The Parish Church of Saint-Gervais-Saint-Portais: Parisian Late Gothic in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries

Built between about 1494 and 1623, the parish church of Saint- Gervais-Saint-Protais is arguably one of the most important Late Gothic monuments to survive in Paris. It is one of the most coherent and best presented articulations of Parisian Flamboyant religious architecture due to the consistent vision of its patrons and its reprieve from extensive wartime damage and overzealous restoration. Located near the historic Place de Greve, the parish of Saint-Gervais stood at the commercial and administrative heart of the medieval city. In the sixteenth century, the parish was home to an increasing number of wealthy merchants as well as royal and municipal officers. It was this elite group of parishioners who initiated the rebuilding of Saint-Gervais and were responsible for the majority of its funding. A wealth of notarial documents including building contracts, testaments, deliberations and foundations allows a reconstruction of the social, religious, and economic values that conditioned the reconstruction of Saint-Gervais. Until recently, Late Gothic architecture has received only cursory study. Following the work of Stephen Murray, Linda Neagley, Roland Sanfacon and others, my dissertation participates in a larger reassessment of Flamboyant architecture. While some art and architectural historians had judged Late Gothic to be derivative and primarily a decorative phenomenon, this study illuminates the experimental nature of Late Gothic architecture in northern France: its historicist appreciation for its antecedents and its equal estimation of the novel. As a Gothic monument completed by a Classical facade, Saint-Gervais also raises important questions about contemporary attitudes toward architectural idioms, stylistic continuity, and self-definition. By examining the chronology of construction as well as the cultural and devotional history of the parish, the first two chapters locate the building in its physical and historical contexts. Chapter Three concerns Saint-Gervais' relationship to both contemporary Parisian and provincial workshops and demonstrates the impact that parish builders had as advisers and patrons. The fourth and final chapter interprets the patronage of the elite families of the parish--members of the royal and municipal administrations--and how their political and economic ambitions shaped this collective commission. At every level of the analysis, the complex negotiations between builders and patrons and their shifting conceptions of the building are revealed.