The Sainte-Chapelle
The Sainte-Chapelle in Paris is widely regarded as the jewel of High Gothic architecture. This ‘Holy Chapel’ stands in the Palais de la Cité, an ancient royal residence of the kings of France. Built in the mid-13th century by Louis IX, later canonised as St Louis, the chapel was conceived to house relics of Christ’s Passion, including the Crown of Thorns, a nail and a large fragment of the True Cross.
Louis IX acquired these relics at vast expense from the Emperor Baudouin of Constantinople, and ordered the construction of the Sainte-Chapelle as a worthy reliquary for these holy treasures. Designed by Pierre de Montreuil, one of the most skilful Gothic architects of the age, it was consecrated in 1248, having taken only seven years to complete.
Interior of the Upper Chapel in the Sainte-Chapelle.
A Medieval Masterpiece
The chapel was designed on two levels, the upper floor for the king and his guests, and the lower for the palace residents, servants, and royal guard. The overall feel was to be that of a monumental piece of goldsmith’s art, a reliquary in architectural form. The extreme lightness of the upper chapel was achieved through fifteen stained-glass bays, each approximately fifteen metres high. Two-thirds of this glass remains original, a fortunate and extraordinary survival which contributes to the chapel’s breathtaking beauty.
Surviving History
The years of the French Revolution brought significant damage to the Sainte-Chapelle. The precious reliquaries were melted down, the building was desacralised and ceased to be a place of worship. It was repurposed as a flour warehouse and later an archive for the nearby law courts. Most of the treasures it contained were dispersed or lost, though the Crown of Thorns survived and was eventually housed in the treasury of Notre-Dame Cathedral. Fires, neglect, and further revolutionary damage left this architectural masterpiece in real danger of disappearing.
The Sainte-Chapelle and the Gothic Revival
The survival of the Sainte-Chapelle owes much to the 19th-century Gothic Revival, an architectural movement originating in England which gained momentum in Europe. Well-known figures such as Victor Hugo championed public campaigns to save medieval monuments in France, including the Sainte-Chapelle. Between 1840 and 1863, architects including Félix Duban, Jean-Baptiste Lassus, Emile Boeswillwald, and Eugène Viollet-le-Duc undertook a painstaking restoration of the chapel.
Sketch of the Sainte-Chapelle. Source: Victorian Web.
Eugène Viollet-le-Duc (1814–79) was a prolific architect and writer. More influential than even his architectural work, his writings had a profound influence on the work of Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811–78) in particular, a leading Gothic Revivalist of the period and father of one of Watts & Co.’s founders. The two architects were nearly exact contemporaries and shared a vision of restoration which occasionally put them at odds with other well-known thinkers, artists and architects of the time.
Alongside his vast portfolio, Sir Gilbert Scott carried out major restorations of medieval churches and cathedrals and was appointed Surveyor of the Fabric of Westminster Abbey (1849–78). On the other side of the English Channel Viollet-le-Duc, son of the Conservateur des Bâtiments Royaux (Superintenant of the Royal Palaces), was equally passionate about restoring France’s medieval heritage. He became internationally renowned and was elected an honorary member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in 1855, a few years before Sir Gilbert Scott won RIBA’s Royal Gold Medal (1859). Viollet-le-Duc would also have seen his contemporary become president of RIBA in 1873.
A Shared Ideal
Sir Gilbert Scott and Viollet-le-Duc believed Gothic architecture represented a moral and spiritual ideal. Their restorations often involved reconstruction and sometimes stylistic ‘correction’ to return it to ‘a condition of completeness’. Testament to the mutual exchange of ideas of the Gothic Revival movement, in speaking to his student audience at the Royal Academy, Gilbert Scott advised: ‘When you go abroad, begin with France, it is the great centre of Medieval art.’ He also writes in one of his diaries:
‘I thoroughly studied the details of Amiens [cathedral], and those of the Sainte Chapelle (…) and I returned home with a wholly new set of ideas, and with many of my old ones dispelled. (…) I was first among the English architects, as I believe, to study it in detail in any practical way, and with a practical intention.’
Excerpt from Gavin Stamp, ‘In Search of the Byzantine: George Gilbert Scott’s Diary of an Architectural Tour in France in 1862.’
Sir Gilbert Scott put this intention into practice and took the Sainte-Chapelle as inspiration for Exeter College Chapel in Oxford.
Exeter College Chapel, Oxford. Interior view of the stained glass windows. Images credit: DILIFF (wikimedia)
The survival and restoration of the Sainte-Chapelle owed much to leading French literary and architectural figures of the day, of which Eugène Viollet-le-Duc was perhaps the most outspoken. His passion for medieval Gothic architecture and his vision of what restoration meant was shared by his contemporary in Britain, Sir George Gilbert Scott. This masterpiece of medieval Gothic architecture acted as a catalyst for an exchange of ideas and shared values, connecting two giants of the Gothic Revival movement.
Bibliography
Gavin Stamp, ‘In Search of the Byzantine: George Gilbert Scott’s Diary of an Architectural Tour in France in 1862.’
‘Figures of Ruin and Restoration: Ruskin and Viollet-le-Duc’
Architecture and Modern Literature, 2012, pp. 142-161 Accessed via https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1qv5nb5.9
https://www.ucldigitalpress.co.uk/Book/Article/86/110/6429/
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-011-4006-5_45
https://victorianweb.org/art/architecture/vld/1.html
Eugène Viollet-Le-Duc, ‘On Restoration’ in Dictionnaire Raisonné de l’Architecture Francaise du XIe au XVIe Siécle, vol. 8, as cited in M. F. Hearn, ed., The Architectural Theory of Viollet-Le-Duc: Readings and Commentary (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), 269. Accessed via https://ucldigitalpress.co.uk/Book/Article/86/110/6428/
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