The Church of the Jacobins at Agen was built about the middle of the thirteenth century; it also had two aisles. That at Toulouse descends from the second half of the century, and its two aisles are terminated in a beautiful and original manner by a wreath of chapels around the choir, forming a semicircle about the last pillar. The circlet of chapels is not of the same date as are the rest, but is a work of the fourteenth and fif teenth centuries.
As has been stated (p. 187), few buildings were erected complete at once. All churches were foundations which proceeded from the donations of believers; to these, from king to beggar, all contributed according to their means. In the beginning of the thirteenth century these sources seemed inexhaustible, though they did not always flow equally. Con struction was constantly prosecuted with more or less energy; yet in the course of the century some of these sources failed, while others flowed in varying volumes, and consequently in many instances work was sus pended until the time when it could be resumed.
Structural progress which Architecture made, the ever-increasing richness of forms, was also the cause of the demolition of many structures which had been erected only a few decades. Since they no longer pleased the eye sufficiently, the recently-constructed portions were unhesitatingly demolished, to give place to more splendid substi tutes. Individuals and families also desired separate, endowed compart ments, particularly chapels, in which they could offer up their devotions, in which both joyous and solemn events could be celebrated, and in which the members of the family could find their last resting-place. Such single parts were added to the great buildings, even though they formed no por tion of the original plan. The enclosure of the side-aisles was broken through, and chapels were built between the buttresses of both nave and choir wherever there was room.
Cathedral at Paris.—Especially instructive is the cathedral at Paris, to which, although here there was no lack of means—or perhaps because the means were not lacking—additions were constantly made. About 126o important works were there undertaken. The two transept fronts were torn down in 1257, and in the course of several years were rebuilt with greater splendor. The chapels of the choir were commenced about 1296,
and great windows in the triforium, decorated externally with gables, together with richly-ornamented pinnacles, adapted the solemn archi tecture of the choir to the artistic taste of the day.
Cathedral of other edifices were badly executed, either because they were too hastily built or because the insufficient means were in no proportion to the magnificence of the structures, and it was soon necessary to make thorough repairs, or even to rebuild separate parts. Among such is the Cathedral of Seez, the nave of which was built in the beginning of the thirteenth century and was renovated in its upper por tion fifty or sixty years later, while the choir, built about 123o, was taken down about r26o and rebuilt, only the middle chapel of the chevet being allowed to remain. Early in the fourteenth century, notwithstanding the extreme lightness and the insignificant dimensions of the masses, a strengthening of the choir-buttresses was necessitated by the insufficiency of the foundations. Even this strengthening,—probably because the foun dations were not secure—availed little, and rift after rift appeared, until at last, in the commencement of the present century, the vaulting fell in. The facade, with its two magnificent towers, was repaired in the four teenth and fifteenth centuries.
At Clermont, in Auvergne, at Limoges, and at Narbonne were built three great cathedrals which are so exactly alike that they appear to be the work of the same architect. The school had become so established, so definite were its rules and so familiar its methods, that as men built cathedrals they became masters. The Cathedral of Clermont was com menced in 126S; that of Narbonne, in 1272. The choir of Clermont was completed about the close of the thirteenth century; some bays of the nave were erected in the course of the fourteenth, and with the continuation of the structure the old Romanesque church, around which the new one was built, was demolished. But the west front still remains uncompleted. At Limoges the construction was continued in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and yet the nave was not -entirely finished. At Narbonne the choir alone reached completion between 1272 and 1330.