Architecture and Society in Normandy, 1120-1270

by Lindy Grant

• ISBN13: 9780300106862
• ISBN10: 0300106866
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2005-06-10
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

This wide-ranging book explores the architectureprincipally ecclesiasticalof Normandy from 1120 to 1270, a period of profound social, cultural, and political change. In 1204, control of the duchy of Normandy passed from the hands of the Anglo-Norman/Angevin descendants of William the Conqueror to the Capetian kingdom of France. The book examines the enormous cultural impact of this political change and places the architecture of the time in the context of the Normans' complicated sense of their own identity. It is the first book to consider the inception and development of gothic architecture in Normandy and the first to establish a reliable chronology of buildings.Lindy Grant extends her investigation beyond the buildings themselves and also offers an account of those who commissioned, built, and used them. The humanized story she tells provides sharp insights not only into Normandy's medieval architecture, but also into the fascinating society from which it emerged.

Author Biography

Lindy Grant is medieval curator at the Conway Library, the Courtauld Institute, University of London.

Table of Contents

Introduction : Normandy and gothic architecture	p. 1
Normandy : polity, place and people	p. 7
The Norman church	p. 19
Patronage and piety	p. 33
The new architecture	p. 43
The emergence of Gothic architecture in Normandy circa 1120-circa 1160	p. 63
The 1160s and 1170s : French influence and the patronage of the great churchmen	p. 75
Architecture in the last decades of ducal Normandy, circa 1180-1204	p. 97
Rouen Cathedral and architecture in upper Normandy in the earlier thirteenth century	p. 121
The south-west	p. 149
The architecture of central lower Normandy in the thirteenth century	p. 181
The reception of Rayonnant in Normandy	p. 205
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