Minott Kerr
Reed College Portland, OR 97202
The fabric of the entire church at Paray-le-Monial (Figs. 1 & 2) has never received a detailed study, and most earlier scholars who have examined the church have envisioned Paray's construction history solely in terms of the building's separate parts. Only Edson Armi has moved away from this outmoded conception and begun to outline construction at Paray as a series of predominantly horizontal slices, loosely linked to the different parts of the church. Armi identified a number of key breaks in Paray's construction, particularly those in the two cross arms of the transept which separated the early and late construction phases of the church. However, Armi established only the most obvious breaks in Paray's construction and focused his discussion on the phases which he could link directly to Cluny 111. Thus, he left Paray incompletely built, and since he was interested in other issues, Armi did not consider what the breaks he found at Paray tell us about the process of construction in the twelfth century.
I will try to do two things today. First, I will briefly outline the chronology for the entire church at Paray and the historical circumstances, which I believe, explain that chronology. Secondly and more importantly, I will examine, in some depth, the construction sequence of the north cross arm and make some suggestions as to what I think this sequence implies about the process of construction in general. My purpose today is not so much to discuss the what, but rather to begin to explain the why. Thus, I ask you to see my explanation of the construction sequence at Paray as very much work in progress.
The earliest surviving part of the church at Paray is a two-story porch at the west which was erected in the 1080s. The date is firmly established by the similarity of the decorated imposts in the upper story to datable buildings in the area. The porch belonged to an earlier structure that was destroyed when the present church was built to the east. Construction of this new structure to the east began by laying out the foundations and the first above-ground courses for the periphery of the entire building and then focused on the east end, completing the chevet apse, the choir with its flanking aisles and the ambulatory with its radiating chapels. Also part of this early phase, but not completed, were the inner bays of the east wall of the transept. On the north (Fig. 3), this phase also included: the north transept chapel, the north portal the north aisle with its vaults, and the north nave arcade up to the cornice beneath the blind triforium. On the south, beyond the inner bay of the transept's east wall, much less was constructed at this time. In the south aisle, only a dozen or so courses were in place above the pavement (Fig. 3a).
As Armi has shown, the design, sculpture and masonry technique of this early work at Paray is closely related to the later construction phases of the nave of the third church at Cluny suggesting that this work at Paray was begun by ca. 1120. This phase appears to have continued into the early 1130s, when it came to a halt. As we shall see below, this early building phase consisted of a number of distinct stages of construction.
A second phase completed the church using the original elevation. The major distinguishing features of this later phase are a significant decline in the quality of the masonry and sculpture, the slightly broken vault profile of the nave, crocket capitals in the cierestory, and masonry finished with a multi-toothed chisel or bretture. The new capital type and the brettelé finish of the masonry, link this later phase to projects of the last quarter of the twelfth century and the early years of the thirteenth, such as the choir of Vézelay, the collegiate church at Montréale, and as Armi has rightly pointed out, the Gothic phases of the collegiate church of Notre-Dame in Beaune, though in my opinion he has dated them about fifty years too early.
My chronology and dating of Paray, based on comparison to other structures, is supported by the little documentary evidence that still exists for the priory. A cartulary was drawn up in the 1080s, probably to reorganise the priory's lands in order to finance the construction of the structure to which the porch, begun at this time, belonged. The cartulary was again brought up to date in the late teens or early twenties of the twelfth century when construction began on the present building. The surviving donations preserved in the cartulary suggest that the priory at Paray was patronized by families in the immediate vicinity of Paray, and not of the abbot of Cluny or the Lords of Semur, as has been suggested by a number of scholars.
This early phase of construction at Paray came to a halt sometime during the 1130s, precisely during the time of political and financial distress resulting from the depredations of the priory's lands by the Counts of Chalon. The dismal state of Paray's economic situation in the middle of the twelfth-century is indicated by a donation made in 1151 specifically to relieve the poverty of the priory's monks.
The last decades of the century, when construction recommenced, were a time of renewed security for the priory. The King of France ended the raiding by the Counts of Chalon in 1180. The pact between the crown and the counts, which resulted from this peace, was renewed in 1205 and 1228. Paray's fortunes seem to have quickly declined. Visitations made by the Grand Prior of Cluny to Paray, after the priory came under the direct control of the mother house in 1252, mention that the priory was in debt and unable to finance substantial repairs needed for the claustral buildings. No mention is made of the church, suggesting that it had been completed by this time, perhaps having left the priory financially stretched and incapable of maintaining its other buildings which were in such poor condition.
I would now like to turn to an examination of the construction sequence itself. Paray's fabric is made up of an extremely complex series of starts and stops that can be identified by changes in coursing and how stone was cut, finished, and set in place. This complexity is particularly apparent along the north flank, and especially on the north cross arm of the transept, where a series of seams suggests that there were a number of distinct stages of construction during the first building phase of this section of the church from the early 1120s to the early 1130s. Here, as elsewhere at Paray, the numerous changes in the treatment of the masonry and apparent breaks in construction almost always occur at points critical to the building's structural integrity or its construction sequence.
For example, using a pre-restoration photograph (Fig. 4), we can trace the lowest seam in this area from the awkwardly terminated cornice on the east side of the straight bay of the ambulatory on to the choir aisle, at a level just over the lower aisle window. It continues on to the north transept chapel by dropping to below the buttress glacises, that is to immediately above the window openings of the chapel.
On the interior, this seam is found at the cross arm's north east corner two courses below the impost for the arch opening into the transept chapel. From here, it runs from the north cross arm's east wall (Fig. 5), onto the north terminal wall, where Armi first traced it. Here, the seam rises to seven courses above the apex of the portal arch and then runs horizontally onto the cross arm's west wall. There (Fig. 6), as Armi has shown, south of the engaged half-column, it drops somewhat, runs horizontally, and then continues at this level onto the north aisle wall (Fig. 3). The seam continues at this height down the length of the aisle and onto the aisle's terminal wall at the west, where, above the seam, the wall steps in slightly, creating a narrow ledge that makes the break between the two stages of construction particularly noticeable.
This seam occurs at critical levels along its entire length. That is, it occurs immediately above or below significant features such as windows, arches and vaults. In the east, construction of this stage continued to immediately above the lower windows of the ambulatory and choir aisle. In the north transept chapel, this stage also included the windows there, but stopped just below the springing of the apsidial vault. On the cross arm's north wall, work included the entire decorative program of the portal by rising to just above the arched corbel table on the exterior. Along the north aisle construction halted, not immediately above the windows, as it had in the east, but rather at their base.
The halting level of this stage of construction on the north cross arm's west wall also marked the base of a window. Large ashlars originally intended as the bottom courses of jambs for a window are found inside and out. They indicate that an opening was planned in this location which was to have the same width as those that were later built in the aisle. The window, planned for this place on the north cross arm, however, was never finished. Only a few of the north jamb blocks, one of which is labeled "a$quot; in Figure 6, probably belonged to this first stage of construction. The southern ones were part of a subsequent stage. No ashlars from the jambs of the windows in the north aisle were included in this earliest stage. There, as elsewhere at Paray, the builders only began the windows with the following stage of construction, that is along with the surrounding rising walls. This was the normal procedure at Paray, to build to a level, to halt and then to recommence construction above this feature; such a procedure probably offered a certain amount of flexibility, in this case for determining the exact location and width of each window.
The sequence of construction on the the east end followed the same approach (Fig. 4). The stage of construction on the north flank that followed the one we traced above appears to have been a short one. Abandoning the lower cornice of the ambulatory, it rose only to the base of the upper window in the choir aisle and to about three-quarters of the way up the roof of the transept chapel. It continued onto the terminal wall of the transept. At the east, the final height of this later stage corresponds to the springing of the ambulatory vaults. On the east wall of the cross arm, it rose to just over the chapel's half-dome vault. As in the first stage of construction, the scond stage halted at critical levels, in this case immediately below and above vaults.
The subsequent stage (labeled three in Figure 4) rose to the height of the cornice of the ambulatory roof. It ran westwards onto the choir aisle to the east jamb of the upper level window, rising up to the springing of the window's arched opening. The following stage (labeled four in Fig. 4) completed the choir aisle up to its cornice. On the interior, the upper limit of this satge corresponds to the base of the triforium.
At the east, this stage was built along with the chevet up to the base of the windows of the apse. At the west, it continued northwards along the west wall of the cross arm to just north of the outer face of the choir aisle wall on the exterior, and just north of the middle half-column on the interior. That is, the masons stopped almost immediately after having completed the corner between the choir aisle and the north cross arm, leaving there a vertical seam.
Somewhat later, the wall to the north was completed up to the base of the triforium on the interior and the cornice of the choir aisle roof on the exterior. On the exterior, the upper limit of this stage (abeled five in Figure 4) marks one of the most obvious construction breaks in the entire building. Immediately above, the wall steps back to leave a ledge at this level almost eight, centimeters deep. In addition, almost all the masonry above the ledge is finished with the brettelé tooling that is characteristic of the very late twelfth- and early thirteenth-century phase of construction at Paray.
The east end was completed soon after the choir aisle. The last stage of the construction of the east end (labeled six in Fig. 4) continued westwards from the choir bay on to the east wall of the north cross arm, to directly above where the earlier stage had also terminated, that is, just north of the buttress, on the exterior, and the central half column, on the interior (Fig. 7).
Thus, on the north side of Paray's east end, while the seams between changes in masonry usually run horizontally, indicating that construction generally proceeded from critical level to critical level in horizontal "slices" across different parts of the building, they sometimes also run almost vertically.
We find a similar vertical break at the angle between the north aisle and the west wall of the north cross arm (Fig. 3). On this wall of the cross arm, a second construction stage began with the bottom ashlar of the south jamb of the planned window and rose almost vertically up to just below the abrubtly terminated cornice marking the springing of the arches and vaults of the aisle. On the exterior, the seam rises just north of the outer face of the aisle wall. Continuing the eastern edge of the north aisle wall, this short spur of the cross arm's west wall was built along with the north aisle during the second stage of the aisle's construction, when the aisle wall was extended from the base of the windows up to the springing of the vaults. The spur was necessary because at the angle between the aisle and the cross arm, the interior face of the cross arm wall, also serves as the very east end of the aisle. Therefore, to complete the north aisle entirely, so that the critical problem of vaulting the aisle as a whole could be addressed, the builders needed to continue northwards along the cross arm's wall to slightly beyond the outer face of the aisle wall. Thus, this vertical seam, like the horizontal ones elsewhere, occurs at its exact location for a reason. That is, it marks the outer limit of wall of the cross arm, which needed to be in place in order to vault the north aisle. As is typical at Paray, the builders continued the wall only far enough, in this case here, horizontally, as well as vertically, as required for addressing the next critical problem in construction, in this case for the vaulting of the north aisle.
Once construction had proceeded this far, any necessary adjustments, such as precise leveling, could be made before continuing with the vaulting of this part of the church. Constructing from critical level to critical level gave the builders a great deal of flexibility, as it allowed them, when they stopped, to take a breath so to speak, and reevaluate the situation before continuing.
This flexibility is evident in how the rest of the west wall of the north cross arm, was constructed, since during subsequent construction, changes were made in the design of the wall. For example, for some reason, during the third stage of construction, it was decided to abandon the window (Figs. 3 and 6). This stage began by filling in the opening between the few extant courses of ashlars of the jamb and then proceeded up to the level of the cornice. A fourth stage vaulted the aisle. Beginning with the cornice marking the springing of the vaults, this stage rose as another vertical spur on the cross arm up to the base of the triforium, almost directly above the earlier one below. The edge of this spur, like the lower one, marked the northern edge of a stage of construction of the aisle. This later stage included the nave arcade, the aisle vaults, as well as the rest of the aisle wall.
A fifth stage completed the rest of the wall north of the spur up to the base of the triforium. During this stage, the cornice marking the springing for the aisle vaults was abandoned, leaving the cornice awkwardly terminated in the middle of the wall and indicating the northern edge of the previous stage of construction. In addition, the wall was constructed slightly thinner than that below, creating a ledge which marks the seam between the third and fifth construction stages.
Having already provided a general chronology for Paray's construction history, I do not want to examine here the details of the construction of the rest of the church. Suffice it to say, that the rest of Paray was built in the same manner as we have outlined above for the north cross arm of the transept.
The construction sequence at Paray with its pattern of stopping at critical levels indicates a clear and considered logic to the process of construction. Breaks do not occur at random locations, but rather almost always occur at points critical to the process of construction, such as immediately above or below features like windows or vaults. Generally, construction at Paray proceeded as horizontal slices leaving horizontal seams between stages of construction. In a few instances, seams run vertically. Such vertical breaks most often occur immediately beyond the outer edge of an adjacent and perpendicular wall and are therefore critical junctures for the problem of vaulting. Stopping immediately below such a feature offered the builders ample opportunity to make adjustments or even alter the design. As we have seen, when construction was resumed above such breaks, cornices might be dropped, windows abandoned and wall thicknesses changed. Such changes suggest that all the details of the design were probably not worked out at the outset of construction and that many were only determined when construction had proceeded far enough to require them.
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