The Cathedral of Langres has a choir with semicircular apse and aisle, built in the second half of the twelfth century, and a nave with three aisles of the early part of the thirteenth century. This nave shows the influence of another school of architecture in the section of the pillars, the broad transverse ribs, and other features; but the vaulting is already entirely executed in oblong bays. Although the pillars are more massive than the round stems of the churches of the North of France, yet flying buttresses are employed to convey the thrust of the vaulting of the middle aisle to the buttress.
Notre Dame at Dijan.—The not very large Church of Notre Dame at Dijon was erected about 1220. The exterior appears rather massive, since all the weight and thrust are centred in the buttresses, whereas the inte rior exhibits a surpassing elegance and lightness, seeming more a fairy fabric than one of stone. It is, in fact, an ingenious system of construction which required a gifted intelligence to arrange so as to give the interior such lightness.
Noire Dame, Par/S.—The nave of Notre Dame at Paris (about 1218) has five aisles, like the choir (p1. 29, figs. I, 2). Circular columns sepa rate the centre from the side-aisles, and the clustered shafts of the groining, start upon the capitals. The arches are pointed, and the broad archivolts have rectangular rebates with roll-mouldings on the edges. A cornice broken by the shafts, which have pedestals and bases where they rest on the caps of the columns; runs above the arcades. The gallery above the inner side-aisles has pointed arches subdivided into three smaller arches on colonnettes. The space above this had no triforium, but opened by round windows into the roof-space over the gallery. This had to give way to a later enlargement of the clere-story windows. The previous windows were simple lancet-headed ones without tracery. The vaulting of the centre aisle is hexapartite, each bay comprising two oblong bays. The wall-ribs, on account of the windows, as well as in order that they may rise as nearly as possible to the same level as the crown of the vault, are stilted upon small colonnettes resting upon the side-shafts, which rise from the intermediate columns, while on the principal columns they are set upon the shafts which also bear the diagonal ribs. The system of buttresses and flying-buttresses is alike in the main and intermediate pillars.
Externally, massive buttresses projected from the original wall of the side-aisles, receiving their thrust directly, while that of the vaulting of the middle aisle was transferred to them. Piers rise above the pillars which
separate the inner and outer side-aisles, and these piers receive the flying buttresses from the clere-storev and transmit the thrust to the buttresses by additional flying-buttresses. There are two series of flying-buttresses under one another. The lower series abuts against the springing of the cross-ribs; the upper rests against the middle aisle, a little under the cornice, and, besides the assistance which it lends to the lower series, serves to convey the water from the roof. The lower flying-buttress is brought under the roof of the vaulted gallery and is not visible, but the arch which abuts against it and conveys its thrust from the pillars between the aisles to the buttresses is in full sight. Arches under the roof of the outer aisle also contribute to the stability and bonding of the entire system. Iii the middle of the thirteenth century considerable alterations were made which gave the inside its present appearance.
At the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth century the walls of the side-aisles were removed and chapels built between the buttresses. The section of the nave (m. 29, fig. 2) makes clear the system of buttresses. The ground-plan (fig. I) shows the later altera tions, particularly the chapels built between the buttresses. The design of the façade (fig. 3) is of great magnificence, though the upper parts of the towers are as yet unfinished. Although the greater number of the details must induce us to class the structure as Romanesque, yet the entire arrangement, the whole conception, is such that we see before us not only the inception of a new style, but also the ideal and the highest achievement of that style.
Church at Uezelay.—Almost equal in development, but smaller in its masses and more elegant in its entire effect than the nave of Notre Dame at Paris, is the choir of the church at Vezelay, begun in the first years of the thirteenth century. It has columns of a single stone, with pointed arches. Three shafts rise from each column; the cornice runs around them, and they are also girt with rings. The bay next to the apse has two arches between the stout columns, so arranged that they form a transition to the narrower axis of the polygonal apse. That the arches may have their full width and the lightest support possible, they are separated by two small columns placed one behind the other.