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Primary Source 2.6
C. H. MOORE
THE DEVELOPMENT AND CHARACTER OF GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE (1890)1
The Gothic Cathedrals were among the greatest architectural achievements in history. Many
towered so high that they remained for centuries the world’s tallest buildings (as opposed to
monuments, like the Great Pyramid). They also featured radiant colors, thanks to vast
windows of stained glass, and provided huge interior spaces for Christian worship. The Gothic
style—using pointed arches, flying buttresses,2 and ribbed vaults,3 among other unique
features—emerged in France, where nearly eighty cathedrals were built between 1050 and
1350. The use of gothic architecture was usually associated with the building of abbeys,
churches, and cathedrals.
The following text, excerpted from a history of Gothic architecture by a Harvard
University professor of architectural history, Charles H. Moore (1840–1930), examines the
structure of two of the earliest Gothic churches in France—the Abbey Church of St. Denis and
the Abbey Church of Morienval. The author discusses the spatial details and other features of
these two structures that make them unique. The full text, along with diagrams omitted in the
excerpt below, can be found here.
CHAPTER II
GOTHIC CONSTRUCTION IN FRANCE
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The new principles of construction are first distinctly and skillfully exemplified in
the Abbey Church of St. Denis, which dates from 1137 to 1141. And the origin of Gothic, so
far as existing monuments exhibit it, is, on the Continent, now commonly traced to that
building only. But the Abbey Church of Morienval, near Crepy-en-Valois, appears to
anticipate, though in a halting manner, some of the principles that are carried out so
remarkably in St. Denis. This church, a construction of the eleventh century, has an apse 4
which dates from the end of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century, and a
rudimentary apsidal aisle whose vaults have diagonal ribs, pointed archivolts, and even
rudely pointed transverse arches, though of these last arches one has no rib, while the
other has a rudely adjusted and very heavy round-arched one. . . . It is interesting, as
showing that constructive exigencies alone here brought about the use of the pointed arch,
to notice further, that the ridges of the longitudinal cells . . . having to pass through the
intersection of the diagonals, and curving with the form of the apse, bring the crowns of
these transverse arches to one side, rather than over the centres of their bases, and thus
Charles Herbert Moore, Development and Character of Gothic Architecture (London and New York:
Macmillan, 1890), 33-38.
2 A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall that serves to support and
reinforce the wall. A flying buttress reinforces an outside supporting arch.
3 Four or more arches aligned side-by-side and reinforced with multiple tubular supports, all converging on
an intersection on the ceiling of a building. Allows for a higher reach, fewer load-bearing walls, and thus more
space for windows.
4 A semi-circular ceiling or vault in a church, beneath which the altar is placed.
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give unequal curvature to their sides. This would hardly have been tolerated had it been
merely a preference for the form of the pointed arch which determined its use. These
awkward arches are so plainly the result of a groping struggle with the difficulties of
vaulting a curved oblong space, that they seem to show beyond question that the pointed
arch was not introduced as an admired form, but that it came unsought in the course of
constructive experiment. The interest of this vault lies chiefly in what it exhibits of
experiment in the application of new principles as yet but feebly apprehended. This
groping procedure is shown again in the forms given to the plans of the diagonal ribs which
are curved instead of being straight, in order, in some measure, to avoid the extreme onesided position of the ridges of the longitudinal cells, which must pass through their
intersection, and also to avoid, in some measure, the excessive inequality of the sides of the
transverse arches. By this means, too, the inequality of magnitude in the transverse cells . . .
is in some degree lessened. . . .
Incomplete and awkward as is the system adopted at Morienval, we have here a
form of vault construction such as had been before unknown; a form which, though
imperfectly carried out, already contains some of the most characteristic structural
features, and involves some of the most important principles of the Gothic vault. The apse
of Morienval, therefore, rather than that of St. Denis, must be regarded as the first step
known to us on the way to the Gothic style. The full value and far-reaching consequences of
what was here rudely accomplished were, indeed, not yet recognised; but everything was
sure in time to follow on such a beginning.
Between Morienval and St. Denis no intermediate steps in the line of progress can
now be traced. Yet it would seem that such must have existed; for not only does St. Denis
show a consistent advance in the direction that had been indicated at Morienval, but the
mastery of the new principles, the skill of execution, and the comparative lightness and
elegance of the work, are such, that it is hard to believe so much could have been
accomplished at a single stride.
Of the work wrought under Suger 5 at St. Denis the greater part has been destroyed;
but the aisles of the choir and apse and the apsidal chapels remain in excellent condition.
The construction is on a much larger scale than that of Morienval, and in place of the
rudimentary apsidal aisle we have here amply developed double aisles to both apse and
choir foreshadowing the vast and magnificent aisles of Paris, Chartres, and Amiens, whose
vaults show no sign of hesitation and little executive imperfection. They are furnished with
a full system of sustaining ribs, of which the transverse and longitudinal ones are pointed.
The diagonals are round arches, and project vigorously, effectually strengthening the
groins. Their intersection is far above the crowns of the enclosing arches, and the cells are
thus necessarily much domed. Here, for the first time among existing monuments, does the
rib system wholly determine the forms and constitute the strength of the vaults. The
architect of St. Denis was a master of the principles involved in his scheme. His complex
plan is carried out in all its details with astonishing sureness. In the curved compartments
of the apsidal aisle, for instance, the difficulty which in Morienval led to the one-sided form
of the transverse arches, is overcome by the application of the new principle that the forms
and arrangements of the ribs shall determine those of cells. Thus an equal-sided pointed
arch spans the end of the compartment, and the ridge of the cell is made to meet its crown.
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Abbot Suger (c. 1081–1151) strongly influenced the development of Gothic architecture.
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Moreover, the unequal dimensions of the transverse cells, which the vault of Morienval
exhibits, is largely avoided by disposing the opposite branches of each diagonal rib, so that
in plan they meet at an angle, thus bringing the intersection of the diagonals in the centre of
the compartment. The difficulties of vaulting a structure of such plan by any of the older
methods of vaulting were very considerable, and when accomplished, the result was
necessarily very unsightly. For the varying dimensions of the spans to be arched over
inevitably occasioned either most awkward differences of level in the springing of the
arches, or else equally awkward differences in the elevations of their crowns. But by the
use of the pointed arch, which readily adjusts itself to any span without a change in height,
such a plan is easily vaulted, and with beautiful rather than unsightly effect.
The original arcade piers6 of the choir and sanctuary do not exist, the piers having
been reconstructed, together with the high vaults, in the thirteenth century; but the shafts
which divide the aisles remain unchanged. They are monoliths of slender proportions,
though heavy enough for their work, which is considerable. They taper a little and have a
slight entasis7—a lingering characteristic of ancient art which appears also in several other
early Gothic buildings. Their capitals8 are considerably advanced towards Gothic form by
spreading to receive, upon an ample abacus surface, the threefold load of transverse,
longitudinal, and diagonal ribs. It is to be regretted that we have now no means of
ascertaining what were the forms of the choir vaults and what was their system of
supports. The bases of the piers of the sanctuary are all that remain of this system, which
was, however, there can be little doubt, substantially like that of the nearly
contemporaneous structures presently to be noticed.
In Morienval and St. Denis we have, then, the Gothic principle of vaulting in its
inception and in its earliest complete character, as displayed in ground-story vaults of
small dimensions. The next examples show the nature of the early vaults and vaulting
systems on a larger scale.
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Pillars.
The application of a convex curve to a surface.
8 The tops of pillars.
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