Coutances Cathedral

Notre -Dame de Coutances is a Gothic cathedral in the french city of Coutances in the department of Manche. The cultural monument was classified as a monument historique in 1862 and declared a National Monument.

History

The origins of the cathedral is Romanesque. Already in 1030 was Robert, bishop of Coutances, build a first nave. After his death the Bishop Geoffroy de Montbray continued the work by endowed the ship at the west end with two high towers made ​​of local granite and built the mighty crossing tower.

Under Bishop Hugues de Morville was started in the first quarter of the 13th century in order to give the Romanesque building, a Gothic appearance. The present façade dates back to the part of this period. The Romanesque towers were to stabilize cased with limestone from the region, raised and built additional stair towers at the outer front corners. Later massive buttresses were in front of it and the choir was new.

Description

The exterior

The sharp shapes in the gallery above the windows, which are characterized by a certain angularity and hardness, have Norman- English forms. In the interior reveals the same.

At the upper nave windows and at the transept facade of the early Gothic character is still clearly read. The side chapels, as always in such cases, the latest windows forms, here is the advanced version Amienser that vierbahnige tracery.

The interior

The interior of the Cathedral of Coutances has unusual shapes for a building this time. About the arcades is a triforium, but that is behind a small Maßwerkbrüstung reset and only be displayed - but this is a later change. The shape of the triforium shows the same hardness as the corresponding shape on the exterior.

The windows of the clerestory are also back behind a parapet, so that the services appear as a vertical element strongly to the fore. The counterpart to form the parapets as a strong horizontal, architectural element.

The interior is not influenced by the delicate restraint system of High Gothic, but gives the viewer even today the severity of Norman architecture. This is mainly because in Coutances built no new construction, but merely a reorganization was made, for which the existing buildings of the Romanesque previous building was instrumental.

While it has been taken into account existing Romanesque elements in the redesign of the nave in the middle of the 13th century, this was not the case in the case of crossing, the lantern tower and the choir. These were completely changed according to contemporary tastes. For this reason, the arcades higher and the triforium are lower than in the nave in the choir. The aisles have no multi-storey wall, but open to high, stained-glass windows, so that the interior of the nave is very bright. As with the Cathedral of Bourges the aisle will continue as ambulatory and has its own three-part choir wall construction. In the apse of the deal instead of pillars of twin columns is separated, which repeated the principle of Mehrschaligkeit in a very refined manner in the column system.

The axial chapel of Coutances is separated by a special access from the actual church.

Dimensions

Organ

The organ was built in the years 1724-1728 by the organ builder Deslandes and Röhrer (Paris) for the Abbey Church in Savigny- le -Vieux, near Mortain with 44 stops on three manuals. 1812, the instrument by the organ builder Louis Lair (Le Mans) was reorganized and placed in the cathedral. 1932, the instrument has been extensively revised and equipped with Barker machines. The organ has 51 registers, four manuals and pedal today. The play and Registertrakturen are mechanical.