Читать книгу The Story of Chartres - Cecil Headlam - Страница 7

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The oldest portions of the crypt, and therefore of the Cathedral, that remain to us are to be found in the Martyrium or Chapel of S. Lubin. The crypt, it must be understood, was not in origin a crypt or a martyrium or a meeting-house of prayer dug beneath the level of the soil, but a tiny church set on the crest of the hill, and raised above the surface of the earth. It only became a crypt properly so-called when it had been covered up and the surrounding soil raised by the débris and deposits of succeeding years; so that when the new church was built it was erected naturally upon the top of the old. The spade of the archæologist has proved that the soil of a mediæval European town was raised by the accumulation of dust and rubble as much as one or two feet per century. And at Chartres excavations have revealed Gallo-Roman sub-structures at a depth of some eighteen feet. When we reach the Martyrium or Chapel of S. Lubin we shall find there a piece of the Gallo-Roman walls of the fourth century. This probably is part of the apsidal wall of the church of that date. As the church, with the vicissitudes of the town which we have yet to recount, was alternately built and burnt, destroyed and rebuilt, the crypt was developed until it is now the largest in France, and next to that of S. Peter’s at Rome, and that of Canterbury, the largest in the world. It consists of two lateral galleries which run from the western towers under the aisles of the upper church, and form a horse-shoe curve beneath the choir and sanctuary 366 feet long, and seventeen to eighteen feet broad; of two transepts, seven apsidal chapels, and the martyrium which is under the choir of the upper church.

The successive developments of the crypt may be summarised as follows:—

Against the fourth century apsidal wall, of which traces are found in the martyrium, were built in 858 two large columns to support the new choir above. At the same time the circular wall of the apse was pierced with windows. In order to support the apse of the upper church other two large isolated piers were built in 962, whilst the windows in the circular apse were blocked by a second strengthening wall. The same year saw the addition of a double transept at the commencement of the apse. Fulbert, in 1020, developed these transepts by carrying them out westwards almost to their present extent, and by so doing he left the altar dedicated to the Virgin, though unmoved, no longer before a thick wall, but stranded as it were in a corridor—a situation which aided, and still aids, the progress of the pilgrims past the shrine. The great bishop also extended the crypt by piercing the wall which closed the transepts towards the east, and making the ambulatory out of which opened the three large chapels with deep, round-headed windows (S. Joseph, S. John the Baptist, and S. Anne). To support the vaulting of this ambulatory a new wall was built round the martyrium.

In the twelfth century, when the two western towers were constructed, Fulbert’s long galleries were extended and connected with them. The windows were raised and enlarged with the exception of those which were blinded by the porches of the upper church. Four smaller chapels, with pointed windows, were inserted between the large apsidal chapels of Fulbert, and these still exhibit traces of early thirteenth-century painting. At the same period, the transepts being now prolonged, it was found necessary to make two new flights of steps by which they might be entered.

The beautiful doorway of the south staircase dates from this time. Lastly, when the porches of the Cathedral were completed, the transepts were connected therewith by means of vaulted passages, of which the one on the north side is near the Chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre, and the other southern one was turned into the Chapel of S. Nicholas in 1681.

Entering the crypt by the south-eastern door, after noticing the windows of its apsidal chapels, you descend a stone staircase, and by the dim candlelight perceive on your left the long south gallery begun by Fulbert in 1020, and extended in the following century right up to the western tower.

You are now in the original south transept of the crypt, and much of the masonry dates obviously from the tenth century. Turning to the left, the first chapel on the left is now dedicated to S. Martin. It was not originally a chapel, but in the twelfth century was used as an entrance to the crypt. Altered in the seventeenth century, as the windows and vaulting show, it was converted into a chapel in the nineteenth. It contains a few fragments of the original choir screen of the Cathedral destroyed by seventeenth-century vandals.

These fragments, which represent some scenes from the Birth of Our Lord, are very beautiful. Above them, fixed to the wall, are some admirable keystones of the vaulting, and two bas-reliefs with signs of the Zodiac, which still retain some of their original thirteenth-century colouring. Opposite the wooden nineteenth-century grille is a stone from the Church of S. Martin-le-Viandier, which was destroyed during the Revolution. Upon this stone are represented S. Eustace hunting, and on his knees before Christ, who appears to him between the horns of a stag; S. Martin giving his cloak to a poor man; the Virgin and Child between S. Louis and S. John.

Below is a fine early stoup from the Cathedral and, in the corner, the sarcophagus of S. Calétric (see p. 36). The date inscribed upon it has been changed to suit the date of the translation and festival of this saint, who was Bishop of Chartres, and died 557.

The next chapel on the left is that of S. Nicholas (recently restored by M. Durand). We have already spoken of it. Opposite it is the Chapel of S. Clement, where are some mural decorations of the twelfth century. The figures, beginning from the right, are recognisable as those of S. Nicholas, S. James, S. Giles, and of a King kneeling.

The wooden screen which here crosses the crypt was put up in 1687: behind it on the left is a thirteenth-century piscina, above which is a partly-obliterated twelfth-century fresco of the Nativity. Several windows are blocked by the Cathedral porch; and the lowest and narrowest of these is one of Fulbert’s original windows, which was not enlarged like the rest in the twelfth century, because it was blocked at that time by a porch erected in the eleventh century. At the end of the gallery is a large monolithic font, intended for complete baptismal immersion. It belongs to the eleventh century. The capitals of the four columns which flank it are curious and noteworthy.

The plinths and abaci of the last bay of this gallery betray the fact that it was added in the twelfth century, when the old south-western tower (Clocher Vieux), with which a flight of steps connects it, was built. The walls of this gallery, like that of the northern one, are decorated with modern mural paintings illustrative of events in the history of Chartres, or of the saints who have been connected with the diocese. They are already in a bad state, and even at their best they must always have displayed more science than art.

Turning now and retracing our steps we pass the staircase by which we descended and make our way round the horse-shoe curve of the apse. On our right we perceive the seven apsidal chapels, of which the first, third, fifth and seventh are the Chapels of S. Mary Magdalene, S. Ives (see pp. 91 ff.), S. Fulbert (see pp. 69 ff.), and the Sacristy. They were added in 1194; whilst the second, fourth and sixth are the Chapels of S. Anne, S. John the Baptist, and S. Joseph, and they date from 1020. The window of the Chapel of S. Anne should be noted. S. Anne is represented carrying the Blessed Mary. When we examine the upper church we shall be struck by the importance of the position allotted to S. Anne in glass and statuary—as, for instance, in the great window of the north transept. The explanation is that Louis, Count of Chartres, who died on the fourth Crusade, sent to the Chapter from Constantinople the head of that saint.

Opposite the Sacristy is the entrance to the Martyrium or Chapel of S. Lubin (see p. 36), which is immediately under the sanctuary. Of this chapel enough has been or will be said.[13] At this point it will suffice to call attention to the architectural features which serve to illustrate its history. First, the fact that you descend into it by a modern entrance, which has replaced the old staircase and doorway; and secondly, the depth of the base of the round column on the right, indicating the original level of the primitive church floor; thirdly, the hiding place for the treasure; next, the fourth-century wall, with its layers of thin horizontal Roman bricks; and lastly, the circular wall and the ninth and tenth-century piers. The Gallo-Roman wall on the west is probably a portion of the old enceinte of the town.

Going westwards on leaving the martyrium, we pass a staircase on our right and the Puits des Saints Forts on the left, behind the wall of the altar of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre. When this wall was built and the well concealed in the seventeenth century, the circular passage by which the chapel could be approached had also to be made, and the masonry was so treated as to suggest the natural rocks of the old Druidical ‘grotto.’

The chapel is at the end of the northern gallery (eleventh and twelfth century), which runs from the base of the Clocher Neuf. It is lit by two long rows of pendant lamps. Here, then, is that mysterious shrine which Boutrais has so well described. Here is that famous statue which for a thousand years has drawn countless myriads of pilgrims from all parts of the earth.[14] Kings and commons, rich and poor, scholars and Crusaders, sinners and saints unnumbered have knelt at this shrine since the day when Fulbert, having completed his crypt, left, it is said, the ‘Statue of the Druids’ in the same place as that in which the Gallic priests had held their assemblies in finibus Carnutum, on Carnutan territory. That statue was held in honour till the year 1793, when it was burnt by the Revolutionists before the Porche Royal. The present Madonna was made on the model of the old, and erected in 1857, after the crypt, which for sixty years had been used as a cooper’s warehouse, was restored to its sacred uses. On the north wall may be seen the traces of three twelfth-century windows, which were blocked when the north porch was built; on the south wall traces of twelfth-century frescoes. Other frescoes in the chapel are recent symbolic work by M. Paul Durand. The vaulting was painted in the seventeenth century.

Whether the statue which was destroyed in 1793 was older than the eleventh century is a doubtful point. Some suppose that the previous Druidical statue ‘Virgini Parituræ’ was burnt in the fire of 1020, and that Fulbert had a new one carved and set up then. Others, arguing from the colour of the wood, believe that it dated from the days of the Druids. For the face of the Madonna was ‘black, but comely,’[15] like that of the Vierge Noire, Notre-Dame-du-Pilier, in the Cathedral proper. But whether this blackness arose from the action of time upon the wood, or whether it was another instance of that tendency to represent Eastern types and colouring and design, which seems to me very noticeable in the glass and statuary of the Cathedral, cannot be definitely decided.

One other curious point remains to be noted. We are told that the eyes of the Child were open, but those of the Mother who held Him on her knees were shut. The Druids, it is said, intended by this device to signify that faith was still in darkness, and that she whom they worshipped was not yet born. But the eyes of the Child, whom she in the fulness of time should supernaturally conceive and bear, were open; for He was without beginning and without end, the Spectator of all time and all existence.