Abbey of Saint-Jean-des-Vignes (Hist. Mon.)
Founded in 1076, the Abbey of Saint-Jean-des-Vignes was one of the richest and most powerful monasteries of the Middle-Ages.
The liberality of the Kings of France, bishops, nobility and middle classes enabled the monks in the 13th and 14th centuries to erect a large abbey-church and important monastic buildings, the plan of which has been preserved in an engraving of 1673, reproduced below.
The plan is that followed almost invariably for monastic buildings. In the middle is the abbey-church. The monastery buildings proper: the rooms of the Regulars to which strangers are not admitted, the Novices’ quarters, the dormitories and refectory, are grouped round the four galleries of the cloister, which extend from the south front of the church.
On the east side of the cloister is a smaller cloister, abutting on which are the strangers’ rooms: the refectory and dormitories.
Behind, stands the isolated hospital with its own chapel. Near the entrance is the Abbot’s house, and further to the east, the store-rooms.
The entrance was fortified, and a continuous wall with roadway, loop-holes and watch-towers, completely encircled the Abbey.
Beyond this wall stretched the vineyards and agricultural estates of the monastery. Although despoiled during the Hundred Years War, and later during the religious wars, the Abbey of Saint-Jean-des-Vignes remained rich and flourishing until the Revolution when the monks were expelled. Some years later (1805), an imperial decree issued at the request of the Bishop of Soissons, ordered the demolition of the church, the materials of which were to be used for repairing the cathedral. The protests of the inhabitants induced the Bishop to have the main front preserved.
The Façade of Saint-Jean-des-Vignes Before the War
Three late 13th century portals surmounted by gables open in the façade. Under the central portal are two mutilated statues: on the right, Saint-Augustin; on the left: Saint-John-the-Baptist clothed in the skin of an animal.
A graceful clerestory gallery, continued at the back round a wide platform, which at one time formed a gallery above the grand nave, separates the central portal from the large rose-window set in an irregular arch. The latter has lost its interior net-work of mullions and is surmounted by a gable. The gallery and rose-window are late 14th century.
A two-storied tower crowned by a spire rises above each of the side portals. The first story dates from the end of the 14th century. The upper part, which differs in each tower, is more than a century later.
The south tower (on the right of the photo below), was about 230 feet in height.
The north tower, finished in 1520, was higher (about 244 feet) and more massive.
On the first story in the niche next the large rose-window, a statue of the Virgin faces a statue of the Angel of the Annunciation, which stands on the opposite buttress of the south tower.
Both stories of the north tower, separated by a Flamboyant gallery with very sharply pointed gables, are pierced with large bays divided by a mullion.
On the west side, against the mullion of the upper bay, is a figure of Christ crucified.
The octagonal spire, surrounded by four turrets, is pierced on each face by three openings of different sizes, the largest being under-most, while its angles are adorned with projecting crockets.
The Façade of Saint-Jean-des-Vignes After the Bombardments
Previously, in 1870, the façade of the church had been badly damaged. The German shells set fire to a store of hay housed under the porches, the splays of which were destroyed (p. 46).
In 1914, it suffered fresh injury, both spires being struck by shells. The south tower lost its upper part, the remaining portion being torn open at the base. The other tower was badly indented near its point, while the carvings of the buttresses were injured. The whole façade was moreover pitted by shell-splinters.
The damage caused in 1918 was considerably greater. In some places the stone-work of the portals and towers was entirely destroyed, and in others indented more or less deeply. The fine and delicate carvings of the towers were also smashed. The north tower suffered most. A breach, jeopardizing its stability, was made almost the whole way up, and the upper part of the spire fell to the ground, like the other spire had done four years before. The interior vaulting which connected the two towers, partially fell in.
At the back of the façade (photo above) which was also struck in several places, there are still traces of the first bay of the old nave of the abbey-church, pulled down under the Empire.
The Great Cloister of Saint-Jean-des-Vignes
Under the south portal stands a 13th century doorway, with vaulting and tympanums decorated with finely carved foliage, which led from the abbey-church to the great cloister.
Of the great 14th century cloister, only the south and west galleries remain. Each has seven bays with pointed arches resting, on one side, on brackets ornamented with foliage or human figures, and on the other, on piers surrounded by small columns (photos above and below).
The large arches in tierce-point, ornamented with fine mouldings and separated by highly-wrought buttresses, formed an inner arcade composed of two bays surmounted by a rose-window. Traces of it are left in three bays of the south gallery (photo below). The arches formerly contained windows.
The cloister, especially the south end, was often struck by German shells, one piercing the vaulting of a bay, another damaging the carvings of the exterior buttresses.
The Refectory
The refectory (photo below), erected at the end of the 13th century, was spoiled after the Revolution by its conversion to military uses.
The refectory, over 130 feet in length, contains two naves with pointed vaulting. The pointed arches rest on fine columns with foliate capitals, which are buttressed outside by piers engaged in the stone-work. Like all monastery refectories, it has a raised and vaulted platform, from which one of the monks read aloud during meals.
The refectory, used as a store-house, is divided into two stories by a floor which runs below the capitals of the columns.
Outside the refectory, on the side next the cloister, were six large rose-windows, since transformed into small rectangular windows, and on the west front, eight tierce-point windows, now blocked up.
At the base of the loft-roof, set at intervals, are dormer-windows, whereof one Renaissance.
The roof, damaged in places, was completely destroyed by the bombardments over several of the bays. A large breach, already repaired, was made in the end bay on the east side. One buttress was destroyed and the adjacent part of the framework of one of the rose-windows broken (photo above).
The great cloister communicated on the east with a small cloister, rebuilt about 1550 in Renaissance style, of which several bays of the south gallery remain standing.
Lastly, on this side of the façade of the church, to the east, is a building, re-erected in the 16th century for the Abbot’s residence, but which has been completely disfigured by its adaptation for military purposes. It is flanked by an octagonal turret containing a staircase.
On leaving the Abbey, take the Rue Saint-Jean on the right, as far as the Place Dauphine, in which is the Sous-Préfecture, housed in a mansion built at the beginning of the 19th century. It was struck by numerous shells.
Take on the left the Rue de Panleu which runs alongside the buildings of the old Grand Séminaire (late 17th century), whose 18th century chapel is decorated with beautiful painted and gilded woodwork, greatly damaged.
Many shells fell on the Grand Séminaire, causing serious damage. A great part of the roofing was destroyed and in places large openings were torn in the walls.
At the north-west end of the park of the Grand Séminaire, excavations made in the 19th century, now filled in, uncovered the remains of a Roman amphitheatre. These remains indicated a theatre of very large dimensions, measuring about 470 feet across its greatest width, while the theatre at Orange measures little over 300 feet.
Return to the Cathedral via the Rue de la Buerie, a continuation of the Rue de Panleu. On the right is the Rue des Minimes with its burnt houses (photo above).