ARCHITECTURE - Karatunov.net

CH. xxv] FRANCEROYAL DOMAIN 165Sugar'sAs soon as he became abbot he began to contemplatethe re-building of his church on a sumptuous scale worthyof its famous relics.Pilgrimages to adore shrines andrelics were great sources of wealth to monastic communities,and generally supplied the motive for re-buildingand enlarging the cathedrals and abbeys of the MiddleAges. The vast concourse of pilgrims to Canterburyafter the murder of Becket demanded the eastward extensionof the cathedral to " Becket's crown." The cultof S.Swithin at Winchester brought such crowds thitherthat Bishop de Lucy at the beginning of the i3th centurybuilt what is practically an additional church at the eastend of Walkelyn's cathedral. Abbot Suger writes thaton the days when the relics were exposed the pilgrimscrowded and crushed one another to get near the shrines,women shrieked, and the monks could hardly resist thepressure of the faithful or protect their treasures. Toavoid this inconvenience, and to glorify the martyrswhose relics were so attractive and profitable, he re-builthis church on a magnificent scale. The first stone was HIS newlaid by King Louis VI (Le Gros) 1and the building was churchfinished with such rapidity that in 1144it was consecratedwith great pomp in the presence of Louis VII(Le Jeune). As Louis le Gros died in 1137 the rebuildingmust have taken at least seven years, and if itwas begun as some think in 1132, five years more.Even nowadays twelve years would be littleenoughfor so great an undertaking, and for that time the speedwas marvellous and, as it turned out, injudicious.1 Ipse enim Serenissimus Rex intus descendens propriis manibus suumimposuit, hosque et rnulti alii tarn abbates quam religiosi viri lapides suosimposuerunt, quidam etiam gemmas ob amorem et reverentiam Jhesu Christi,decantantes " Lapides pretiosi omnes muri tui." Suger, Letter.