The Nave Vaults of Noyon Cathedral

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THIS NOTE CONFIRMS a hypothesis on the Noyon nave vaults recently proposed by Marcel Deyres, and advances evidence for a revision of his suggested dating.1 In reconstructing the chronology of Noyon Cathedral (Fig. i), Charles Seymour2 offered that the nave was begun ca. 1170, during the third phase of construction (ca. 1170 to ca. 185).3 The first campaign opened with the choir and progressed to the peripheral wall and chapels between 1145/50 and 1155/6o. The second phase saw the completion of the ambulatory, construction of the choir tower bays and the exterior wall of the gallery, as well as the layout and elevation of the transept arms between iI15/6o and ca. 1170. The third campaign completed the upper parts of both choir and transept, and concluded with the easternmost or last double bay of the nave. The design of this four-story structure with vaulted aisles and galleries, triforium wall-passage, and double lancet clerestory windows under sexpartite main vaults was established ca. 1170 and used without major changes through the next two campaigns of construction until the nave was finally completed ca. IzoS.4 According to Seymour, the sexpartite main vaults survived in the nave until the fire of 2z93, after which they were rebuilt on a rectangular, quadripartite plan with rib profiles closely resembling the twelfth-century examples they replaced.5 In his new study of the nave vaults, Deyres follows Seymour's chronology for the building sequence, but argues p rsuasively for an important change in the parti. Admitting the likelihood of the inclusion of sexpartite vaults in the first