ABSTRACT
The surprise of Angers cathedral is its aisleless design; a single vessel of the same height and width extending from the west front to the apse. The nave of the 1025 cathedral was of the same width as the present nave, but in 1025 this gave on to a narrow crossing, in turn flanked by passages which provided access to the adjacent transepts. This plan type has a distinctive distribution pattern, being most commonly encountered in two broad bands stretching from the départements of the Morbihan to the Ain, and from Charente-Maritime to Quercy. Its success was doubtless due to the ease with which it could accommodate the building of a central crossing tower, and by the way in which it divided the interior of the church into two distinct spaces; the chevet the domain of the priests and the liturgy, the nave set aside for the laity and for preaching.
This regional prediliction for broad and relatively low naves, still notable c. 1100, was affected by the middle of the 12th century by a desire for fully-vaulted interiors, and the preferred method was to construct massive responds which project well beyond the wall plane, much in the manner of exterior buttressing (naves of the cathedrals at Angouleme and Angers, abbey of Fontevraud, Notre-Dame-de-Nantilly). The Gothic solution adopted at Angers Cathedral c. 1200, running an aisleless space at the same height from façade to apse, was followed in a number of smaller churches, such as the parish church at Fontevraud and Saint-Jean, Saumur. But the great Gothic choirs of Saint-Serge at Angers (c. 1210?) and Asnières (c. 1230?) are of no great height given their width and, perhaps as the result of financial constraint, perhaps out of fidelity to a traditional plan type, remained separated from their naves by a narrow crossing. The low springing point of their vaults also encouraged a proliferation of ribs, historiated bosses and junction-pieces, which contrast with the sobriety of the walls and tend to draw the eye upwards. The abbey of Toussaint at Angers, the last masterpiece of Angevin Gothic, is even more striking in the way in which a multiplicity of ribs is used to play down the bay rhythm within an aisleless format. The juxtaposition of plain walls and statues which are integral with the vault supports again assures the decorative pre-eminence of the vault, which significantly remains relatively low. The adoption of the aisleless nave imposed square or low sections on local ecclesiastical building, and in Anjou seems to have played a fundamental role in what might be termed ‘the resistance to Chartres’, the resistance to the aisled basilican elevation.
