Notre-Dame of Laon
Encyclopedia
Laon Cathedral is one of the most important examples of the Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....

 of the 12th and 13th centuries, earlier than the cathedrals of Sens and Notre Dame of Paris
Notre Dame de Paris
Notre Dame de Paris , also known as Notre Dame Cathedral, is a Gothic, Roman Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France. It is the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Paris: that is, it is the church that contains the cathedra of...

 and ranking with them in importance. It is located in Laon
Laon
Laon is the capital city of the Aisne department in Picardy in northern France.-History:The hilly district of Laon, which rises a hundred metres above the otherwise flat Picardy plain, has always held strategic importance...

, Picardy, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, and is the seat of the Bishop of Laon
Ancient diocese of Laon
The diocese of Laon in the present-day département of Aisne, was a Catholic diocese for around 1300 years, up to the French Revolution. Its seat was in Laon, France, with the Laon Cathedral. From early in the 13th century, the bishop of Laon was a Pair de France, among the elite.-History:The...

. It has been listed among the Monuments Historiques
Monument historique
A monument historique is a National Heritage Site of France. It also refers to a state procedure in France by which national heritage protection is extended to a building or a specific part of a building, a collection of buildings, or gardens, bridges, and other structures, because of their...

since 1840.

Previous cathedrals on the site

The current cathedral is built on the site of an earlier edifice commenced under the episcopacy of Gerfrid (774 - 800). That Carolingian
Carolingian architecture
Carolingian architecture is the style of north European Pre-Romanesque architecture belonging to the period of the Carolingian Renaissance of the late 8th and 9th centuries, when the Carolingian family dominated west European politics...

 cathedral was consecrated on 6 September 800 in the presence of the emperor himself
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...



The Carolingian building was replaced under Bishop Élinand (1052–1095). The present new building was inaugurated with the second coronation of the future King Philip I
Philip I of France
Philip I , called the Amorous, was King of France from 1060 to his death. His reign, like that of most of the early Direct Capetians, was extraordinarily long for the time...

. This cathedral was torched during the Easter Insurrection on 25 April 1112. During the revolt Laon's unpopular Bishop Waldric (in French Gaudry)
Waldric
Waldric was the eighth Lord Chancellor and Lord Keeper of England, from 1103 to 1107. He was also Bishop of Laon from 1106 to 1112. He had been a royal chaplain as early as 3 September 1101....

 was killed, despite taking the precaution of hiding in a barrel in the cellar of the episcopal palace. The cathedral was not destroyed, however, and after a repair programme lasting two years it was rededicated in 1114 under Bishop Barthélemy de Jur.

History

The present Laon Cathedral dates from the 12th and early 13th centuries, an early example of the Gothic style that originated in Northern France. The former cathedral was burned out and damaged during the communal insurrection in 1112, occasioned by the revocation of the commune's charter. The present reconstruction began with a choir in about 1160 and was finished as far as the east side of the transept
Transept
For the periodical go to The Transept.A transept is a transverse section, of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In Christian churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform building in Romanesque and Gothic Christian church architecture...

 by 1174. In a second campaign, which started about 1180, the nave was built, and completed after 1205. Then the choir was replaced by the greatly lengthened present choir in 1215.

The building is cruciform
Cruciform
Cruciform means having the shape of a cross or Christian cross.- Cruciform architectural plan :This is a common description of Christian churches. In Early Christian, Byzantine and other Eastern Orthodox forms of church architecture this is more likely to mean a tetraconch plan, a Greek cross,...

, and the choir terminates in a straight wall instead of in an apse
Apse
In architecture, the apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome...

. Of the seven planned tower
Tower
A tower is a tall structure, usually taller than it is wide, often by a significant margin. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires....

s flanking the façade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....

s, only five are complete to the height of the base of the spire
Spire
A spire is a tapering conical or pyramidal structure on the top of a building, particularly a church tower. Etymologically, the word is derived from the Old English word spir, meaning a sprout, shoot, or stalk of grass....

s, two at the west front, with life-size figures of oxen beneath the arcades of their upper portion, two more, one at each end of the transept, and a square central crossing tower that forms a lantern
Lantern
A lantern is a portable lighting device or mounted light fixture used to illuminate broad areas. Lanterns may also be used for signaling, as 'torches', or as general light sources outdoors . Low light level varieties are used for decoration. The term "lantern" is also used more generically to...

 illuminating the crossing
Crossing (architecture)
A crossing, in ecclesiastical architecture, is the junction of the four arms of a cruciform church.In a typically oriented church , the crossing gives access to the nave on the west, the transept arms on the north and south, and the choir on the east.The crossing is sometimes surmounted by a tower...

.

The west front, with three porches, the centre one surmounted by a fine rose window
Rose window
A Rose window is often used as a generic term applied to a circular window, but is especially used for those found in churches of the Gothic architectural style and being divided into segments by stone mullions and tracery...

 of 1210, ranks next to that of Notre Dame de Paris
Notre Dame de Paris
Notre Dame de Paris , also known as Notre Dame Cathedral, is a Gothic, Roman Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France. It is the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Paris: that is, it is the church that contains the cathedra of...

 in the purity of its Gothic style. Because of the use of white stone in the interior, however, the luminosity is remarkably greater than at Notre-Dame. The cathedral has stained glass
Stained glass
The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...

 of the 13th century and a chancel screen
Rood screen
The rood screen is a common feature in late medieval church architecture. It is typically an ornate partition between the chancel and nave, of more or less open tracery constructed of wood, stone, or wrought iron...

 of the 18th century. Although the cathedral suffered some damage during the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

 and the Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...

 of 1870, it escaped both World Wars unharmed.

The famous medieval artist Villard de Honnecourt
Villard de Honnecourt
Villard de Honnecourt was a 13th-century artist from Picardy in northern France. He is known to history only through a surviving portfolio of 33 sheets of parchment containing about 250 drawings dating from the 1220s/1240s, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris...

 made detailed drawings of one of the towers of Laon, ca. 1230.

Composer Pierre Dumage
Pierre Dumage
Pierre Dumage was a French Baroque organist and composer. His first music teacher was most likely his father, organist of the Beauvais Cathedral. At some point during his youth Dumage moved to Paris and studied under Louis Marchand...

was organist of the cathedral in 1710–19.


External links

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