A Portrait by Rubens of Salomon de Brosse

Abstract

I. After ca. 480, a crypt of uncertain form was built within a cemeterial edifice (Fig. 2a). II. This crypt was succeeded by one of three parallel tunnel-vaulted chapels, apparently about 666-670. The addition of a fourth tunnel-vaulted room to give the crypt the shape of a T (Fig. 2b) has been linked with the circumstances of a transferral of relics in 698. At the very latest this T-shaped crypt must have been finished by 760764.60 In 882 it was destroyed during a Norman attack. III. Within the ruins of the Merovingian-Carolingian structure a temporary crypt was built after 885 (Fig. 2c). This included a western sanctuary facing the former locus sanctorum; and, from between 915 and 931, a horseshoe apse with an arcosolium. IV. A new plan (Figs. 2d, e) was drawn after 934, and by 942 the rebuilt west chamber of the T plan became the confessio of a new abbey church. By 952, behind the main apse, a two-storied outer crypt was constructed around the three-celled core of the Merovingian-Carolingian crypt. Except for some few alterations, especially in the thirteenth century, this arrangement remained until 1674.