Suger's choir at Saint-Denis: the beginning of Gothic
On 11 June 1144, in the presence of King Louis VII and Queen Eleanor, the new choir of the royal abbey of Saint-Denis near Paris was consecrated. Built for Abbot Suger in about four years, with rib vaults on pointed arches, slender columns in place of heavy walls and large stained-glass windows, it is often cited as the first Gothic building and became the prototype for church building in the royal domain of northern France.
- Date
- 11 June 1144exact dateDate in the Julian calendar
- Place
- Abbey church of Saint-Denistoday: Basilica of Saint-Denis, Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis, France · Western and Central Europe
- Participants
- Abbot Suger, Louis VII of France, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Kingdom of France
- Threads
- Western and Central Europe (11th–12th c.)
- Also known as
- Basilica of Saint-Denis; Базилика Сен-Дени; Abbey of Saint-Denis; Аббатство Сен-Дени; Gothic architecture; Готика; Eleanor vase; Ваза Алиеноры
Saint-Denis, the shrine of St Denis, a patron saint of France, and the burial place of its kings, was ruled from 1122 by Suger, a man of modest knightly family who had entered the abbey as a boy and became a counsellor of Louis VI and Louis VII. In the 1130s he began to rebuild and enlarge the church: the new west front, with three chapels in its narthex, was consecrated on 9 June 1140, and that year work began on the choir. In the ambulatory and apse the heavy dividing walls gave way to slender columns; rib vaults on pointed arches and exterior buttresses made it possible to open the walls with large windows, and a ring of radiating chapels was filled with stained glass.
Suger described the work and the consecration in two treatises. Like many French clerics of his time, he followed Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, the 6th-century mystic who saw in every gleam of light a reflection of the divine, and verses of his own carved in the church speak of a noble edifice "pervaded by the new light". The choir was consecrated on Sunday, 11 June 1144, before the king and queen, and Louis presented the abbey with a crystal vase that had belonged to Eleanor. The new manner was soon taken up across the royal domain of northern France, and Saint-Denis is often cited as the first building in the Gothic style. In 1147 Suger became regent of France while Louis VII was on the Second Crusade; he died on 13 January 1151.
Connections
Related events
- Second Crusade31 March 1146 – 1149 · Western and Central EuropeSuger, whose choir was consecrated before Louis VII and Eleanor, governed France as regent while they were on the Second Crusade
Same participants
- Hugh Capet becomes King of the FranksMay 987 – 3 July 987 · Western and Central Europevia Kingdom of France
Same place
- Viking siege of Parisbetween 24 November and 25 November 885 – October 886 · Western and Central Europe
- Storming of the Bastille14 July 1789 · Western and Central Europe
- Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen26 August 1789 · Western and Central Europe
- Execution of Louis XVI21 January 1793 · Western and Central Europe
- Coup of 18 Brumaire9–10 November 1799 · Western and Central Europe
- Napoleonic Code (French Civil Code)21 March 1804 · Western and Central Europe
- Coronation of Napoleon2 December 1804 · Western and Central Europe
- Battle of Paris18 (30) March 1814 – 19 (31) March 1814 · Western and Central Europe
- Hundred Days20 March – 8 July 1815 · Western and Central Europe
- Holy Alliance14 (26) September 1815 · Western and Central Europe
Adjacent events in the thread
- Roger II is crowned king of Sicily25 December 1130 · Western and Central Europe
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within a year of this event
Balkans and Anatolia
- Fall of Edessa28 November – 24 December 1144
- Reign of Manuel I Komnenos8 April 1143 – 24 September 1180
Africa
- The Almohads: from Ibn Tumart's revolt to the conquest of Marrakesh1121–1147
- K2 (Bambandyanalo) and the rise of Mapungubwec. 1000 – c. 1220
- The Almoravids: from a desert reform movement to an empirebetween 1039 and 1046 – 1147
- Igbo-Ukwu: bronze casting in the West African forest800–899 – 1100–1199
Southeast Asia and Oceania
- Suryavarman II builds Angkor Watbetween 1113 and 1122 – c. 1150
North America
- Drought and the end of the Chaco worldc. 1130 – c. 1180
- Classic Mimbres: the painted bowls of the Mogollonc. 1000 – between 1130 and 1150
- Pueblo II: stone pueblos and the Chaco worldc. 900 – c. 1150
Latin America
- Fall of Tulabetween 1140 and 1200
- Chimor: the Chimú kingdom and its capital Chan Chanc. 900 – c. 1470
- Collapse of Tiwanakuc. 1000 – c. 1150
- Tula and the Toltecs: the leading city of central Mexicoc. 900 – c. 1150
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Basilica of Saint-Denis
- Wikipedia (English): Suger
- Wikipedia (English): Eleanor of Aquitaine
- Wikipedia (Russian): Базилика Сен-Дени
- Wikipedia (Russian): Сугерий
- Panofsky E. Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St.-Denis and Its Art Treasures. — Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1946.
- Grant L. Abbot Suger of St-Denis: Church and State in Early Twelfth-Century France. — London: Longman, 1998.