Rocznik Historii Sztuki (30.2005)

84

SZCZĘSNY SKIBIŃSKI

FRENCH LODGES IMPACT ON GOTHIC BREAKTHROUGH IN CENTRAL EUROPE, 1233-1248

(ON THE EXAMPLES OF GERMANY AND POLAND)

Abstract

The dynamie development of the Gothic architecture that lasted throughout the latter half of the 12th century in France for
a surprisingly long time did not influence the territories east of France. In Poland the first Gothic buildings with architectural détails
in stone indicating technical relations with motherland of Gothic made their initial appearance in the 1240s. Their best example is
a well preserved choir of the Wrocław Cathedral, while in the two Poznań churches - the Cathedral and Dominican Church - only
the éléments unearthed during excavation works.

The churches were built in the times when throughout Central Europe there was a widespread réception of Gothic architecture
called opus francigenum: Liebfrauenkirche in Trier (after 1233), St Elisabeth Church in Marburg (sińce 1235), the aisles of the
Strasbourg Cathedral (after 1241), the west choir of the Naumburg Cathedral (after 1242), the choir of the Cistercian Church at
Pforta (after 1251), the Cologne Cathedral (sińce 1248).

What was it that induced this widespread appearance in Central Europe of the French techniques thus far hard to find west
of the Rhine, and almost simultaneous both on the Rhine and the far eastern periphery - on the Oder and Warta? The answer is
simple: in the very centre, i.e. in France, there was a radical restriction of building investments resulting in migration of the lodges
into the neighbouring territories. This crisis was caused by King Saint Louis' préparations to and then his leadership of the two
crusades (1248 and 1270) to the Holy Land. His fiscal policy towards the towns and the Church, and then the transfer of huge sums
of money to the Holy Land hampered numerous building works and triggered massive translocation of the building lodges first
within France, and soon outside its borders.

Due to a three-year interruption in building of the Reims Cathedral (1233-1236), a part of the Reims lodge went to Paris,
where initiated the first phase of court style at the building sites of the King's Chapel at Saint-Germain-en-Laye and church at Saint-
Denis. A role played by the Reims masters in the introduction of stone sculpture during the last stage of building at the Bamberg
Cathedral is well recognised. Also Liebfrauenkirche in Trier, St. Elisabeth Church in Marburg and a change of lodge at a Cistercian
Church in Haina should be associated with the crisis at Reims. Holding back works at Saint-Denis from 1241 indicates a shift of
major part of this lodge to Strasburg to build the aisles. The departure from Paris of the lodge of Reims provenance gave place for
a lodge that emerged from the Amiens lodge, which in 1244 take up the building of Sainte-Chapelle. The king's initiative in Paris
fell on the time of financial crisis of the Amiens Cathedral. A consécration of the Sainte-Chapelle in 1248 and the king's departure
for the crusade, in which participated also the bishop of Amiens, were directly related to the beginning in that year of the building
of the Gothic Cathedral in Cologne, the programme and form of which were strongly influenced by the ideas of the Amiens
Cathedral and Parisian Sainte-Chapelle.

The stonemason lodge that came to Poland derived its forms from the first phase of the Paris courtly style, yet it managed
to familiarize with the style of décoration of the Sainte-Chapelle. The comparison of Gothic buildings on the Rhine river, throughout
whole Germany as far as Silesia and Great Poland (Wielkopolska) indicates that here came several, or more, masons specialising
in architectural détail. The forms of the Wrocław Cathedral do not suggest that with them came to Poland an architect trained in
the circle of French cathedral architecture. So, the peripheral territories were reached only by the masters playing just a minor part
in the masons' team of their mother country.

Translated by Grażyna Waluga