During the 7th century, King Dagobert founded this abbey, which also happened to be built over the tomb of French kings for 800 years. A fun fact about King Dagobert is that this particular abbey was his favorite and allowed the people to have an annual fair, to please God(Bennett 29). The town built themselves up around the abbey over time. Around the year of 1136, Abbot Suger built a basilica for the abbey, which ended up changing the entire western architecture. Suger basically started the Gothic architecture in the west. The best structure to demonstrate this style can be seen in the ambulatory. This is where the beautiful stain glass windows can be seen, as seen below.
Not only was this structure important to the transition from Romanesque to Gothic structure, but it was also important because it was the first building to have stained glass "rose" windows. They are made up of multiple circular windows that come together to form the shape of a rose. The design of the Basilica is based on Biblical themes and on the Biblical phrase, "let there be light." In other words it was very spacious and these windows were massive, so a lot of light was let in. To go along with the Gothic style of the building, the Basilica forms a cross. A lot of hard work went into this structure, from the building itself to the smallest of detail. This abbey and Basilica are both beautiful works of art.
Works Cited:
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Saint-Denis.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 23 June 2017.
“Architecture: The Basilica of St Denis.” HUM 120 Course Blog, 24 Mar. 2011.
Bennet, Judith M. Medieval Europe: A Short History. 11th ed., McGraw-Hill, 9 Sept. 2018
And we will see St. Denis abbey as important in The letters of Abelard and Heloise too. It's very important to French history albeit little visited today. We will come back to this when we are in the 12th century!
ReplyDeleteThose windows are wonderful! It is interesting how important architecture can be in understanding the past. Surely it is nothing more than a building, right? :)
ReplyDeleteI'm in love with those windows--so beautiful and detailed. I can only imagine what they look like from the inside with the natural light flooding in.
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