The Early Campaign at Sens, 1140-1145

Abstract

THE cathedral at Sens has long been considered the first in date among the Gothic cathedrals. Begun before Archbishop Henri le Sanglier's death in 1142, the construction was at least contemporary to Abbot Suger's chevet (I 40-I I44) at St. Denis, and several of the interpretations have even pushed back the date of inception to the year II 30. If such were the case, the rib vaulted double bays of the choir which generate a spatial amplitude of wide expansive volumes would have been without precedent in the Ile-deFrance. Furthermore, the emergence of Gothic forms at Sens in the I I30s would have marked a spectacular advance over the most plausible sources in England and Normandy, the cathedral at Durham and St. Etienne of Caen, which were still thoroughly Romanesque despite their rib vaults. The cathedral at Sens does not yield a conclusion that extreme. Although construction did begin at the east, the choir was not the first area erected. Instead, the work began with the peripheral wall of the chevet, and it is with that campaign that the architectural analysis must start. Only then can the priority of Sens in the genesis of the Gothic be fully explained. The contrast between the north chapel and the choir of the cathedral at Sens vividly poses the question of two distinct campaigns in the early years of construction. The north chapel, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, flanks the choir collateral of the second double bay west of the hemicycle and consists of a semicircular apse preceded by a straight bay nearly square in plan. The half domed apse, the thick wall pierced by windows without articulated moldings, and the roundheaded arches of the dado arcade are thoroughly Romanesque (Fig. I). The chapel does not anticipate the Gothic choir with its pointed arches, its developed moldings, and its ogival vaults (Fig. 2). More importantly, the chapel is austere on its surfaces and restrained in its volume, while the choir expresses the spatial amplitude and fusion of the Gothic. So great is the contrast that the Gothic cathedral that was constructed must represent a significant redirection soon after the work began. The separate campaigns which emerge bridge the Romanesque and the Gothic within the context of one monument.