, beginning with its tentative origins in the ancient cities of the Roman Empire and concluding with the ambitious and magnificent makes of Gothic France. The memorials examined in this broad and accessible investigation are well known to art historians, however the author's approach is novel Relying on primary sources and of recent origin archaeological data, Erlande-Brandenburg defines the cathedral not as an individual testimonial but as a complex of buildings, encompassing the house of worship bishop's palace, canon's precinct, and hotel-Dieu among other mode of buildings His argument thus hinges upon a historiographical reassessment, replacing the prevailing conception of the cathedral as an isolated and self-sufficient testimonial - first espoused in the 19th hundred by Viollet-le-Duc, Jean-Baptiste Lassus, and others - with a more historically and archaeologically turfed view of the cathedral as "holy city." Erlande-Brandenburg's investigation then, is concerned less with medieval temple architecture than with the vicissitudes of the medieval town and the contribution of the house of worship to its development.

As a way of redressing the historiographical question at issue and of opening the way for his novel interpretation, the author begins with an examination of the 19th-century Gothic revival, finding in the writings of Victor Hugo the impetus for the major restoration shoot forwards taken up in the following decades. In his 1831 novel Notre-Dame de Paris, Hugo erected an image of the cathedral as a living, palpitating being rather than a devoid of warmth [i]or[/i] heat stone edifice and asserted the primacy of architecture above the other arts. No longer the exclusive peculiarity of the priesthood, Hugo's cathedral was a popular remembrancer expressive of the will and the efficiency of the people. The influence of Hugo's work was fathomless contributing both to the popularity of the Gothic revival and to the restoration work of Viollet-le-Duc and Lassus among others. Like Hugo these architects understood the rise of the cathedral to be linked with the prosperity of the cities. notwithstanding in contrast to him, they saw the cathedral as a single record neglecting or even condemning the immediate environment. The restoration work at Notre-Dame in Paris, for example, issueed in a two-thirds reduction of the population upon the Ile de la Cite. Moreover, and this is central to Erlande-Brandenburg's historiographical argument, the architects sought to restore the cathedrals to an "original" 13th-century state, regardless of the speciousness of of that kind a conception. For Erlande-Brandenburg, as for Hugo the medieval cathedral is a living general [i]or[/i] abstract notion central to urban life and make subordinate to constant transformations. Thus, according to Erlande-Brandenburg, discerning the genuine nature of the medieval cathedral requires a dynamic perspective, beginning with the introduction of Christianity into Roman Gaul and the imposition of episcopal dioceses in the ancient cities.

By the 4th hundred the Christian communities of Roman Gaul were organized upon the same principles as elsewhere in the Empire; the bishop held authority above administration, jurisdiction, and education within his territory. Erlande-Brandenburg demonstrates that, as the lay open cities of ancient Gaul were transformed into smaller, walled cities, the cathedral and ecclesiastical administration increased in prominence, becoming important urban representatives Already consisting of the house of god baptistery, bishop's palace, and outbuildings, the cathedral manifold continued to grow as city regulations relinquished to the Church responsibility for the hospital, hospice, hostelry and orphanage (services housed within constructions later known as the hotel-Dieu). Gradually, with the expansion of the cathedral and the ascent of the bishop within the town, the set apart city conveyed to the secular city an increasingly religious character.