Austere Late Gothic: The architecture of the collegiate church of Notre-Dame at Clery-Saint-Andre.

Abstract

This dissertation studies the architecture of the collegiate church of Notre-Dame de Clery, built between c. 1429 and 1485 under the patronage of kings Charles VII an Louis XI. The text is divided into five sections or chapters. It opens with a full account of the early history of Notre-Dame de Clery, starting with the origins of the chapel in the late thirteenth century and ending with an analysis of the fifteenth-century reports of the destruction by the English of a fourteenth-century church on the site. The second chapter provides a detailed history of the construction of the fifteenth-century church, as determined by careful examination of the physical evidence and detailed analysis of documentary sources. This combined study led to the identification of four distinct phases of construction ascribable to six different master masons. The financing of the construction of the fifteenth-century church of Notre-Dame de Clery is the subject of the third chapter, where the various sources of income for the fabric are methodically examined in order to determine its solvency. This documentary study is then combined with the archaeological findings of Chapter II in an effort to define the relationship between the choice of the architectural vocabulary employed by the various master masons and the financial situation of the building fabric. Chapter IV examines the various measures instituted by Louis XI specifically intended to increase the prestige of the chapter and the church. The fifth and final chapter deals with the question of the relationship between Notre-Dame de Clery and Late Gothic architecture. More specifically, it is in this last chapter where the ideas concerning the formal affiliation between Clery and contemporary Parisian structures are carefully examined and ultimately rejected. This rejection is accompanied by a new interpretation of the architecture of Notre-Dame de Clery, one that takes into consideration the retrospective character of French Late Gothic architecture, the identity of the master masons, the nature of the patronage, and the political circumstances surrounding the construction of the fifteenth-century church.