Limoges Cathedral

(Portions of the text below are translated from the article in the French Wikipedia (Cathédrale Saint-Étienne de Limoges))

The presence of a bishop and a cathedral in Limoges was recorded in 475 A.D.; Gregory of Tours mentioned a church the city, facing the chateau off the vicomte and the Abbey of Saint-Martial. In 2005, archeologists found the traces of an hexagonal baptistry dating from the 5th century under the north face of the cathedral. During the enlargement of the church in 1876, workers found subbasements of an early church of the Carolingian period, and the nave of a Romanesque church.^[1] The discoveries included fragments of Roman columns, bas-reliefs and Latin inscriptions, suggesting that the church was built on the site of a former Roman temple, palace or villa.^[2]

The early cathedral was constructed in the center of the city in the valley of the Vienne River, not far from the Abbey of Saint-Martial and the former chateau of the Viscoun of Limoges. In July 817, the Holy Roman Emperor Louis the Pious presented documents granting legal immunity to the clergy of the Cathedral. A clerical city gradually grew up along the Vienne River. Archeologists have found traces of a cloister, a baptistry, a Bishop's palace, and residences of church dignitaries.

The Romanesque cathedral was dedicated by Hilduin or Aduin, the Bishop of Limoges, and was consecrated by Pope Urban II. who passed through Limoges on his return from the Council of Clermont, which had launched the First Crusade in 1095. In 1074 and again 1105, the church was set on fire by mobs from the rival district of Saint Martial du Vicompte. After the 1105 fire, the Romanesque nave, covered with wood, was rebuilt with a vaulted stone roof. Traces of the Romanesque cathedral can be seen today in the lower three levels of the bell tower and in the crypt under the choir ^[3]

The Romanesque church was narrower and not as tall as the later Gothic cathedral. Some vestiges of this early cathedral remain, including the crypt and three lower floors of the bell tower. The church was built in the form of a Latin cross, and was about sixty meters long and seventeen meters wide, with a transept forty meters long, on the site of the present transept. It originally had a wooden roof, which was replaced with stone vaults after two large fires in 1074 and 1105.^[4]

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  "Entry into Jerusalem" Miniature illuminated manuscript from cathedral crypt (12th c.)
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  Miniature Sacramentary from crypt of Limoges Cathedal (13th century)
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  Miniature Sacrementary from the crypt of the cathedral (13th century)

By the mid-13th century, the Romanesque cathedral had become too small for the growing city population. Aymeric de la Serre, The Bishop of Limoges from 1246 to 1272, proposed to rebuild the church on a much grander scale, using his own personal fortune. The architecture was inspired by the new Gothic architecture which had appeared in the Ile-de-France in the 1140s, particularly at The Basilica of Saint-Denis and Chartres Cathedral.^[5]

The architect of the Gothic church is not known for certain, but was likely the Paris architect Jean de Deschamps, who had been working in the South of France at the time and taken part in the construction of the cathedrals of Clermont (1262), Toulouse and Narbonne ((1272) and Rodez (1277).

Bishop Aymeric de la Serre died in 1272 before construction began, but in June 1273, his project for the new cathedral was taken up by doyen of the chapter of the Cathedral, Helie de Mamemort, who laid the first stone of the Gothic chevet,

Construction of the Gothic church began in 1273, and continued through seven or eight different campaigns, with different terms of workers, but remained largely faithful to the original Rayonnant style. The work began with the construction of a chevet with a semi-circular disambulatory.

The work was made more difficult by the steep slopes of the site, requiring the building very large terrace which served as the sub-basement of the chevet. Furthermore, due to the growth of the city closer to the walls of the church on the north side,the chapels on that side had to be smaller than those on the south side.^[6]

A further complication had appeared in 1259, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris between France and Britain. The town was divided between a British sector and a French sector, with the borderline close to the cathedral, which lay just within the French sector.

Work was halted in 1327 for several decades due to a shortage of funds, but resumed with in the second part of the century with the building of the southern wing and the transept and its rose window. In 1378, the chapel of Saint Martial was finished. and the Romanesque bell tower was reinforced so that upper levels in the Gothic style could be added. By 1444 the Gothic chevet and rebuilt transept were attached to the Romanesque nave. Following the end of the Hundred Years War, the two eastern traverses were built between 1458 and 1499.^[7]

File:Chapelle.cathedrale.Limoges.png|Detail of a Flamboyant window (15th c.) Between 1516 and 1541, the Bishops Philippe de Montmorency (1517-1519) and Charles Villiers de L'Ilse Adam (1522-1530) built the portal of Saint Jean, a masterpiece of Flamboyant architecture, at the end of the northern transept. This brought the Chapel of Saint Valerie, the former chapel of Saint-Martial, into the cathedral structure, where it serves as the baptistry. ^[8] Between 1533 and 1534 the Bishop Jean de Langeac created the jubé, the highly-decorated barrier separating the choir from the nave.

In 1533, Jean de Langeac commissioned the ornate jube to close the choir, and began work on the next four traverses of the nave.

On June 30, 1571, the spire of the church was stuck by lightning, which started a fire which spread to the belfry, where the and melted the eleven bells there. The bells were cast again, and five were reinstalled in the church in 1575.^[9]

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  Plan for the completion of the cathedral (in red) and junction with bell tower (19th century)
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  Completion of the nave, and junction with the bell tower (1880s)

A major restoration of both the exterior and interior of the church, including the completion of the upper portion of the north transept of the church was carried out between 1847 and 1852 by the architect Pierre Prosper Chabrol. The church was formally listed as an historic monument of France in 1862.^[10]

Work to finally complete the church began in 1876 and was finished on August 12, 1888. The three upper storeys of the bell-tower were completed, and three three traverses were added to the nave to complete the original medieval plan. A narthex was added to create a connection with the porch of the bell tower, and other modifications of materials and color were made to assure that the appearance of the church was harmonious, even after eight hundred years of modifications.^[11]

The original plan of the Gothic church used the form of a Latin cross, with transepts. The plan was limited by the steep slope on one side, and the decision to integrate the Romanesque tower into the Gothic cathedral. The southern transept was shorter, due to the steep slope of the site.

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  The bell tower
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  The portal of the bell tower
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  Interior of the bell tower portal

The bell tower, sixty two meters high, is slightly off-centre toward the north. It was constructed for the Romanesque cathedral of the 11th century, which was demolished for construction of the Gothic church. A thick stone wall was constructed around its base in the 14th century, which covers the Romanesque windows. It permitted the construction of the top three levels Gothic levels of the tower. The first level of the tower is rectangular, while the upper Gothic levels are octagonal. The tower was given additional support by the construction of four octagonal contreforts at the four corners. ^[12]

The tower is linked to the church by the porch of the narthex, a 19th century addition. Its facade is decorated with two octagonal turrets, and a large rose window. with a smaller rose windows in the gable.

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  The transept and portal of Saint John
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  Flamboyant rose window of the portal of Saint John
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  Doorway of the Portal of Saint John
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  Detail of the north portal door, the Stoning of Saint Stephen
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  Detail of the north portal door, Saint Martial and Saint Valerie
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  The South Transept

The Portal of Saint John, The north portal of the transept, is the main entrance of the church. It was built between 1516 and 1530, and is considered one of the masterpieces of the Flamboyant Gothic style.

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  The nave looking toward the choir
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  The nave looking toward the rose window and organ

Nave and choir, respectively, looking east, through a "folding out" lens that nearly flattens out the steep Gothic arches.

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  The rood screen (1533-1534)
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  Detail of the rood screen - the Labors of Hercules

The most prominent interior decoration is the Renaissance Rood Screen, which originally separated the choir from the nave. It was made between 1533 and 1534, and was then ornamented with sculpture by Jean Arnaud in 1536. It was mutilated in 1793 during the French Revolution, and moved in 1888 to the end of nave.

The walls of Romanesque crypt have beautiful frescoes representing Christ in glory. Some medieval paintings are still visible in some chapels (including representatives of angelic musicians) but almost all are frescoes of the 19th century.

The Cathedral of Limoges has two organs: a neoclassical instrument built by Georges Danion in 1963 and a choir organ, installed in 1850.^{[citation needed]} and restored 1891 by Merklin. Every summer, the association of the cathedral organizes organ concerts to highlight the major organs of this building.

The crypt of the cathedral was built by the bishop Alduin in 1013 on the lower three floors of the bell tower. It is not open to the public. It was largely filled with earth the Gothic period to stabliize the upper floors of the tower. to stablize the structure. The crypt was decorated with a number of murals from the 11th century, which are in poor condition today. It was much much modified in the twentieth century, and much of it was filled with earth to stabilise the structure, ^[13]

René Fage, La cathédrale de Limoges, Paris, Henri Laurens, éditeur, 1913, 116 p. (lire en ligne)

René Fage, « Cathédrale de Limoges », Congrès archéologique de France, Paris, A. Picard « Congrès archéologique de France, 84e session, Limoges. 1921, Société française d'archéologie », 1923, p. 3-40 (lire en ligne)