The misericords and history of the Basilique Saint-Denis.
St Denis has 12 misericords and one episcopal chair dating from the early 16th century.
Click to launch a description of the misericords of Saint Denis
History of the Basilica of Saint Denis
Although there has been a shrine at the site since the early 510’s AD, not much appears to be known of the structures preceding the current church. Dan Cruickshank may dispute this, but the majority opinion is that the Basilique Saint-Denis, founded in 1136, is the earliest example of a major structure to be built in the gothic style. The narthex of the Gothic church was begun in 1136 and finished in 1140. Immediately thereafter, the choir was started, and remarkably, after only four years was consecrated on 11th of June 1144. Now it may be a case of construct in haste, regret at leisure, or it may have been a mixture of size / new styles, but by 1231, much of the 12th century church was torn down and a replacement, in the Rayonnant Gothic style was built.
Traditionally, Saint Denis is the final resting place of the french kings (with the exception of only 3), however, it is not the place of their coronation - a strange type of sexism seems to have existed, where the kings were crowned at Reims, whilst a large number of the queens were crowned at St Denis.
The misericords, which date from between 1508 and 1517, seem to have been brought at a later date form La chapelle du chateau de Gaillon. The complete stalls are each “organic” masterpieces, If there’s a flat surface it is decorated with either relief carvings, paintings or marquetry, even the guide channels for the main seat show pictures. The misericords are of particularly fine quality carving - overall the misericords and stalls are breathtaking!
Subsequent to the French Revolution , the disfavour of the kings seems to have been echoed as a disfavour to Saint Denis - which is peculiar as St Denis is the patron saint of France -and in 1789 the bones of the royals were disinterred and re-buried in an unmarked, mass grave, the church was then closed, however, in 1806 Napoleon re-opened the church. Whilst Napoleon was in exile, the restored Bourbons made an attempt to “repatriate” the bones, but the majority were not identifiable, and therefore have been re-buried in the crypt in ossuary.
Saint Denis did not attain its cathedral status until 1966.
I would not be doing justice to Saint Denis if I did not mention the wealth of carvings and decoration that it contains, however, I do not wish to dilute this site with many of these items, so this daughter page contains a selection of other items.
There does not appear as of February 2009 to be an official website.
RSS feed for Automated updates of the regular upgrades to misericords.co.uk
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