Notre-dame of Amiens : Life of the Gothic Cathedral (9780231551472) by Murray Stephen

Author:Murray, Stephen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ART015070, Art/History/Medieval, ARC005030, Architecture/History/Medieval
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc
Published: 2020-12-22T00:00:00+00:00

Telling the Story of the Great Enterprise, II, c. 1300−1530

Continuing Work, Immediate Danger, Triumphant End

5

IN OUR STORY OF THE GREAT enterprise of construction we left the clergy recently seated in their new choir, reorganizing their liturgical life and rejoicing in glittering ceremonies like the one where the relics of Saint Ulphe were triumphantly installed in a magnificent new châsse placed upon the relic tribune in the sanctuary, in the presence of the kings of England and France. However, the clergy only had to look around to see that the major work of construction was far from accomplished—the upper transept façades and upper western frontispiece with its towers were still unfinished, and dangerous signs of structural instability were already being noticed in the area of the crossing. The clergy still lacked a chapter house for the meetings to discuss the management of liturgical and business affairs. And whereas during the first two or three decades of the life of the cathedral construction had proceeded under generally favorable historical and economic circumstances, the situation changed sharply in the years around 1300, and the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries brought repeated cycles of war, economic penury, and pestilence.

The prosperity of the city of Amiens appears to have peaked in the mid-thirteenth century when the taxes imposed by King Louis IX to finance his crusade took a heavy toll upon the cities and dioceses of the north. The first half of the fourteenth century was particularly hard, given the role of Amiens as a gateway between France, England, and Flanders. These relations had been compromised by the Franco-Flemish War beginning in the 1290s; the first effects of the Hundred Years War with the English were felt in the area by the 1330s. Two of the greatest battles of the war were fought and lost in the close vicinity of Amiens: Crécy, in 1346, where the Amiens militia suffered heavily; and Agincourt in 1415.1 In addition to the miseries of war came chronic pestilence (Black Death, 1348 and later), depopulation, popular uprisings, dynastic failure, and repeated military humiliation at the hands of the English. In the chaos that ensued after the defeat at Poitiers (1356) and the capture of King John, some of the leading bourgeois of Amiens made the disastrous mistake of siding with the revolted bourgeois of Paris led by Étienne Marcel and Charles d’Évreux, king of Navarre, whose lineage from the Capetian monarchs of France had led him to aspire to the French crown. Charles received a triumphal welcome in Amiens in 1357. Soon afterward, however, the forces of the dauphin, the future King Charles V, entered Amiens in a surprise attack and seventeen leading citizens were executed in the marketplace, including the mayor, Firmin de Coquerel, and the captain of the militia, Jacques de Saint-Fuscien.

The reign of King Charles V (1364–1380) brought increasing financial demands upon the city, both to support the king in his struggle against the English and to renew urban defenses. The cathedral clergy were obliged to contribute to the expense of new fortification for the southern part of the city.

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