Plate LXXVI. — Abbey Church of St. Ouen, at Rouen
The beauty of the church of St. Ouen has been a frequent theme of admiration among the lovers of ancient ecclesiastical architecture. The excellencies of the building have been denied by none, while some have gone so far as to consider it as the very perfection of that style, which has generally, however improperly, obtained the name of Gothic. A recent English traveller, whose attention was expressly directed to the different departments of the arts, bears the following testimony in its favor: “Beyond all comparison, the finest specimen of Gothic architecture which we have met with in France, is Saint Ouen, the secondary church at Rouen. Contrasted with Salisbury cathedral, it is small; but it does not, I think, yield to that or any other structure I have ever seen, in elegance, lightness, or graceful uniformity.”172
Previously to the suppression of monasteries in France, the church of St. Ouen made part of the abbey of the same name, one of the most celebrated and most ancient in Normandy. It is now a parochial church, and is happily in nearly a perfect state, having suffered comparatively but little from the mad folly of the Calvinists of the sixteenth century, or the democrats of the eighteenth; though every studied insult was offered to it by the former, and in the fury of the revolution it was despoiled and desecrated—degraded at one time to a manufactory for the forging of arms, and at another to a magazine for forage.—Different accounts are given of the foundation of the convent: some writers contend for its having taken place as early as the last year of the fourth century, and having been the work of the piety of Saint Victrice, then bishop of Rouen; others, and these the greater number, are content with tracing it from the reign of Clothair. Those who adopt the latter opinion are again divided, as to whether that prince himself was the actual founder, or only ratified by his royal sanction what was really the establishment of Archbishop Flavius. In either case, however, they agree in dating the origin of the abbey from the year 535.
An historian, who lived as early as the middle of the tenth century, speaks of the original church of St. Ouen, as an edifice deserving of admiration:—“.....miro opere, quadris lapidibus, manu Gothicâ,.... olim nobilitèr constructa.”173—The abbey was at first placed under the invocation of the Holy Apostles generally: it was afterwards dedicated to St. Peter alone; but, from the year 692, it has owned no other patron than St. Ouen,174 whose body was three years before interred in the church, which he had protected with his especial favor while living, and which derived still greater benefits from him after his death, owing to the concourse of pilgrims attracted by the miracles that were wrought at his tomb.
Upon the irruption of the Normans in the ninth century, this abbey shared the common fate of the Neustrian convents; and, like the rest, it rose from its ashes with greater magnificence, after the conversion of these barbarians to Christianity. Nicholas, the fourth abbot of the convent, son of Duke Richard II. and of Judith of Brittany, is said by Ordericus Vitalis to have commenced “a new church of wonderful size and elegance.” But though he presided over the fraternity nearly sixty years, he did not live to see the building finished: the bringing of the task to perfection was reserved for William Balot, the next but one to him in the succession; and even he died in the very year of the dedication, which did not take place till 1126.
This church, which it had cost eighty years to build, was suffered to exist but a short time after its completion: only ten years had elapsed from its dedication, when it fell a prey to a conflagration, which was at the same time destructive to the greater part of the city: another church, built shortly after, and chiefly by the munificence of Richard Cœur-de-Lion, shared the same fate in 1248. But even these repeated disasters in no wise abated the spirit of the monks: they had retired with the wreck of their property to one of their estates near Rouen, and there, by economy on their own part, and liberality on that of others, they soon found themselves in a state to undertake the erection of a fourth convent, of greater extent than any of the former, and to inclose it with high walls.
The honor of laying the first stone of the new church, the same that is now standing, is attributed to one of the most celebrated of the abbots, John Roussel, more commonly known by the name of Marcdargent.175 He had been elected to the prelacy in 1303; and, fifteen years afterwards, he commenced the structure. He presided over the monastery thirty-seven years, and was buried in the Lady-Chapel of the church, which he had completed as far westward as the transepts. The pomp with which his funeral was conducted, is recorded at length in the Neustria Pia; and the same work has also preserved the following inscription, engraved upon his coffin, which describes, with great precision, the progress made by him in the building:—
“HIC JACET FRATER JOANNES MARCDARGENT
ALIAS ROUSSEL, QUONDAM ABBAS ISTIUS MONASTERII,
QUI CŒPIT ÆDIFICARE ISTAM ECCLESIAM
DE NOVO; ET FECIT CHORUM ET CAPELLAS,
ET PILLIARIA TURRIS, ET MAGNAM PARTEM
TURRIS S. AUDOENI, MONASTERII DICTI.”
The remaining parts of the church were not finished till the beginning of the sixteenth century, when it was brought to its present state by the thirty-fourth abbot, Anthony Bohier, who, in the annals of the convent, bears the character of having been “a magnificent restorer and repairer of ancient monasteries.” Admirable as is the structure, the original design of the architect was never completed. The western front remains imperfect; and this is the more to be regretted, as that part is naturally the first that meets the eye of the stranger, who thus receives an unfavorable impression, which it is afterwards difficult wholly to banish. The intention was, that the portal should have been flanked by magnificent towers, ending in a combination of open arches and tracery, corresponding with the outline and fashion of the central tower. An engraving, though a wretched one, of this intended front, is given in Pommeraye’s History of the Abbey, from a sketch preserved among the records of the convent.
The view of this church, etched by Mr. Cotman, is copied from a drawing made by Miss Elizabeth Turner. It represents the building, as seen from a seat in the gardens formerly belonging to the monastery, but now open to the public; and it is well calculated to convey a general idea of the character of the exterior of the building, including the central tower, which is wholly composed of open arches and tracery, and terminates, like the south tower of the cathedral, with an octangular crown of fleurs-de-lys. The plate also exhibits a portion of a circular chapel, now commonly known by the name of la Chambre des Clercs, the only remaining part of the church built by William Balot, in the beginning of the twelfth century. This chapel, the south porch, the central tower, and a specimen of ancient sculpture in the church, have been engraved by Mr. Turner, in his Tour in Normandy. The two first, of the same subjects, together with the western front, a general view of the church from the south, the curious bas-relief over the southern entrance, and a representation of the interior, have since been lithographized in M. Jolimont’s Monumens de la Normandie. Considerable pains have been devoted in both these works, to the description and the history of the building; and to them the reader must be referred, who is unwilling to engage with the ponderous folio of Pommeraye.
Footnotes
172 Milton’s Letters on the Fine Arts, written from Paris in the year 1815. p. 183.
173 Jolimont, from whom this quotation is borrowed, states, that it is to be found in the chronicle of an author of the name of Fridegode; and he proceeds with the following observations:—“The expression appears remarkable, as warranting the inference, that the style of architecture, which Fridegode calls Gothic, was in use in France as early as the commencement of the sixth century, the time assigned by him for the building of the first church of St. Ouen. But it is equally to be inferred, from the manner in which he notices it, that this style was not then common; and his subjoining, that it was made of square stones, (in opposition, most probably, to rubble) serves to point out that such an edifice was an extraordinary building for Rouen at that period. This idea receives confirmation, from the reflection, that the materials for forming the city were originally supplied out of the forests that inclosed it; so that, not only the houses of individuals, but the public edifices, were merely of wood. St. Gregory of Tours, speaking, in his fifth book, of a church at Rouen, dedicated to St. Martin, uses the following expression:—‘Quæ super muros civitatis ligneis tabulis fabricata est.’—Indeed, the few stone-buildings then at Rouen, were almost exclusively devoted to the purposes of fortification, and were of flint or sand-stone, rather than of free-stone. Every thing too tends to prove that architecture was then in its infancy in the capital of Neustria; or, if it ever had been more advanced there, which could have been only under the Roman sway, that it had retrograded into a barbarous state.—Moreover, the Gothic style, mentioned by Fridegode, was no other than a degeneration of the Roman, or, more properly, of the Lombardic architecture, distinguished by the circular arch, by insulated columns, by a paucity of ornaments, and by a general massiveness. It is by no means to be confounded with the style which has since passed under the same name, a style introduced about the beginning of the twelfth century, immediately after the crusades, with its ogee forms, slender clustered columns, and every portion of the building characterized by extreme lightness, yet still loaded with a profusion of crowded ornaments. If, however, this Lombardic style was practised as early as the fifth or sixth century, in a town so backward in the science of architecture as Rouen, what date is to be assigned for its introduction into other parts of France, where the knowledge of the fine arts disappeared for a much shorter period?—It must be left to the decision of antiquaries, whom this passage in Fridegode seems to have escaped, to determine how far the foregoing observations are just, and may serve to throw light upon the history of the style of architecture called Gothic, the origin of which in France has always been attended with great obscurity.”
174 St. Ouen was born a.d. 600, at the village of Sanci, near Soissons. He was of a noble family, and was educated in the abbey of St. Médar, at Soissons, whence he was removed, at an early age, to the court of Clothair II. At the court, he contracted an intimate friendship with St. Eloi; and, under Dagobert, became the favorite of the monarch, as well as his chancellor and minister of state. During the whole of his life, his strong turn to religion rendered him a warm patron of monastic establishments; and, among others, he founded the celebrated abbey of Rebais en Brie. He was still young when he renounced the world, embraced the ecclesiastical state, and devoted himself to the preaching of the gospel; shortly after which, at the request of the inhabitants of Rouen, he was appointed to succeed St. Romain, as their pastor. His consecration took place in 646, and was performed in the church of the monastery of St. Peter, since-called St. Ouen. It was also at his own particular desire, that he was there interred. His name occurs among those of the prelates who were present at the council of Châlons, in 650; he was likewise entrusted by the king with various important negociations; and, after an earthly career, passed, according to his historians, in the practice of every civil and apostolic virtue, he died at Clichy, near Paris, in the year 689.
175 The following extract from the Neustria Pia, p. 35, bears witness at once to the merits of the abbot, and the light in which the building was regarded throughout France.—“Hic Abbatiam reperit bonis omnibus sufficienter munitam, pecunia et commeatu haud indigentem: quam et ipse sapienter ac religiosè gubernavit, locupletavit, et vehementer adauxit; tum possessionibus et redditibus, tum ædificiis ac reparationibus: Basilicam iliam admirabili structura compositam, totiusque Galliæ speciosissimam, construere cœpit, anno 1318, die festo S. Urbani; quam continuavit ad ann. usque 1339, in festo Apostolorum SS. Petri et Pauli: quo in opere expendit 63036 libras argenti, et quinque solidos Turonensis: (quæ nunc haud posset compleri ædificio pro 663036 libris, etiam aureis) quorum omnium tesserem vetera hujusce domus inclytæ monimenta nunc usque accuratè continent. De hujusmodi celeberrima æde, sic quidam neotericus verè locutus est. Nunc est S. Audoeni: cujus mirabilis structura, hodieque dubium relinquit, si alia per Galliam splendidior et elegantior: Monasterium est tota quidem Europa, celeberrimum, sed Patroni sui sanctitate magis æstimandum. cui alii adstipulantur. Et hoc, consilio et auxilio D. Caroli, Comitis Valesii: cui operi Carolus Valesius VI. Rex ann. 1380, dono dedit tria millia librarum ad instantiam Burgundiæ Ducis, sui patruelis.”